How long has the Sahara been a desert? Possibly for 4.6 million years, but maybe as long as 7 million years., The Sahara goes through a 41,000-year cycle. The Sahara Desert is the largest hot desert on Earth. The largest deserts are actually the Antarctic and the Arctic deserts. The Sahara is 9.2 million square […]
#318 How long has the Sahara been a desert? Read More »
Where did the names of the continents come from? Generally, from Greek and Latin. There are seven continents and one continent that is almost completely underwater. In order of size, the continents are Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe, and Australia. The submerged eighth continent is Zealandia. The only part of Zealandia that
#313 Where did the names of the continents come from? Read More »
I learned this today. Why are some places more humid than others? It is because they are closer to a large, warm body of water, which causes warm winds and warm air can carry more water vapor than cold air. What is humidity? Humidity is the concentration of water vapor in the air. The air
#283 Why are some places more humid than others? Read More »
I learned this today. The Richter scale is a way of measuring the strength of an earthquake by looking at the height of its seismic wave. The Richter scale was developed in 1935 by Charles Francis Richter. He was an American physicist who was very interested in seismology. He came up with his system because
#256 What is the Richter scale? Read More »
I learned this today. The Sahara Desert has grown so big because the precession of the Earth’s axis as it rotates around the sun changes the location of the African monsoon. The Sahara Desert is 9.2 million square kilometers, which makes it bigger than every country except for Russia, Canada, China and the USA. The
#229 How did the Sahara Desert get so big? Read More »
I learned this today. The 1815 Mt. Tambora eruption lowered global temperatures and caused the Year Without a Summer. Mt. Tambora is a volcano on the island of Sumbawa, which is in Indonesia these days. At the time of the eruption, the islands were controlled by the Dutch. The eruption reshaped the island and decimated
#199 What effect did the 1815 Mt. Tambora eruption have? Read More »
I learned this today. New Delhi became the capital of India in 1911 because the previous capital Kolkata had become too politically unstable, and it was too far from the center of India to be an effective capital. India has an extremely long history and people first lived there 55,000 years ago. Over the millennia,
#174 How did New Delhi become the capital of India? Read More »
I learned this today. Antarctica is a polar desert because it has less than 250mm a year of precipitation, which is the set amount to be classified as a desert. However, it is classified as an ice cap climate because it isn’t hot enough to be called a desert. Deserts can be classified using the
#167 Is Antarctica a desert? Read More »
I learned this today. The different rocks of Stonehenge came from three different places. Stonehenge was probably built between 3000 and 2000 BC. Originally, it was constructed with wood. Wooden posts dating from 8000 BC have been found there, suggesting that it has been a place of significance for a long time. The first Stonehenge
#141 Where did the stones of Stonehenge come from? Read More »
I learned this today. Tectonic plates move because the weight of their cold dense side pulls them into the mantle of the Earth. This is called slab pull. Hot things rise and cold things sink. This occurs because hot things have more energy than cold things, so the atoms move more and spread out. This
#74 Why do tectonic plates move? Read More »
