There are a lot of surprising things about geography, such tunnels that are deeper than mountains are tall and lakes that hold more water than whole continents. These 50 surprising facts about Earth indicate that the globe is a lot more interesting than we thought. It includes wild landscapes, changing borders, and hidden beauties. When you look closely at these details, you see a world that is much more colorful and bizarre than maps represent.
Landforms That Are Too Big to Measure
The Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean is 36,070 feet deep, which is deeper than Mount Everest is high above sea level. This makes it a dark hole where the pressure is over 1,000 times higher than it is at the surface. The tallest mountain on Earth is Mauna Kea in Hawaii. Its base is 33,500 feet below sea level. But just 13,803 feet of it can be seen above the sea. The Dead Sea is 1,410 feet below sea level and is located between Israel and Jordan. Swimmers float like corks in a bottle because the water is so salty.
The Bentley Subglacial Trench in Antarctica is a valley that is 3,918 feet deep and covered by miles of ice. You can’t see it from above, but it’s as deep as the Grand Canyon. In Russia, Lake Baikal is 5,387 feet deep and holds 20% of the world’s freshwater that isn’t frozen. When it gets cold, it freezes and makes ice roads that may be as thick as three feet. The Catatumbo lightning storms in Venezuela light up the sky over the river mouth 280 nights a year, shooting 1.5 million bolts of lightning into the air each year. People call this place the “Lightning Capital of the World.”
Moving Lands and Waters That Go Away
The Aral Sea in Central Asia used to be the fourth largest lake, but Soviet-era irrigation has caused it to lose 90% of its volume since the 1960s. This left ships stuck in a desert full of toxic salts. Indonesia loses 24 islands per year as the oceans rise. As the beaches migrate back, this will put 23 million lives in danger by 2050. A landslide in 1958 made the greatest tsunami ever hit Lituya Bay in Alaska. The wave went up the other beach 1,720 feet.
Baffin Island has the northernmost golf course in Canada. You can only play it during the brief summers in the Arctic, when the ground is frozen. Four states—Arizona, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico—meet in the Four Corners in the U.S. People flock here to take unique quadrant selfies. India and Bangladesh used to share 162 enclaves, which were like mazes of territory. One of these enclaves included an Indian village inside Bangladesh, which was inside India. Things got easier after a border shift in 2015.
Odd boundaries and political messes
Some homes in Baarle-Nassau/Baarle-Hertog are on the border between Belgium and the Netherlands. The lines run through the homes, so the doorsteps are in one country and the backyards are in the other. There is a “toilet border” between Italy and Switzerland that goes through a village and puts some amenities on the opposite side. In 2013, Japan’s Nishinoshima expanded from a small dot to a square mile island. Now, strange plants are flourishing on the new volcanic soil.
In 79 AD, Mount Vesuvius buried Pompeii in 20 feet of ash, which preserved Roman life in plaster casts of their last poses. Kilauea in Hawaii has added 500 acres of land since 1983 thanks to lava flows that never stop. In 1963, underwater volcanoes gave rise to Surtsey Island, which located off the coast of Iceland. It is currently a UNESCO World Heritage Site where you may learn about pioneer ecosystems.
Weird stuff in the desert and ice world
Antarctica is the driest continent since it only gets eight inches of rain a year. It also has 70% of the world’s freshwater in ice. The Namib Desert in Namibia has been active for 55 million years and contains “fairy circles,” which are strange naked rings in grasslands that scientists don’t know how they arose. The Atacama Desert in Chile gets only 0.03 inches of rain a year in some locations, and the ground is permanently dry.
The Gobi Desert in Mongolia is 500,000 square miles big and has both dunes and cool steppes. Singapore is home to 5.9 million people and is the busiest port in the world. It covers 280 square miles. Since 1950, Detroit’s population has decreased by 60%, leaving behind empty lots in the middle of efforts to bring the city back to life. Vatican City is the smallest autonomous country in the world, but it has a big effect on the world.
Deep and quickly moving ocean waters
The Pacific Ocean makes up 46% of all the water on Earth. It covers the Mariana Trench and more than 100,000 seamounts that are not known. The Gulf Stream transports warm water that is equal to 100 Amazon Rivers. This warms Western Europe, which is in a cold part of the world. The Great Barrier Reef in Australia is 133,000 square miles long. It is the largest living thing that can be observed from space.
