Weird, Strange but true facts about the Earth

In 1783 an Icelandic eruption threw up enough dust to temporarily block out the sun over Europe.

About 20 to 30 volcanoes erupt each year, mostly under the sea.

A huge underground river runs underneath the Nile, with six times more water than the river above.

Lake Bosumtwi in Ghana formed in a hollow made by a meteorite.

Beaver Lake, in Yellowstone Park, USA, was artificially created by beaver damming.

Off the coast of Florida there is an underwater hotel. Guests have to dive to the entrance.

Venice in Italy is built on 118 sea islets joined by 400 bridges. It is gradually sinking into the water.

The Ancient Egyptians worshipped a sky goddess called Nut.

The world's windiest place is Commonwealth Bay, Antartica.

In 1934, a gust of wind reached 371 km/h on Mount Washington in New Hampshire, USA.

American Roy Sullivan has been struck by lighting a record seven times.

The desert baobab tree can store up to 1000 litres of water in its trunk.

The oldest living tree is a California bristlecone pine name 'Methuselah'. It is about 4600 years old. The largest tree in the world is a giant sequoia growing in California. It is 84 meters tall and measures 29 meters round the trunk. The fastest growing tree is the eucalyptus. It can grow 10 meters a year.

The Antartic notothenia fish has a protein in its blood that acts like antifreeze and stops the fish freezing in icy sea.

The USA uses 29% of the world's petrol and 33% of the world's electricity.

The industrial complex of Cubatao in Brazil is known as the Valley of Death because its pollution has destroyed the trees and rivers nearby.

Tibet is the highest country in the world. Its average height above sea level is 4500 meters.

Some of the oldest mountains in the world are the Highlands in Scotland. They are estimated to be about 400 million years old.

Fresh water from the River Amazon can be found up to 180 km out to sea.

The White Sea, in Russia, has the lowest temperature, only -2 degrees centigrade. The Persian Gulf is the warmest sea. In the summer its temperature reaches 35.6 degrees centigrade.

There is no land at all at the North Pole, only ice on top of sea. The Arctic Ocean has about 12 million sq km of floating ice and has the coldest winter temperature of -34 degrees centigrade.

The Antarctic ice sheet is 3-4 km thick, covers 13 million sq km and has temperatures as low as -70 degrees centigrade.

Over 4 million cars in Brazil are now running on gasohol instead of petrol. Gasohol is a fuel made from sugar cane.

Turtles can cry (amazing facts)

1. Sea turtles cry. The green sea turtle lives in the salty ocean, and gets rid of the excess salt from its body by way of its eyes, in very salty tears.

2. All turtles lay their eggs on land, even turtles that never come out of the water otherwise such as the giant sea
turtles.


3. Most turtles can live much longer than people can. One turtle was estimated to be fifty years old when it was
caught, and it lived another one hundred and fifty-two years after that!

4. Turtles are cold-blooded, like all reptiles. But the Blanding's Turtle, a common North American freshwater
species, has been seen swimming under the ice in the Great Lakes in winter.

5. Some water turtles can absorb oxygen through their skin on their necks and cloacal areas (their rear ends), so they can not only stay underwater for long periods, they can hibernate underwater.


6. Some land turtles can outrun a person on level ground. But they still can't outrun a hare.

7. A turtle's shell is made of over sixty bones all fused together, and they are connected to the bottom shell, so a
turtle can't really take off its shell like they do in the cartoons.

8. The largest turtle ever found was a fossil of a sea turtle that was over fifteen feet long! The largest turtle
species living now is the Leatherback Sea Turtle, which can grow to as large as nine feet long, six feet wide and can weigh over 1,000 pounds.

9. Some aquatic turtles such as the snapping turtle and soft-shelled turtles have eyes that let them easily look up. They can sit on the bottom under the water and look up for predators or food swimming by, or lay in shallow water with just their eyes and nostrils above the water so land predators can't see them.


10. No turtles have teeth. Instead they have a strong beak to cut and chew their food. Many also have sharp ridges on their beaks to saw through their food. Some turtles catch and eat fish; so those beaks work pretty well.

30 facts on SHARKS...

Films such as Jaws and Open Water have projected sharks as super predators eager to take a bite out of human flesh, but there is more to these fish, Sharks are magnificent creatures which are not only endangered, but also vastly misunderstood.

Skin of a Whale shark can be up to 4 inches (10 centimetres) thick

Great white sharks grow about 10 inches per year. Great whites can grow to mature lengths of 12 to 14 feet.

The Porbeagle is among the fastest sharks. It can jump fully out of the water, a behavior observed in only a few sharks.

New teeth are constantly being formed in rows in a shark's jaw. Shark's teeth are normally replaced every eight days.

Some species of sharks can shed as many as 30,000 teeth in their lifetime.

In 1956, one single Whale shark egg was found off the Mexican coast. This led scientists to believe that the Whale shark was an oviparous species, but now we know that this erroneous Whale shark fact was based on false assumptions. (Oviparous fish species lay undeveloped eggs that are fertilized and developed outside the body of the female fish.)


Whale sharks have approximately 300 rows of teeth, with hundreds of tiny teeth in each row.

It has also been estimated that of all documented great white shark attacks on humans, more than half have occurred within the Red Triangle (Red Triangle is roughly triangle-shaped region off the coast of northern California, extending from Bodega Bay, north of San Francisco


Dried shark skin (shagreen) was used in the past as sandpaper. In Germany and Japan, shark skin was used on sword handles for a non-slip grip.

In 1937, shark liver oil was discovered to be rich in vitamin A. Sharks were hunted for the vitamin until 1950, when a synthesizing method was developed for vitamin A.

SHARK ATTACK VIDEO



Tiger sharks have developed a specialized form of gill slit known as a spiracle. The spiracles are situated right behind the eyes of the Tiger shark and this arrangement ensures a constant flow of oxygen directly to the brain and the eyes of the shark.

The average life span of a shark is 25 years, but some sharks can live to be 100.


The dogfish sharks are named for their tendency to attack their prey as a pack of wild dogs would.

The porbeagle is mainly a pelagic shark, but can be found in coastal waters.

Great white sharks can go as long as three months without eating.

The Tiger sharks are equipped with special electro receptors that can detect even slight electrical currents in the water
The most distinguishing characteristic of the Porbeagle is a white patch on the trailing edge of the dorsal fin.

Not all sharks have to be in continuous motion to breathe.

Newly born Tiger sharks are roughly 50-75 centimetres long (20-30 inches)

Bull sharks can tolerate a wide range of salinity and are often found in freshwater rivers and lakes in Africa and South America.

More people are killed each year by dogs, pigs and deer than by shark attacks.

The pygmy shark has a maximum length of 11 inches.

Sharks have no bones. A shark's skeleton is made up of cartilage.

There are more than 340 known species of sharks.

They have about 3000 teeth, arranged in several rows. The first two rows of teeth are used for grabbing and cutting prey, while the teeth in the last rows rotate into place when front teeth are broken, worn down, or fall out. The teeth are triangularly shaped with serrations on the edges

Sharks first appeared in the fossil record over 400 million years ago.


A significant physical trait that separates a modern shark from an ancient shark is the protrusile jaw, which gives the modern shark more biting force.

Sharks can generate about six and a half tons per square inch of biting force.

A shark's skin is embedded with dermal denticles, which resemble teeth.

The shortfin mako shark is probably the fastest fish in the ocean, clocked at about 60 mph.