Maps of Religion - a historical timeline

This is a neat site that provides animation to historical map series - as a timeline of rolling events.

This particle link is on the History of Religion - and the site creator's have a nice selection of other compilations.

Other compilations include the History of Democracy, various Gulf War scenarios and other animated timeline visualizations overlayed on geography .

Click thru and donate generously - good work.

Full Link: http://www.mapsofwar.com/images/Religion.swf

Website link: http://www.mapsofwar.com/

First Rule of City Planning - No Volcanoes

Another NASA Earth Observatory nomination for the cool Geo-Pic also follows a good rule of city planning - avoid volcanoes.

Click here to view full image (528 kb)

Cut & Paste Description:

" This astronaut photograph highlights Cerro (Spanish for “hill”) Culiacan, part of the 50,000 km2 Michoacán-Guanajuato volcanic field of west-central Mexico. The volcanic field contains over 1,400 known vents, with cinder cones, steep, cone-shaped hills, being the dominant landform.

Cerro Culiacan however, is a shield volcano, a more gently sloping mound formed by basaltic lavas. Cerro Culiacan most likely formed during the Pleistocene Epoch approximately 10,000 to 2 million years ago. Shield volcanoes in the Michoacán-Guanajuato field tend to have steeper slopes than similar volcanic structures elsewhere (namely Iceland; this is perhaps due to slightly thicker or higher-viscosity lavas), and the 1,100-meter high Cerro Culiacan is no exception.... "

Full article: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=18010

Un-cool Geo-Pic: Coal Sludge Impoundments, West Virginia

This geo-pic is decidedly "uncool". These are literally dammed reservoirs of goal sludge.
From NASA's Earth Observatory.

Click here to view full image (4793 kb)

Cut & Paste Description:

" Since the mid- to late 1990s, the number and size of coal mines known as mountaintop removal mines increased dramatically in parts of Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky. Mountaintop coal mining follows a general process of deforestation, mountaintop removal with explosives and earth-moving machinery, debris sorting to extract the coal, and rinsing the newly mined coal. "

" This final step creates sludge that contains coal dust and other sediment, and may contain heavy metals or chemicals that would impair water quality in streams and rivers if it were allowed to flow freely off the mine site. To keep any hazardous materials out of local water supplies, mine operators contain the coal sludge in nearby valleys, behind huge earthen dams known as valley fills. On March 18, 2006, GeoEye’s Ikonos satellite acquired this high-resolution satellite image of two sludge impoundments in Boone County, West Virginia. (The mine from which the material was taken does not appear in this image; it lies to the northeast.) .... "

" Although coal impoundments have a relatively low rate of failure, their extreme size—some hold more than a billion gallons of sludge—makes any breach potentially devastating. In 2000, Congress directed the National Research Council to undertake a review of mining and engineering techniques related to these structures and make recommendations for improvement after a sludge impoundment in Kentucky collapsed into an underground mine and poured 250 million gallons of sludge into rivers and streams. No human lives were lost, but the environmental damage was extreme; some streams were buried to a depth of five feet in sludge.
The Earth Observatory’s feature article Coal Controversy in Appalachia has additional information about the land surface impacts of mountaintop coal mining in West Virginia and neighboring states.... "


Full article: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=18008

Cool Geo-Pic: Burn Scar Near Fort Carson, Colorado

Another cool Geo-Pic from NASA's Earth Observatory.

Click here to view full image (990 kb)

Cut & Paste Description:

" A fast-moving brushfire raced across the Colorado landscape near Fort Carson in mid-April. The blaze forced evacuations in the area and took more than a week—which included a beneficial snow storm—to contain. The fire scorched more than 9,000 acres according to news reports, and a pilot lost his life while helping to fight the fire.... "

Full article: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=18007

Cool Geo-Pic: Tokyo at Night

Another cool Geo-Pic from NAS's Earth Observatory.

Click here to view full image (886 kb)

Cut & Paste Description:

" Images of city lights at night taken by astronauts are among the most interesting visual reminders of how humans have transformed Earth’s surface. This nighttime photograph of Tokyo, Japan, was taken by International Space Station astronaut Dan Tani on February 5, 2008. The heart of the city is brightest, with ribbons of lights radiating outward from the center along streets and railways. The regularly spaced bright spots along one of the ribbons heading almost due west out of the downtown area are probably train stations along a public transit route. The lights of Tokyo are a cooler blue-green color than many other world cities. The color results from the more widespread use of mercury vapor lighting as opposed to sodium vapor lighting, which produces an orange-yellow light.... "

Full article: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=18005

Cool Geo-Pic: The Nardo Ring

Another cool Geo-Pic from NASA's Earth Observatory.

Click here to view full image (329 kb)

Cut & Paste Description:

" You might associate southern Italy with sunny cloudless skies, Mediterranean waters, and sandy beaches, and certainly those things are on display in this image. But for anyone interesting in knowing just how fast a car can go, southern Italy might call to mind the Nardò Ring. The Nardò Ring is a circular track that is 12.5 kilometers (7.8 miles) in circumference, and steeply banked to minimize the amount of steering a driver has to do. For a car moving at 200 miles per hour (about 320 kilometers per hour), the track is like an infinitely long straight road, says Motor Trend. Car manufacturers and racers use the track to test a car’s top speed.... "

Full article: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=18000

Cool Geo-Pic: Gulf of St. Lawrence

Another Cool Geo-Pic from NASA's Earth Observatory.

Click here to view full image (5517 kb)

Cut & Paste Description:

" Winter had started to release its grip on the Gulf of St. Lawrence when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this photo-like image on April 7, 2008. Swirling clouds over chunky fields of sea ice ­provide a stark contrast to the deep black water of the gulf. The surrounding winter-brown landscape is still coated in white snow and ice except for southern Nova Scotia, which is starting to flush green with early spring foliage. The scene would have been much different, more uniformly white, if taken a month or two earlier. In the deep of winter, sea ice claims most of the gulf, while snow covers the land.... "

Fulll article: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=17996

Cool Geo-Pic: Lonar Crater, India

Another cool Geo-Pic from the NASA Earth Observatory:

Click here to view full image (3897 kb)

Cut & Paste Description:

"India’s Lonar Crater began causing confusion soon after it was identified in 1823 by a British officer named C.J.E. Alexander. Lonar Crater sits inside the Deccan Plateau—a massive plain of volcanic basalt rock leftover from eruptions some 65 million years ago. Its location in this basalt field suggested to some geologists that it was a volcanic crater. Today, however, Lonar Crater is understood to result from a meteorite impact that occurred between 35,000 and 50,000 years ago...."

Full article: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=17994

Cool Geo-Pic: Harrat Khaybar Volcanic Field

Another cool Geo-Pic from the NASA Earth Observatory.

Click here to view full image (367 kb)

A quick cut & paste description:

"The western half of the Arabian Peninsula contains not only large expanses of sand and gravel, but extensive lava fields known as haraat (harrat for a named field). One such field is the 14,000-square-kilometer Harrat Khaybar, located approximately 137 kilometers to the northeast of the city of Al Madinah (Medina). The volcanic field was formed by eruptions along a 100-kilometer, north-south vent system over the past 5 million years. The most recent recorded eruption took place between 600–700 AD...."

Full story at: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=17993

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