The Earth Story

Sea of clouds beneath HuangShan Mount Huang or Huangshan is an 1800 meter peak found in China’s Anhui province, west of Shanghai and south of the ChangJiang (Yangtze River). It has been called the “Loveliest mountain in China” according to the United Nations and it is considered a UNESCO World Heritage site. The surrounding area contains 77 distinct peaks that have elevations over 1000 meters.

Check out this beautiful little Flourite cube

Aerial trip up to Lake Tianchi, which is the highest altitude volcanic lake in the world. This flooded caldera straddles the border between China and North Korea.  The caldera is thought to have formed in a large volcanic eruption in the year 946 AD, one of the largest volcanic events of the holocene.

Life in a sinkhole The karst landscapes of China have been an essential part of their figurative art and painting since time immemorial, capturing the imagination and providing a sense of wonder at nature. The sinkholes here form when underground rivers carve out underground channels by chemical erosion whose roofs later collapse when they weaken. These windows allow sunlight to pour within, and extensive and unique ecosystems to develop underground. Loz Image credit: Song Wen/Barcroft Media http://on.wsj.com/1SdIVxD

How do we see if the pieces fit? This is a core of sediment taken from the northeastern portion of Australia’s Northern Territory. This area is filled with sedimentary rocks that formed in the latter half of the Precambrian, starting sometime around 1.5 billion years ago. At the time, this section of the planet was a deep basin that was slowly filling with sediments, something like the Gulf of Mexico today.

This is an awesome, drone-filled voyage across the deserts of Haixi province in China - near the border with Mongolia, and just east of the Taklamakan desert.

The ‘eight thousanders’ In mountaineering terminology the expression ‘eight thousanders’ is used to denote the 14 highest mountains in the world, all of them rising at least 8,000 metres above sea level (26,247feet). They form the roof of the world and are all situated in Asia, in the Himalaya and Karakorum ranges.

Hold on ‘tite’ to that Tektite Tektites are small glassy objects which, unlike meteorites, are found only in certain, rather limited areas of the Earth’s surface. They are named according to the area in which they are found and the principle types are: australites from the southern part of Australia, Tasmania and coastal islands; philippinites from the Philippine Islands and southern China; javaites from Java; malaysianites from Malaysia; indochinites from Thailand and Indochina; Ivory Coast tektites from the Ivory Coast, West Africa; bediasites from Texas, USA; Georgia tektites from Georgia, USA; and moldavites from the Czech Republic. It is estimated that something like 650,000 tektites have currently been collected, of which the philippinites account for some 500,000.

Songshan These incredible rocks make up what is known as Shuce Cliff, one small part of the Songshan or Mount Song complex in northern China. Found in China’s Henan Province, Songshan is a geological complex consisting of 5 summits and ridges, the highest of which reaches 1512 meters above sea level. The area is also filled with religious significance, including the presence of Taoist temples and the Buddhist Shaolin Temple where Zen Buddhism is believed to have been founded. The area is also a UNESCO global Geopark, recognizing its geological and historical contributions to the world.

Danxia Mountain Range -- Nature's rainbow rocks Even if you’ve never heard of the Danxia Mountain Range in China, you’ve probably seen pictures of it — the Danxia Range looks like a rainbow-colored layer cake stretched across a wide undulating landscape. Named after the Danxia Mountain, the tallest peak in the range, the formation’s corrugated and layered landscape is the result of a complex combination of tectonic upheaval and climatic weathering and erosion. The sheer cliff faces and rounded tops of the Danxia Mountain are distinctively characteristic of long-term weathering and erosion by wind and water. The Chinese characters in the name “Danxia” means “red”, named after the rusty crimson color that constitutes the majority of the sandstone beds in the formation. The mountain range is an extremely popular geopark, and is also a UNESCO heritage site that is home to various temples and statues, as well as a variety of rare orchids that thrives in the region’s lush subtropical climate.

A mini estuary Today, the boundary between rivers and the ocean is shaped by events that happened about 10,000 years ago. Before that time, large ice caps covered portions of North America, Europe, and Asia, locking up water on the land and dropping ocean levels by more than 100 meters. Rivers still flowed to the ocean, but they flowed across the land that was exposed when the oceans dropped. The rivers eroded some of this land, creating canyons, valleys, and floodplains surrounded by levees.