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Pitch Lake
The Pitch Lake is the largest natural deposit of asphalt in the world, estimated to contain 10 million tons. It is located in La Brea in southwest Trinidad, within the Siparia Regional Corporation. The lake covers about 100 acres (0.405 square kilometres) and is reported to be 250 feet (76.2 metres) deep. Pitch Lake is a popular tourist attraction, including a small museum, from where official tour guides can escort people across the lake. The lake is mined for asphalt by Lake Asphalt of Trinidad and Tobago. History The Pitch Lake has fascinated explorers and scientists, attracting tourists since its re-discovery by Sir Walter Raleigh in his expedition there in 1595. Raleigh himself found immediate use for the asphalt to caulk his ship. He referred to the pitch as "most excellent... It melteth not with the sun as the pitch of Norway". Raleigh was informed of the lake’s location by the native Amerindians, who had their own story about the origin of the lake. The story go ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Trinidad Pitch Lake ENG
Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands of Trinidad and Tobago. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is often referred to as the southernmost island in the West Indies. With an area of , it is also the fifth largest in the West Indies. Name The original name for the island in the Arawaks' language was which meant "Land of the Hummingbird". Christopher Columbus renamed it ('The Island of the Trinity'), fulfilling a vow he had made before setting out on his third voyage. This has since been shortened to ''Trinidad''. History Caribs and Arawaks lived in Trinidad long before Christopher Columbus encountered the islands on his third voyage on 31 July 1498. The island remained Spanish until 1797, but it was largely settled by French colonists from the French Caribbean, especially Martinique.Besson, Gerard (2000-08-27). "Land of Beginnings – A historical digest", ''Newsday Ne ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territories, nine Minor Outlying Islands, and 326 Indian reservations. The United States is also in free association with three Pacific Island sovereign states: the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau. It is the world's third-largest country by both land and total area. It shares land borders with Canada to its north and with Mexico to its south and has maritime borders with the Bahamas, Cuba, Russia, and other nations. With a population of over 333 million, it is the most populous country in the Americas and the third most populous in the world. The national capital of the United States is Washington, D.C. and its most populous city and principal financial center is New York City. Paleo-Americ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carpinteria, California
Carpinteria (; es, Carpintería, meaning "Carpentry") is a small seaside city in southeastern Santa Barbara County, California. Located on the Central Coast (California), Central Coast of California, it had a population of 13,264 at the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census. Carpinteria is a popular surf destination; the city embraced the slogan "World's Safest Beach" in 1912, which it still uses today. History Carpinteria was home to a Chumash people, Chumash village during pre-colonial times, which was known as Šujtu. In 1769, the Spanish Portolá expedition came west along the beach from the previous night's encampment at Rincon (surfspot), Rincon. The explorers found a large native village on the point of land where Carpinteria Pier is today. The party camped nearby on Timeline of the Portolá expedition, August 17. Fray Juan Crespí, a Franciscan missionary travelling with the expedition, noted that "Not far from the town we saw some springs of pitch. The Indians have ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carpinteria Tar Pits
The Carpinteria Tar Pits (also Carpinteria Oil Seeps) are a series of natural asphalt lakes situated in the southern part of Santa Barbara County in southern California, USA. The Carpinteria Tar Pits are a natural asphalt lake areas similar to Tierra de Brea Trinidad and Tobago, Lake Guanoco in Venezuela and the La Brea Tar Pits (Los Angeles) and McKittrick Tar Pits ( McKittrick) both also located in the US state of California. Geography The Carpinteria Tar Pits are located in the southeastern extremity of Santa Barbara County about southeast of Santa Barbara in the town of Carpinteria. The area is a designated park, the Tar Pits Park, and lies within the Carpinteria State Beach area in the southern part between the ''Santa Rosa'' and the ''San Miguel'' campsites. Most of the tar pits are located along a short stretch directly on the beach and generate from the underlying Carpinteria Offshore Oil Field. Geology The Carpinteria Tar Pits probably date from the Pleistoce ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
McKittrick, California
McKittrick is a unincorporated community in Kern County, California, United States. McKittrick is northwest of Taft, at an elevation of . The population was 115 at the 2010 census, down from 160 at the 2000 census.For statistical purposes, the United States Census Bureau has defined McKittrick as a census-designated place (CDP). Geography McKittrick is located at the junction of State Routes 33 and 58. According to the United States Census Bureau, the CDP has a total area of , all of it land. The town is in the center of a large oil-producing region in western Kern County. Along State Route 33 to the south of the town is the Midway-Sunset Oil Field, the second-largest oil field in the contiguous United States; within the town itself, as well as to the west is the McKittrick Field; to the northwest is the huge Cymric Field; and along Highway 33 beyond Cymric is the large South Belridge Oil Field, run by Aera Energy LLC. East of McKittrick is Occidental Petroleum's Elk Hi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
McKittrick Tar Pits
