10 Weird Geographical Facts About Earth

[Ayisha]

Geography rocks! Remember Ross’s favorite subject from the series Friends? Keeping the vibe alive, we have brought here 10 weird geographical facts about Earth that most people don’t know. Geologists have spent decades decoding various geological secrets kept hidden by our home planet. Time and again they have made some new discoveries that had helped us understand how Earth evolved throughout its timeline. So, let’s find out how mysterious and amazing the planet we live in is.



1. The phosphor that keeps Amazon forest fertile comes from the Sahara desert. The phosphor traveled across the Atlantic ocean and a great part of the South American continent to keep the forest alive.



Located in northeast South America, the Amazon rainforest is the world’s largest tropical rainforest. It is well known for its diverse flora and fauna. But, Amazon soil is actually not as nutrient-rich as one might think. To make the soil nutrient-rich, nature sourced the nutrients from one of the most desolate places in the world, the Bodélé Depression located in the African basin.

The Bodélé Depression in Chad was once the site of a massive lake. The now-dried lake bed contains rocks composed of dead microorganisms that are loaded with phosphorus and other minerals. Nature transports these rich nutrients from the Sahara to the Amazon in the form of dust. Every year, about 22,000 tons of Saharan dust completes a trans-continental journey to reach the Amazon Forest. The dust is rich in essential plant nutrients such as iron and phosphorus.

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2. Mountains have roots that go deep into the mantle. Scientists noticed this when they were measuring gravity and it wasn’t what they predicted.



Mountains are formed when tectonic plates collide with each other. The collision forces rocks and soil upwards creating a mountain. The huge landmass of mountain exerts a downward force too, pushing the Earth’s crust into the mantle forming “roots.” Roots of high mountains such as the Himalayas can be very deep. Geologists have discovered that when the Himalayas were formed, the larger Asian Plate forced the Indian Plate deep into the mantle. The Indian Plate sunk at least 250 kilometers down under the surface due to the impact.

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3. A reservoir of water three times the volume of all the oceans exists deep beneath the Earth’s surface.



The first evidence of the presence of water in Earth’s mantle was discovered from a piece of the mineral called “ringwoodite.” The mineral was discovered inside a diamond brought up from the depth of 400 miles by a volcano in Brazil. The little piece of ringwoodite contained a surprising amount of water. The water in it was neither liquid,  ice, nor vapor. It was in the fourth form, i.e. water trapped inside the molecular structure of the minerals in the mantle rock.

After the discovery of water trapped in ringwoodite, the search for water inside the mantel began. The study was led by a Northwestern University professor, Steven Jacobsen. Along with the University of New Mexico seismologist Brandon Schmandt, Jacobsen had found deep pockets of magma located beneath North America at the depth of about 400 miles. This is a likely indicator of the presence of water at these depths.

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4. The Earth’s inner core is actually solid iron-nickel, not liquid.



The temperature of Earth’s core is about 10,800 F which is higher than the surface temperature of the Sun. Also, the pressure at the core is 3.5 million times higher than the pressure on the surface of Earth. For years, these two factors presented a dilemma of whether the Earth’s core is solid or liquid under such extreme conditions. Finally, a new study from KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden has settled the debate. The verdict: Earth has a solid, crystallized iron core.

At the atomic level, the crystal structure of iron changes depending on the temperature and pressure. At room temperatures and normal atmospheric pressure, iron is present in a BCC (body-centered cubic) phase. Earlier, it was thought that the temperature and pressure at the Earth’s core would render the BCC phase unstable. But studies at KTH concludes that BCC iron can remain stable despite the high temperature and pressure of the Earth’s core.

[Ayisha]

5. Antarctica used to be a lush forest before eventually turning into an icy desert.



Miles and miles of a thick sheet of ice, chilly winds that can freeze the blood in our veins, and where refrigerators are used to keep food warm—that’s Antarctica, the white continent. Knowing the present state of this continent, it’s hard to imagine that at one time Antarctica was covered with tropical forests. But a single marine sediment core taken from the seafloor off Wilkes Land in east Antarctica revealed the slow transition of Antarctica from a tropical paradise to an icy wasteland.

