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These construction workers seemed perplexed upon discovering this hole. They scratched their heads and stood around trying to figure what to do with the hole.

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Britannica

Andes Mountains, also called the Andes, Spanish Cordillera de los Andes or Los Andes, is a mountain system of South America and one of the great natural features of the Earth.

The Andes consist of a vast series of extremely high plateaus surmounted by even higher peaks that form an unbroken rampart over a distance of some 5,500 miles (8,900 kilometres)—from the southern tip of South America to the continent’s northernmost coast on the Caribbean. They separate a narrow western coastal area from the rest of the continent, affecting deeply the conditions of life within the ranges themselves and in surrounding areas. The Andes contain the highest peaks in the Western Hemisphere. The highest of them is Mount Aconcagua (22,831 feet [6,959 metres]) on the border of Argentina and Chile.

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The Andes are not a single line of formidable peaks but rather a succession of parallel and transverse mountain ranges, or cordilleras, and of intervening plateaus and depressions. Distinct eastern and western ranges—respectively named the Cordillera Oriental and the Cordillera Occidental—are characteristic of most of the system. The directional trend of both the cordilleras generally is north-south, but in several places the Cordillera Oriental bulges eastward to form either isolated peninsula-like ranges or such high intermontane plateau regions as the Altiplano (Spanish: “High Plateau”), occupying adjoining parts of Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, and Peru.

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Volcano in Chile

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The Andean mountain system is the result of global plate-tectonic forces during the Cenozoic Era (roughly the past 65 million years) that built upon earlier geologic activity. About 250 million years ago the crustal plates constituting the Earth’s landmass were joined together into the supercontinent Pangaea. The subsequent breakup of Pangaea and of its southern portion, Gondwana, dispersed these plates outward, where they began to take the form and position of the present-day continents. The collision (or convergence) of two of these plates—the continental South American Plate and the oceanic Nazca Plate—gave rise to the orogenic (mountain-building) activity that produced the Andes.

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Bolivia

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Patagonia region of Chile

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Santiago, Chile

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Crazy staircase at Machu Picchu, Peru

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Space Shuttle passes over The Andes

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Argentina

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Peru

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In 2013, a group of friends in Arizona launched a camera-equipped weather balloon high into the Earth’s atmosphere with the hopes of capturing some cool footage from that unique perspective. However, after the experiment crashed to the ground and attempts to locate it proved futile, they became resigned to having lost their balloon and whatever it may have filmed.

Fortunately, they were pleasantly surprised when the remains of the experiment were recently found in the Arizona desert. Amongst the debris was a cell phone which provided information on who owned the material as well as the GoPro camera which still contained the remarkable footage of the balloon’s complete journey to space and back. 

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Big Balanced Rock in Chiricahua National Monument, southeast Arizona

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A balancing rock, also called balanced rock or precarious boulder, is a naturally occurring geological formation featuring a large rock or boulder, sometimes of substantial size, resting on other rocks, bedrock or on glacial till. Some formations known by this name only appear to be balancing but are in fact firmly connected to a base rock by a pedestal or stem. There is no single scientific definition of the term, and it has been applied to a variety of rock features that fall into one of four general categories:

• A glacial erratic is a boulder that was transported and deposited by glaciers to a resting place on soil, on bedrock or on other boulders. It usually has a different lithology than the other rocks around it. Not all glacial erractics are balancing rocks; some are firmly seated on the ground. Some balancing erractics have come to be known as rocking stones, also known as logan rocks, logan stones or logans, because they are so finely balanced that the application of just a small force may cause them to rock or sway. A good example of a rocking stone is the Logan Rock in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom; another is the Trembling Rock in Brittany, France.
• A perched block, also known as a perched boulder or perched rock, is a large, detached rock fragment that most commonly was transported and deposited by a glacier to a resting place on glacial till, often on the side of a hill or slope. Some perched blocks were not produced by glacial action but were the aftermath of a rock fall, landslide or avalanche.
• An erosional remnant is a persisting rock formation that remains after extensive wind, water and/or chemical erosion. To the untrained eye it may appear to be visually like a glacial erratic, but instead of being transported and deposited it was carved from the local bedrock. Many good examples of erosional remnants are seen in Karlu Karlu / Devils Marbles Conservation Reserve in the Northern Territory of Australia.
• A pedestal rock, also known as a rock pedestal or mushroom rock, is not a true balancing rock but is a single continuous rock form with a very small base leading up to a much larger crown. Some of these formations are called balancing rocks because of their appearance. The undercut base was attributed for many years to simple wind abrasion but is now believed to result from a combination of wind and enhanced chemical weathering at the base where moisture would be retained longest. Some pedestal rocks sitting on taller spire formations are known as hoodoos.