Mid-ocean ridges go around the Earth for 40,000 miles, which is longer than 1.5 times the distance around the Earth. Every day, they make fresh seabed. The Andes are the biggest mountain range on land that is not under water. It is 4,300 miles long. No one has ever ascended Gangkhar Puensum in Bhutan, which is 24,836 feet tall, since it is sacred. The Rainbow Mountains in China look like a natural palette because of the shiny mineral streaks on them.
Hidden Flows and River Reversals
In five million years, the Southern Alps in New Zealand rose 12,000 feet, which is one of the fastest rates ever recorded. Hurricane Isaac’s storm surge pressure in 2012 made the Mississippi River in Louisiana flow the other way. The Rio Negro in Mexico is the biggest river that is underwater. It goes underground at a depth of 1,100 feet.
The Xanthi River in Turkey sometimes flows backwards because to siphoning. When there are strange floods, Australia’s Channel Country becomes an inland sea that is bigger than Texas. The North Pole is 14,000 feet above the ocean floor and 13,000 feet below the surface of the water. Every ten years, it gets 13% smaller. Greenland’s ice sheet breaks off Delaware-sized icebergs from ice that is two miles thick.
Isolated Polar and Island
Norway’s Svalbard needs buried three feet deeper to keep the permafrost from freezing. Emperor penguins from Antarctica walk 75 miles over sea ice in winds of -60°F to reach to open water. Madagascar has been cut off from the rest of the globe for 88 million years and is home to 90% of the world’s lemurs. The Galápagos finches, which modified their beaks, gave Darwin his theories about evolution.
For 20 million years, the dragon’s blood trees in Yemen’s Socotra Archipelago have been changing in a way that is unique to them. There are only 50 people residing on the Pitcairn Islands, which is the smallest government in the South Pacific. The Postojna Cave in Slovenia is 15 miles long and has been home to blind olm salamanders for hundreds of years. There is enough room in the Son Doong Cave in Vietnam for a 40-story building with its own clouds and rainforest.
Things that happen on and below tectonic plates that are amazing
In Mexico’s Naica Cave, big crystals grow in boiling brine. Since 1900, the San Andreas Fault in California has triggered 150 earthquakes that were 5.5 or higher on the Richter scale. The Alpine Fault in New Zealand will eventually have an 8.0 quake since it slides every 300 years. The Mid-Atlantic Ridge runs through Iceland and separates it. Every year, the plates move apart by one inch.
Every year, the Dead Sea Transform moves the Arabian Plate away from Africa by 0.4 inches. The Caspian Sea in Russia rises and falls by 20 feet every ten years, making it the saltiest lake that isn’t really salt. The highest lake that boats can reach is Lake Titicaca in Peru. It is 12,500 feet high and features Uros islands made of reeds. Every season, meltwater moves the Great Bear Lake in Canada 10 feet.
Stories about canyon depths and erosion
The salinity of Lake Assal in Africa is 34%, which is about the same as the buoyancy of the Dead Sea. The Grand Canyon in Arizona is a mile deep, 277 miles long, and up to 18 miles wide. Condors may fly 13,000 feet over Peru’s Colca Canyon. Over 350 million years, the Bungle Bungles of Australia were worn down.
The Gandikota in India is like a tiny Grand Canyon that passes through the Deccan Plateau. The Panama Isthmus blocked ocean currents three million years ago, which began the Ice Ages. The Florida Peninsula juts out 447 miles into the Gulf-Atlantic fork. The Tibet Plateau, which is 16,000 feet high on average, is where Asia’s biggest rivers come from. It is also called the “Roof of the World.”
Rift Valleys and Coral Rings
The Colorado Plateau has granite layers that are two billion years old. They were pushed up 10,000 feet. In the Simien Mountains of Ethiopia, gelada baboons dwell in groups. The Afar Depression is 512 feet below sea level, while the Great Rift in East Africa is 4,000 miles long. People made tools in Olduvai Gorge 1.8 million years ago.
In the Danakil Depression, where camel caravans go through, there are neon acid ponds. Lake Malawi is the ninth-deepest lake in the world and fills a rift. There are vast lagoons that are underwater in the Maldives. After nuclear tests, Bikini Atoll is doing well and has vibrant reefs. The Tuamotu chain, which is 800 miles long, is the largest coral formation.
