221 Facts About Earth tells children about Earth’s beautiful resources, lives, waterfalls, Hills and many interesting and exciting facts.🌎📚
Mount Etna is the world’s one of the most active and iconic stratovolcanos. It is located on the central-northern side of Sicily, Italy and is 2,700 years old. This volcanic mountain spreads in an area of 1,190 km2. It looks like a gigantic cone in shape. It is a continuously erupting volcano with fairly frequent …
Caves of Aggtelek and Slovak are located on the north-eastern border of Hungary and the south-eastern border of Slovakia. They are about 2 million years old and spread in an area of 600 km2. These caves topographically comprise limestone plateaus dissected by deep river valleys. It is a rare combination of karst formation due to …
South China Karsts are unique landforms made up of limestone (chalk and calcium carbonate). These karsts are 270 million years old. They spread in about 550,000 km2 area. These rocks are carved naturally as needles. They have caves, underground streams and sinkholes on the surface; steep rocky cliffs that stand tall and emerge vertically. Geologically, …
Door to hell is a 69-metre wide and 39-metre deep burning natural gas field, which has been burning for 5 decades. It is located in Darvaza, desert of north Turkmenistan. This area housed a substantial oil field. A drilling rig was set up to store the gas. However, the ground beneath the drilling rig soon …
Ocean power is divided into three categories: tidal, wave and ocean thermal energy. Tidal energy is produced by the sudden powerful movement of ocean waters during the rise and fall of tides. Wave energy is generated by the kinetic energy possessed by the huge ocean waves. Ocean thermal energy is based on the difference in …
The word ‘Geo’ means Earth and ‘thermal’ means heat. Deep inside the Earth, the temperature is very high. Due to this high temperature, the rocks are in molten state. When water present under the ground comes in contact with these hot molten rock spots, it gets converted into steam. And hot springs are formed. This …
The word hydro means water and power means energy, hence hydropower is power generated by water. The main components of a hydropower plant are: water reservoir, turbine blades and generator. Water from height is made to fall through pipes on turbine blades. The blades then move and turn the generator. And the generator generates electricity. …
Biomass is biological or organic material. The common biomass materials are the remains of dead plants and animals, animal dung and kitchen waste. The biomass contains energy absorbed by the Sun which can be harnessed. The steps are: firstly, organic waste is collected in a biogas digester, where bacteria decompose the matter and produce biogas …
Moving wind has an enormous amount of energy in it. Energy produced by moving air can be used and converted into electricity. Wind mills or wind turbines are used for converted wind energy into electrical energy. These turbines are long tubular towers that have rotating blades at the top. The blades are turned when wind …
Renewable Energy Sources: Renewable energy is the energy that can be replenished. Some of the renewable energy sources are solar energy, wind energy, geothermal (Earth’s natural hot spots) energy and biomass energy. These resources can be utilised to generate electricity. The energy produced by these sources is also termed as non-conventional energy. These resources are …
Pollution means an undesirable change in the environment. The word pollution is derived from a Latin word pollure, meaning making unclean. There are two types of pollutants: natural pollutants (volcanic ash, forest fire) and man-made pollutants (trash or runoff produced by factories, automobiles, etc). Pollution is classified into: air, water and soil pollution.