The McKittrick Tar Pits (also McKittrick Oil Seeps and McKittrick Brea Pits) are a series of natural asphalt lakes situated in the western part of Kern County in southern California. The pits are the most extensive asphalt lakes in the state. The McKittrick Tar Pits are one of the five natural asphalt lake areas in the world, the others being Tierra de Brea in Trinidad and Tobago, Lake Guanoco in Venezuela and the La Brea Tar Pits (Los Angeles) and Carpinteria Tar Pits (Carpinteria) both also located in the US state of California. Geography The McKittrick Tar Pits are located in the southern part of the San Joaquin Valley about west of Bakersfield and south of the town of McKittrick. Most of the tar pits are located along the southwestern part of the intersection of California State Route 58 and 33 and generate from the underlying McKittrick Oil Field. The pits stretch over a distance of about . Geology The asphalt lakes of the McKittrick area were probably created ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world's most populous megacities. Los Angeles is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Southern California. With a population of roughly 3.9 million residents within the city limits , Los Angeles is known for its Mediterranean climate, ethnic and cultural diversity, being the home of the Hollywood film industry, and its sprawling metropolitan area. The city of Los Angeles lies in a basin in Southern California adjacent to the Pacific Ocean in the west and extending through the Santa Monica Mountains and north into the San Fernando Valley, with the city bordering the San Gabriel Valley to it's east. It covers about , and is the county seat of Los Angeles County, which is the most populous county in the United States with an estim ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
La Brea Tar Pits
La Brea Tar Pits is an active paleontological research site in urban Los Angeles. Hancock Park was formed around a group of tar pits where natural asphalt (also called asphaltum, bitumen, or pitch; ''brea'' in Spanish) has seeped up from the ground for tens of thousands of years. Over many centuries, the bones of trapped animals have been preserved. The George C. Page Museum is dedicated to researching the tar pits and displaying specimens from the animals that died there. La Brea Tar Pits is a registered National Natural Landmark. Formation Tar pits are composed of heavy oil fractions called gilsonite, which seeps from the Earth as oil. Crude oil seeps up along the 6th Street Fault from the Salt Lake Oil Field, which underlies much of the Fairfax District north of Hancock Park. The oil reaches the surface and forms pools, becoming asphalt as the lighter fractions of the petroleum biodegrade or evaporate. The asphalt then normally hardens into stubby mounds. The pools and mou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tar Pit
Tar pits, sometimes referred to as asphalt pits, are large asphalt deposits. They form in the presence of oil, which is created when decayed organic matter is subjected to pressure underground. If this crude oil seeps upward via fractures, conduits, or porous sedimentary rock layers, it may pool up at the surface. The lighter components of the crude oil evaporate into the atmosphere, leaving behind a black, sticky asphalt. Tar pits are often excavated because they contain large fossil collections. Tar pits form above oil reserves, and these deposits are often found in anticlinal traps. In fact, about 80 percent of petroleum found on Earth has been found in anticlinal traps. Anticlines are folds in stratigraphic layers in which each half of the fold dips away from the crest. Such structures are usually developed above thrust faults or in tectonic regions where the land is bending and folding. If the structure above the concave-down fold (arch) is a non-porous rock or aquitard, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Extremophile
An extremophile (from Latin ' meaning "extreme" and Greek ' () meaning "love") is an organism that is able to live (or in some cases thrive) in extreme environments, i.e. environments that make survival challenging such as due to extreme temperature, radiation, salinity, or pH level. These organisms are ecologically dominant in the evolutionary history of the planet. Some spores and cocooned bacteria samples have been dormant for more than 40 million years, extremophiles have continued to thrive in the most extreme conditions, making them one of the most abundant lifeforms. Characteristics In the 1980s and 1990s, biologists found that microbial life has great flexibility for surviving in extreme environments—niches that are acidic, extraordinarily hot or within irregular air pressure for example—that would be completely inhospitable to complex organisms. Some scientists even concluded that life may have begun on Earth in hydrothermal vents far under the ocean's surfa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Caribbean Plate
The Caribbean Plate is a mostly oceanic tectonic plate underlying Central America and the Caribbean Sea off the north coast of South America. Roughly 3.2 million square kilometers (1.2 million square miles) in area, the Caribbean Plate borders the North American Plate, the South American Plate, the Nazca Plate and the Cocos Plate. These borders are regions of intense seismic activity, including frequent earthquakes, occasional tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions. Boundary types The northern boundary with the North American Plate is a transform or strike-slip boundary which runs from the border area of Belize, Guatemala (Motagua Fault), and Honduras in Central America, eastward through the Cayman trough along the Swan Islands Transform Fault before joining the southern boundary of the Gonâve Microplate. East of the Mid-Cayman Rise this continues as the Walton fault zone and the Enriquillo–Plantain Garden fault zone into eastern Hispaniola. From there it continues into Puerto ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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