DESERTS
- Largest desert in ANTARCTICA with an area
of 5.5 million square miles
- Desert covers one-third of the earth’s land
surface
- 120,000 sq. km of land turn to desert every
year due to climate change
- In 6 hours desert get more energy from the sun
than humans use in a year
- DEATH VALLEY is the hottest desert.
Temperature can reach 58.7 degrees Celsius
FORESTS
- Trees in forests communicate with each other
through a fungal network
- Not all rainforests are tropical. There are some
rainforests in the UK
- The largest UK forest is Galloway Forest, with
an area of 770 square km
- Almost half of all bluebells in the world are
found in the UK’s forests
- Forests are home to 80% of the world’s
terrestrial biodiversity
CAVES
- Stalactites are created by the continuous
dripping of mineral rich
- Stalagmites are created as water droplets fal to
the cave floor
- The longest cave system is Mammoth Cave,
Kentucky, USA at 651.8km
- The deepest known cave is Krubera Cave in
Georgia, at 2,197 m
- Altamira caves in Spain contain 20,000 year-
old prehistoric paintings
VOLCANOES
- Magma is liquid rock inside a volcano
- Lava is rock outside
- The largest volcano on earth is Mauna Loa on
Hawai’I, it’s 17,000 m tall
- There are approximately 1,900 volcanoes on
Earth. Most in the Ring of Fire
- When Krakatau erupted it released the energy
of 15,000 nuclear bombs
- Lava from a volcano can reach 1,250 degrees
Celsius
MOUNTAINS
- 30 of the world’s highest mountains are in
Himalayas
- The longest mountain range in the world in the
Andes in South America
- Any land mass 1,000 feet above the
surrounding area is a mountain
- There’s a mountain in Australia called Mount
Disappointment
- There are thought to be 100,000 uncharted
mountains under the sea
OCEANS
- 71 percent of the earth’s surface is covered by
ocean
- The Pacific is the largest ocean making up
over a third of the planet’s surface
- Second largest ocean is Atlantic-ocean (s-
shaped ocean)
- The mid-Atlantic Ridge beneath the Atlantic is
Earth’s longest mountain range
- The deepest part of the ocean is the Marianas
Trence at almost 11 km deep and is found at
the Pacific ocean
- The Arctic ocean around the North pole is the
smallest and shallowest ocean
FRESHWATER
- The Nile river is the longest , over 6,650km
long
- Second largest is the Amazon at 6,575 km, it is
the largest river by volume
- The Caspian sea is actually a lake. It’s the
world’s largest inland body of water
- The great lakes in North America hold 21% of
the world’s surface freshwater
- The CONGO is the deepest river in places it is
230m deep
EARTHQUAKES
- Earthquakes are vibration of Earth’s crust
caused by movement of its palce
- The magnitude of an earthquake is measured
on the richter scale from 0-10
- The world’s deadliest earthquake killed
830,000 people in China in 1556
- There are millions of minor earthquakes every
year
- In 2010, an earthquake in Chile moved the city
of Concepcion 3m to the west
COUNTRIES
- Russia is the largest country with an average
of 6.6 million square miles
- Istanbul is the only city in the world that is
spread across two continents
- Mongolia has the lowest population density
with 4 people per square mile
- South Sudan is the worlds youngest country. It
was founded in 2011.