Greenhouse effect is the naturally occurring heating of the Earth’s surface. The sun’s radiation enters the Earth’s surface; 1/4th is reflected by clouds and rest falls on the Earth. The surface re-emits the heat in form of infrared radiations. Some infrared radiations are absorbed by atmospheric gases or greenhouse gases (CO2, CH4 etc.). These gases …
Ozone is a gas present in the upper part of the stratosphere. The ozone layer is a belt of ozone gas, which absorbs about 98% of the devastating ultraviolet (UV) radiation. It absorbs these rays like a sponge. There exists a balance between conversion of oxygen to ozone and ozone to oxygen in the stratosphere. …
Environment is everything that surrounds a living organism and affects it during its lifetime. It is a sum of physical, biological and chemical factors present on the Earth. Environment can be classified into three broad types: biotic, abiotic and cultural. Biotic factors include biological components of the ecosystem, such as plants, animals, micro-organisms, etc. Abiotic …
Types of Soil: Soil is classified according to colour, size and texture of soil particles. There are mainly four types of soil:♦ Sandy soil has more sand and no humus.♦ Clayey soil is usually brown in colour. It has more clay than sand particles.♦ Loamy soil is a mixture of clayey soil, sandy soil and …
Soil: The uppermost thin layer covering the Earth’s surface is called soil. Soil is composed of rock particles, mineral fragments, remains of the dead, living things, water and air. The soil has five layers: humus, topsoil, subsoil, rock fragments and bedrock. There are four basic types of soil: sand, loamy, silt and clayey. Soil Profile: …
Petroleum: Petro means rock and oleum means oil. Thus petroleum means rock oil as it is obtained from the Earth (either ocean floor or continental crust). The natural unprocessed form of petroleum is called crude oil. Petroleum was formed from the dead remains of aquatic animals. The bodies of these animals got buried in the …
Fossil Fuels: Fossil fuels were formed hundreds of millions of years ago from minerals found in the remains of plants and animals. The process of fossil fuel formation is very slow. They are non-renewable (things that cannot be replaced when used) resources of the Earth. They are categorised into three main types: coal, oil and …
Dinosaurs: Dinosaurs mean ‘terrible lizards’. They were one of the most successful species ever to survive on the Earth. They were the well-known reptiles of the Mesozoic era. They ranged from being herbivores, carnivores to omnivores. They were different from early reptiles due to the following features: (1) Dinosaurs had their legs under their bodies. …
About 2.6 million years ago, a unit of time named the quaternary period (the current and most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic era) began. This period has been characterised by a long-term reduction in the temperature of the Earth’s surface or time of glaciation or ice age. During that period, the Earth …
Fossil plants are older than fossil animals. They are mostly found as trace fossils in sedimentary rocks of land or freshwater origin. The first plants were related to the blue green algae family and they are probably 2 billion years old. A plant and its parts cannot become a fossil until they are quickly buried …
Vertebrates, the animals with backbones, first appeared on the Earth during the Palaeozoic period. Agnathids were the oldest vertebrates which resembled fish. Rocks from late Palaeozoic period revealed 75 different species of amphibians. Most of the fossils resembled today’s salamanders. Body, cast and trace fossils of dinosaurs have been found during exploration. Fossils of the …
Invertebrates, the animals without backbones, first appeared on the Earth during the Cambrian period. The most common early animals were arthropods, the trilobites. They were soft-bodies animals living mostly in the sea. Another important fossils of invertebrates found during the Paleozoic time were molluscs, echinoderms, crinoids (sea lilies: cup-shaped body), starfish and corals. Fossils of …
The two main categories of fossils are: body fossils and trace fossils. Body fossils are the remains of bones, teeth, shells of an animal, or leaves of a plant. They are further divided into two categories: mould and cast fossil. Trace fossils are just the impressions of an animal or plant created when it was …
Fossils: Fossils are the evidence of ancient life. The word fossil is derived from a Latin word fossus, which means ‘having been dug up’. Fossils are the remains or traces of remains of the actual bodies of the organisms, such as bones, shells, feathers and leaves, which have been preserved from decay, and which appear …
Diamond is the hardest and purest natural substance known to man till date. Diamonds are made up of carbon. They were formed millions of years ago under the surface of the Earth (more than about 120 km below). Carbon present in the rocks inside the Earth underwent crushing pressure and intense heat. This extreme condition …
Gems are the most valuable, durable, beautiful, and rare crystals. There are about 80 known gems. They are divided into two categories: precious and semi-precious. Precious gems include: diamond, ruby, emerald and sapphire. Semi-precious gems include: opal, amethyst and topaz. Most of the gems are made up of combination of a substance called silicate. Diamond …
Gold, silver and platinum are precious metals. These metals have low density, higher conductivity, are non-magnetic in nature. They hold a high economic value. Gold is a soft and yellow-coloured metal. It is found in its natural form called ‘nuggets’. Silver, a white-coloured soft metal, occurs in combination with sulphur, copper, lead or arsenic. Platinum …
Ferrous minerals are iron-rich minerals. They are less stable and more prone to rapid decomposition than non-ferrous minerals because they are formed under high pressure and temperature. Ferrous minerals usually tend to become dark and heavy. Iron ore, manganese and chromites are the examples of ferrous minerals. India is fairly rich in the deposits of …
Metallic minerals contain metallic elements which can be melted to form new products. These minerals are obtained from mines in raw form, called ores (metal + impurities). To extract metals from these ores, they are physically and chemically processed. There are about 2800 known minerals on the Earth. Each one is a unique substance with …
Click one of our contacts below to chat on WhatsApp