Deltas, glaciers, and fjords
The lagoon on Rangiroa Atoll is bigger than the city of Paris. The Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta is the largest delta on the planet, covering an area of 41,000 square miles. The Nile Delta used to support ancient Egypt, but it is currently getting too saline. Every year, the Mississippi Delta grows 300 feet into the Gulf. In the spring and summer, the Okavango Delta gets bigger, reaching 11,600 square miles.
The Jakobshavn Glacier in Greenland travels at speeds of up to 80 miles per hour and loses 35 billion tons of ice every year. Every four years, the Perito Moreno Glacier in Argentina breaches through dams in a very impressive way. The Hubbard Glacier in Alaska is 76 miles long and 1,200 feet deep. The Sognefjord in Norway is the world’s deepest fjord, reaching a depth of 4,291 feet.
Eroded Peaks and Hot Springs
The Himalayas lose eight inches of ice every year, which is enough to support 1.9 billion people. The Bears Ears buttes in Utah safeguard Native American holy sites. The “Wonderland of Rocks” is in the Chiricahua Mountains in Arizona. The cliffs of Mesa Verde kept the Pueblos safe from the past. There are 500 geysers in Yellowstone, and Steamboat erupts 300 feet high.
Every ten minutes, Strokkur in Iceland erupts. Acid makes Wai-O-Tapu in New Zealand glow green. Kamchatka has more than 1,000 geothermal sites. In 2010, a sinkhole in Guatemala swallowed a factory. The Xiaozhai Tiankeng in China is 2,100 feet deep. Every year, a sinkhole occurs in Florida when limestone breaks down.
The Monsoon’s Peaks and the Equator’s Twists
The Mayans in Mexico used cenotes as doorways. The Aravallis only have one mountain, which is Mount Abu in India. The Mayon volcano in the Philippines features a perfect cone shape. Merapi is the most active volcano in Indonesia. The tallest mountain in Japan, Mount Fuji, is always blanketed in snow. The equator runs right across Mitad del Mundo in Ecuador.
Kenya has Coriolis “hill” illusions. There are always equatorial streams in Singapore. The rainforests in the Congo Basin are 70 million years old, making them the second oldest rainforests in the world behind the Amazon. Siberia’s permafrost is 4,000 feet thick and covers less than nine million square miles. Pingos are mounds of ice that rise in Canada.
Wetlands, tundra, and chains
The ground is melting, which makes Alaska’s “drunken forests” lean. The Everglades are like a “River of Grass” that is only a few inches deep and goes on for more than 100 miles. The Pantanal is the largest wetland that gets flooded. The bayous of Louisiana are where the Cajun culture comes from. among Bangladesh, the Sundarbans tigers reside among mangroves. Indonesia claims to own more islands than any other country, with 17,508.
There are 7,641 islands in the Philippines that have volcanoes on them. There are 6,000 historic coasts in Greece. Japan has 14,125 tectonic births in all. Death Valley’s Badwater Basin is the lowest point on land, at -282 feet. Egypt’s Qattara might create power by leveraging the wind to turn water into steam. China’s Tarim holds onto water that doesn’t flow out.
Sands, rivers, and more
After the nuclear tests, Lop Nur got smaller. Namibia’s Dune 45 is 1,100 feet high. The Erg Chebbi in Morocco sparkles like gold. The Simpson Dunes in Australia look like stars. The Valle de la Luna in Chile looks like Mars. After the cleanup, salmon returned to the Thames Estuary. The Amazon River’s mouth is 5,200 miles wide.
The Severn Bore has the longest waves in the UK. The tides in the Bay of Fundy go up to 43 feet. In England, the Seven Sisters wear away chalk piles. The Cuillin mountains in Scotland go very high up into the sky. Hawaii has cinder cones all throughout its terrain. Reynisfjara in Iceland is made primarily of basalt columns. Cornwall links Celtic lands. The Kras River in Slovenia is only 90 feet long, making it the shortest river in the world.
The Last Revelations from the Plan of the Earth
As the tides rise, silt builds up in the Venice Lagoon. New Caledonia safeguards lagoons that are part of UNESCO. Half domes were blocked by Yosemite’s moraines. The Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia is 4,000 square kilometers of water. The Himalayas rise 0.25 inches every year because of plate crashes. The continental divisions of the U.S. split into three parts.