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Balanced Rock is one of the most popular features of Arches National Park, situated in Utah, United States. It is located next to the park’s main road, at about 9 miles from the park entrance.

The total height of Balanced Rock is about 39 m, with the balancing rock rising 16.75 m above the base. The big rock on top is the size of three school buses. Until recently, Balanced Rock had a companion – a similar, but much smaller balanced rock named “Chip Off The Old Block”, which fell during the winter of 1975/1976.

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This balanced rock is located in the Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs, Colorado. It is easily accessible by paved road and is a popular spot for tourist photography.

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The Balancing Rock in St. Mary’s Bay on Long Island, Nova Scotia seems to defy gravity as it stands on its end at the edge of the rock below. The 9 meter high column of rock is attached by two small sections with a gap between that you can look through.

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Many curious rock formations are scattered over 50 acres on Brimham Moor, U.K. One of them is the Idol Rock precariously balanced on top of a smaller rock. The rocks eroded by water, glaciation and wind, have taken amazing shapes. Many of the formations suggest all manner of things, including elephants, hippos, bears, and mushrooms.

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The Chiremba Balancing Rocks is located 13 km southeast of Harare in Epworth. Strange balancing rocks are found all over Zimbabwe. The Balancing Rocks have been used as a metaphorical theme to explain the importance of development coupled with preserving the fragile environment of Zimbabwe as similar to that of the Balancing Rocks found in Epworth, Matopos and in other areas.

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The Devils Marbles are amongst the most famous Australian rocks, located south of Tennant Creek area of Northern Territory. These huge, red, rounded granite boulders vary in size, from 50 cm up to six metres across, and they are strewn across a large area. Many of them seem impossibly balanced on top of each other.

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Kjeragbolten is a massive 5 cubic meter boulder wedged in to a crevasse on the edge of the Kjerag mountain in Lysefjorden, Norway. The block of stone is suspended 984 meters above a deep abyss. Despite its impressive appearance, it is easily accessible on foot without any special equipment. The whole of Kjerag mountain is a popular hiking area, and Kjeragbolten is a favorite photo spot.

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The Golden Rock (Kyaik-htiyo or Kyaiktiyo), perched atop a cliff near Yangon, is one of the most sacred sites in Burma. According to legend, the Golden Rock itself is precariously perched on a strand of the Buddha’s hair. The rock seems to defy gravity, as it perpetually appears to be on the verge of rolling down the hill. At the top of the rock is built a small pagoda and covered with gold leaves pasted on by devotees. A glimpse of the “gravity defying” Golden Rock is believed to be enough of an inspiration for any person to turn to Buddhism.

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Krishna’s Butterball is a curious tourist attraction in Mahabalipuram, a town about 60 km south of Chennai famous for its stone carvings. The “butterball” is a giant balancing rock, 5 meters in diameter, perched on a smooth slope, seemingly defying all laws of physics.

In Hindu mythology Lord Krishna had an insatiable appetite for butter, and as a child, would often sneak a handful from his mother’s butter jar. Situated on a hill slope near the Ganesh Ratha this massive natural rock boulder is attributed to a bolus of butter the young Krishna would steal.

An earthquake hits and those goats are pancakes.

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National Geographic

Mountain High 

An astronaut on the International Space Station (ISS) snapped a picture of the United State’s Cascade and Rocky Mountains, as well as Canada’s Coast Mountains. An ISS solar array can be seen in the upper center part of the frame.

 

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Cloudy Tail 

A massive cloud of hydrogen streams from a Neptune-sized exoplanet due to the extreme radiation given off by the planet’s star. Researchers have never seen this occur around such a small planet dubbed – GJ 436b – before.

 

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Auroras 

Crew members on the International Space Station got a front seat view of this week’s auroras and captured this image.

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Up, Up, and Away 

A Soyuz rocket shoots into space from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on July 23. Three crewmembers bound for the International Space Station for a five month mission on board.

 

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Sunlit 

This is the first picture of Earth’s entire sunny side that NASA has released since the famous “Blue Marble” image in 1972. Images published in the interim have been stitched together from multiple pictures taken at different times.

 

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Smoky 

Satellites captured smoke from Canadian and Alaskan wildfires drifting over the Greenland Sea. Alaska has had its worst fire season ever, with millions of acres burned as of July 7. Over three million acres have burned in Canada as of July 15.