The core was taken as part of the Integrated Ocean Drilling Programme. Pollen grains found inside showed that between 53.8 and 47.9 million years ago, Antarctica had a warm subtropical climate with temperatures at around 16° C. The beginning of the end of this tropical environment started 23 million years ago. During this time, the temperature dropped to 6° C. Then, around 12.5 million years ago, the greenery started to end. Slowly, the glaciers took over, and the inception of the “white desert” began. (

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6. The Pacific ocean is slightly less salty than the Atlantic.



About 70% of Earth’s surface is covered in oceans. Also, 97% of all water on Earth is saline. The salt in the ocean comes from rocks and minerals from the land. When rain falls on land, minerals dissolve in water making the water saline. Then, it is carried by streams and rivers before ending up in the oceans. Hydrothermal vents located on the oceanic ridges also contribute to the salinity.

But not all ocean have the same level of salinity. Researchers have found that the surface waters of the Atlantic Ocean are saltier than the surface waters of the Pacific Ocean. The trade winds carry water vapor from the North Atlantic and fall as excess rainfall in the Pacific Ocean’s western tropical regions. This makes the North Atlantic salty while the Pacific Ocean gets freshwater. The freshwater from the South Atlantic subtropics is carried as water vapor by the Antarctic Circumpolar current into the Indian Ocean and ultimately to the Pacific Ocean. The water vapor carried away from both the North Atlantic and South Atlantic Ocean makes the total Atlantic Ocean salty and the Pacific Ocean fresher.

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7. The African continent is being split into two due to the birth of a new ocean. In 2005, an eight-meter-wide and 60-km-long stretch of the Earth opened up over a period of just ten days.



According to scientists at the Royal Society, in about 10 million years, the African continent will be split in two. The event began in 2005 when in just eight days a 60-km-long stretch of Earth opened up to a width of eight meters. The split is being caused by hot, molten rock which is emerging from deep within the Earth and trickling to the surface. This will slowly lead to the formation of a new ocean.

Scientists working in the remote Afar Region of Ethiopia had revealed that eventually parts of southern Ethiopia and Somalia will drift off. The sea will flood in and the birth of a new ocean will begin. This will leave a relatively smaller Africa and a new big island would emerge that will migrate out into the Indian Ocean.

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8. A wobble of Earth’s axis transformed the Sahara from grassland to desert about 6,000 years ago.



It is a common perception that farming or overgrazing causes the formation of a desert. But, the formation of the Sahara Desert cannot be blamed on humans. It is rather due to Earth’s own activity. The change took place over a period of 400 years. About 9,000 years ago, Earth underwent one of its periodic change in orientation. It finished about 6,000 years ago. During this period, the tilt of Earth’s axis lessened from 24.14º off vertical to its present 23.45º.

Before the change, the Northern Hemisphere received more summer sunlight which resulted in more summer monsoons. In those times, the Sahara was a lush green grassland with thriving flora and fauna. But, after the change, the African monsoon started to lessen and plants began dying. This continued until the rivers and streams dried up and the Sahara changed completely into a dessert. According to Professor Claussen of Potsdam Institute for Climate Change, the change in the Earth’s orbit and tilt will occur again in the future.

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9. There is a giant trench deeper than the Grand Canyon under the Antarctic ice.



An ancient, massive, subglacial trench lays hidden beneath the ice in Antarctica. The discovery was made by a team of UK experts in 2014. They used data from satellites and ice-penetrating radar and mapped the Ellsworth Subglacial Highlands in West Antarctica. The investigation uncovered a massive, three-kilometer-deep subglacial valley that is more than 300 kilometers long and up to 25 kilometers across. At some places, the floor of this valley is more than 2,000 meters below sea level.

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10. Volcanoes can lie about their age.



What’s your age? If you lie when someone asks this question, then you are not alone. Some volcanoes, too, lie about their age. The lie was first discovered during a research program at Lake Taupo in New Zealand. Lake Taupo is a caldera supervolcano that formed after the collapse of a magma chamber roof following a massive eruption more than 20,000 years ago.

To find the exact time of eruption of Taupo, radiocarbon dating was used. The test was conducted multiple times, and each time the result was different. All the tests yielded a large spread of ages between 36 CE and 538 CE. Radiocarbon dating samples from near the volcanic vents resulted in older dates. The dates were found to be progressively younger the farther away they were from the vent. Geologists believe that carbon dioxide gas emitted from deep below the prehistoric Taupo Volcano is the reason why the dates are so varied.