The Earth Story

Ancient Architecture: Termite Mound Scientists have found an abandoned termite mound in central Africa that is approximately 2200 years old; that’s older than the Coliseum in Rome. The structure is over 6 meters tall and has probably been abandoned for decades, making it all the more impressive that it has survived.

Of naked men and monkeys

These flowers are orchids, the first native to southern Europe around the Mediterranean, western Asia as far as Pakistan and north Africa, while the second has a slightly wider range that also takes in some of northern Europe. The first, Orchis italica is also known as the naked hanging man orchid, while the second (Orchis simia) is a monkey orchid.

Loz

Image credit: Drow_male and BerndH

Original caption:

"Serengeti National Park is one of the most famous wildlife areas in Africa and is synonymous with wildlife and classic African scenery. Established in 1951, the Serengeti is Tanzania’s oldest park and a Unesco World Heritage Site. It is home to the spectacular wildebeest and zebra migration and offers some of the best wildlife viewings in Africa."

Gondwana Cratons A Craton is an ancient piece of earth’s continental crust, one that has been stable for billions of years. The Earth naturally contains elements that give off heat, such as radioactive potassium, thorium, and uranium. When the mantle melts, those elements move into the melt, extracting them from the mantle and moving them upward. Once those elements are concentrated in the crust, the heat can rapidly escape out into space. Once that heat is removed, the crust can become cold and stable, hard to deform.

Of dams and mitigated results When the Aswan high dam was completed in 1970 it was seen as a triumph of socialist modernism and archaeological rescue, since it involved the dismantling and recreation off the giant statues of Abu Simbel, whose original site was drowned. Intended to provide electricity and irrigation water in order to turn the desert green, and also (successfully) tame the annual Nile flood that has been at the centre of Egyptian life since the dawn of its Civilisation (and too which the culture was adapted), it has also had unexpected consequences that could be devastating to the long term future of the country.

A hike to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro. The drone views of the volcanic terrain warmed my heart :)

Etosha Pan In the Northern plains of Namibia lies the skeleton of a great lake that died of thirst millions of years ago.

Hidden in the deep. Deep beneath Africa and the Pacific Ocean sits…something intriguing. We’ve never sampled it directly as far as we know, but seismic techniques show that there’s something odd in the mantle at these sites. Something that may well have shaped the development of our planet as we know it today.

The Ruwenzori Here are veiled wonders: East Africa’s Ruwenzori, also called the Mountains of the Moon. They hide their summit splendours behind an almost permanent mantle of cloud and it is only when veering winds tear back the curtain of mist that their snow-capped grandeur is revealed.

The large dust plume leaving the Sahara earlier this week as seen by NOAA's GOES-East weather satellite. More about these dust plumes and how they supply nutrients to areas in the Amazon basin and elsewhere in my recent post here: https://tmblr.co/Zyv2JsYXXjWrim01

African Dust and the Amazon Jungle This photo taken by NASA’s Suomi-NPP orbiting satellite shows a large plume of dust leaving the coast of Africa this week. This dust plume is being blown west out over the Atlantic, and will eventually reach the coast of North America. Plumes of dust like this one play an important role in the ecosystems of the western hemisphere. 

Surfer contrasts the waves of the ocean with the stark desert landscape of Namibia

Suchomimus Scientific Name: Suchomimus tenerensis Dimensions: 11 m long (subadult) Lived: 110-100 mya, in the Cretaceous period Geographical Range: Niger, Africa Liked: Fishing Disliked: Ocean pollution Taxonomy: Animalia>Cordata>Dinosauria>Saurischia>Theropoda>Spinosauridae>Baryonychinae>Suchomimus tenerensis Suchomimus tenerensis was a smaller cousin of Spinosaurus that lived in what is now Niger, in the African continent, 110 to 100 million years ago during the Cretaceous period. Its name means “crocodile mimic”, and it was given to it by a group of scientists led by Paul Sereno in 1998. Tenerensis came from the Tenere desert in Niger where the specimen was found.