 

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Solar Marble 

Our sun glows in x-ray and ultraviolet light. High-energy x-rays are shown in blue, low-energy x-rays are green, and extreme ultraviolet light shines in yellow and green. Active regions flare up in bursts of white.

 

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Drone photos

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Snorkeling With Sharks 

Snorkelers swim with sharks near Moorea Island in French Polynesia.

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Lost Island 

Tourists wait for a sunset in French Polynesia, a group of islands in the South Pacific.

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Glorieto Rodolfo Sanchez Taboada 

A cliff diver jumps into the ocean in Mazatlan, Mexico.

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Above the Mist 

The Cathedral of Maringa pokes through heavy fog in Parana, Brazil.

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Mont-Saint-Michel 

Mont-Saint-Michel is an island commune off the coast of Normandy, France.

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Oh by the way, Albert Einstein was never a British citizen. He became an American citizen. Add one for the Yanks.

AP

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Mir Mine also called Mirny Mine is a former open pit diamond mine located in Mirny, Eastern Siberia, Russia. At the time of its closing in 2004, the mine was 525 meters deep and 1,200 meters across making it the second largest excavated hole in the world, after Bingham Canyon Mine. The hole is so big that airspace above the mine is closed for helicopters because of incidents in which they were sucked in by the downward air flow.

Mining began on 1957, in extremely harsh climate conditions. The Siberian winter lasted seven months which froze the ground, making it hard to mine. During the brief summer months, permafrost would become mud turning the entire mining operation into a land of sludge. Buildings had to be raised on piles, so that they would not sink. The main processing plant had to be built on better ground, found 20 km away from the mine. The winter temperatures were so low that car tires and steel would shatter and oil would freeze. During the winter, workers used jet engines to burn through the layer of permafrost or blasted it with dynamite to get access to the underlying kimberlite. The entire mine had to be covered at night to prevent the machinery from freezing.

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During its peak years of operation, the mine produced 10 million carats of diamond per year, of which a relatively high fraction (20%) were of gem quality. This worried De Beers company, which at that time was distributing most of the world’s diamonds. The company was forced to buy larger and larger shipments of high-quality Russian diamonds in order to control the market price. For De Beers, Mir was a puzzling mystery. The mine’s enormous output was not consistent with the relatively small size of the mine. By the 1970s, when the Mir should have been producing smaller and smaller quantities of diamonds, the Soviets were producing an increasing quantity of gem diamonds. Finally, in 1976, De Beers requested a tour of the Mir mine to satisfy their curiosity. Permission was granted, but the Russians kept delaying the visit and by the time the team of delegates reached the Mir mine, their visas were about to expire, so that they could only have 20 minutes at the Mir mine. The visit did little to shed light on the mystery of the Mir’s diamond production.

After the collapse of the USSR, in the 1990s, the mine was operated by a few local companies until 2004 when the mine was permanently closed.

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BBC

The China blog has featured pollution more than once this week – and we make no apologies for that. The pollution currently blanketing northern China is an extraordinary and unnatural phenomenon.

The air quality is so bad it’s comparable to living near a forest fire. The scale of the consequences to human health are only beginning to be understood. Air pollution is thought to cut life expectancy in northern China by five years compared to the south of the country. One study estimated pollution caused 1.2 million premature deaths a year in the country – and the real impact may be even worse than those figures suggest.

This is certainly an environmental disaster and a public health crisis. But it also has the potential to become a huge political problem.

After years of denying the issue really existed, the central government has recently accepted that pollution is of genuine concern. It now publishes figures for the air quality in China’s major cities (the accuracy of some is still contested), and in 2013 promised $275bn (£165bn) to tackle the issue in the next five years, setting targets for air quality improvements.

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Particulate readings in Beijing soared to 15 times WHO-recommended safe limits on Friday – reaching “orange” levels, the second-highest possible.

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This shift in government stance has come in part because pollution is getting worse but also because of a change in the public awareness of environmental issues. As poverty recedes into the past for millions in China, health is now becoming more important than wealth. And they expect the government to act.

A newspaper in northern China has this week reported what appears to be the first case of an individual suing the government for failing to curb air pollution. The Yanzhao Metropolis Daily newspaper quoted the complainant, Li Guixin from Shijiazhuang, as saying “the reason I’m proposing compensation is to let every citizen see that amid this haze, we’re the real victims”.

China has lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty; it’s also shifted their priorities. The government has now pledged to reduce pollution, and in so doing has raised expectations.

The political risk for the Communist Party comes if those expectations are not met. Unlike other government promises, people will be able to judge success and failure on pollution simply by looking out of their window.

