How did we work out the age of the Earth? The age of the Earth has been calculated by looking at the oldest minerals here on Earth, rocks on the moon, and meteorite rocks. The Earth formed roughly 4.54 billion years ago. However, that is a date people have only known with certainty since 1953, […]
#1752 How did we work out the age of the Earth? Read More »
Why do deserts have fossils? Deserts seem to have a lot more fossils because the topsoil is stripped away and because they don’t have dense vegetation. Deserts also formed in places that were good for making fossils. Many places around the world have fossils, but it seems like most of them are found in deserts.
#1738 Why do deserts have fossils? Read More »
Why do mountains form in chains? Mountains form in chains because they are produced at the point where two tectonic plates meet, but there are different ways that tectonic plates can make mountains. Mountain chains are very long, often thousands of kilometers long, because the major tectonic plates are much larger than we probably imagine.
#1730 Why do mountains form in chains? Read More »
Why doesn’t the US control the Panama Canal anymore? The US doesn’t control the Panama Canal at the moment. It is owned and operated by the country of Panama. The US owned it until 1999. The Panama Canal is an 82 km long waterway that cuts through the narrowest part of Panama and connects the
#1721 Why doesn’t the US control the Panama Canal anymore? Read More »
What causes a drought? At its simplest, a drought happens when an area has less water than it normally needs, often because of a lack of precipitation. Some droughts are meteorological, meaning there is not enough rain. Some are agricultural, meaning the soil is too dry for crops. Some are hydrological, meaning rivers, lakes, reservoirs,
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Why do waterfalls move upstream? Waterfalls gradually move upstream because they erode the rock beneath them. You might think a waterfall will always stay where it is, but waterfalls can gradually move upstream, sometimes to the point where they disappear forever. Take Niagara Falls, for example. Niagara Falls is probably the most famous waterfall in
#1705 Why do waterfalls move upstream? Read More »
What is the watershed? A watershed is a turning point or a dividing point between two times or events, although the word originally comes from geography. In geography, a watershed is an area of land that drains water to a specific point. Another word for a watershed is a drainage basin. It is basically the
#1682 What is the watershed? Read More »
Why are some places windier than others? There are many reasons why some places might be windier than others. Some of those reasons are temperature differences, topography, the amount of surface friction, and wind funneling. Wind is caused when air moves from an area of high pressure to an area of low pressure. Air behaves
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Why does China only have one time zone? China only has one official time zone because that is what Chairman Mao decreed in 1949 to promote unity in the newly formed People’s Republic of China. The world is divided into time zones because of the speed at which the Earth rotates and the amount of
#1639 Why does China only have one time zone? Read More »
Do we still need weather balloons? Yes, weather balloons are still needed. Satellites can provide a lot of data, but they still cannot sample the atmosphere directly from inside it, and they are far more expensive. There are thousands of satellites in orbit around Earth at the moment, so it is easy to assume there
#1629 Do we still need weather balloons? Read More »