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And the scale of the problem is enormous. China’s pollution crisis has been a long time coming. The reliance on coal, the rise of the car, along with the soaring energy demand of an ever-growing economy, have all meant more dirty air. Predictably so. Reducing pollution will require wholesale structural change, not just in how and where energy is produced, but how it is priced.

It will probably mean sacrificing some economic growth in favour of quality of life. To do all of that will mean confronting some of the most entrenched vested interests in China’s economy, and inside the Communist Party itself.

How the pollution issue is handled in the next few years will tell us a lot about China’s government, its changing relationship to its people, and its ability to make difficult decisions.

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The Cosmic Calendar is a method to visualize the vast history of the universe in which its 13.8 billion year lifetime is condensed down into a single year. In this visualization, the Big Bang took place at the beginning of January 1 at midnight, and the current moment is mapped onto the end of December 31 at midnight. At this scale, there are 438 years per second, 1.58 million years per hour, and 37.8 million years per day. This concept was popularized by Carl Sagan in his book The Dragons of Eden and on his television series Cosmos. (In the 2014 sequel series, Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, host Neil deGrasse Tyson presents the same concept of a Cosmic Calendar, but using the revised age of the universe of 13.8 billion years as an improvement on Sagan’s 1980 figure of 15 billion years.) Sagan goes on to extend the comparison in terms of surface area, explaining that if the Cosmic Calendar is scaled to the size of a football field, then “all of human history would occupy an area the size of [his] hand”.

This really demonstrates the brief history of humanity related to the big picture of the universe. Most anthropologists contend that the current human physical form developed approximately 30,000 years ago.  And that the current height and weight of humans came to be only a hundred years ago.  This was due to better medicine (especially child medicine) and better nutrition in our diets.

BYA:  Billions of years ago

MYA: Millions of years ago

KYA:  Thousands of years ago

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Date	bya	Event
1 Jan	13.8	Big Bang, as seen through cosmic background radiation
15 Mar	8.8	Milky Way Galaxy formed
31 Aug	4.57	Sun formed (planets and Earth’s moon soon thereafter)
16 Sep	4.0	Oldest rocks known on Earth

Evolution of life on Earth

 

Date	bya	Event
21 Sep	3.8	first life (prokaryotes)
12 Oct	3	photosynthesis
29 Oct	2.4	Oxygenation of atmosphere
9 Nov	2	complex cells (eukaryotes)
5 Dec	1	first multicellular life
14 Dec	0.67	simple animals
14 Dec	0.55	arthropods (ancestors of insects, arachnids)
18 Dec	0.5	fish and proto-amphibians
20 Dec	0.45	land plants
21 Dec	0.4	insects and seeds
22 Dec	0.36	amphibians
23 Dec	0.3	reptiles
26 Dec	0.2	mammals
27 Dec	0.15	birds
28 Dec	0.13	flowers
30 Dec, 06:24	0.065	Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, non-avian dinosaurs die out

Human evolution

 

Date / time	mya	Event
30 Dec	65	Primates
31 Dec, 06:05	15	Apes
31 Dec, 14:24	2.3	hominids
31 Dec, 22:24	2.5	primitive humans and stone tools
31 Dec, 23:44	0.4	Domestication of fire
31 Dec, 23:52	0.2	Anatomically modern humans
31 Dec, 23:55	0.11	Beginning of most recent glacial period
31 Dec, 23:58	0.035	sculpture and painting
31 Dec, 23:59:32	0.012	Agriculture

History begins

 

Date / time	kya	Event
31 Dec, 23:59:47	5.5	First writing (marks end of prehistory and beginning of history), beginning of the Bronze Age
31 Dec, 23:59:48	5.0	First dynasty of Egypt, Early Dynastic period in Sumer, Astronomy
31 Dec, 23:59:49	4.5	Alphabet, Akkadian Empire, Wheel
31 Dec, 23:59:51	4.0	Code of Hammurabi, Middle Kingdom of Egypt
31 Dec, 23:59:52	3.5	Mycenaean Greece; Olmec civilization; Iron Age in Near East, India, and Europe; founding of Carthage
31 Dec, 23:59:53	3.0	Kingdom of Israel, ancient Olympic games
31 Dec, 23:59:54	2.5	Buddha, Confucius, Qin Dynasty, Classical Greece, Ashokan Empire, Vedas completed, Euclidean geometry, Archimedean physics, Roman Republic
31 Dec, 23:59:55	2.0	Ptolemaic astronomy, Roman Empire, Christ, invention of numeral 0
31 Dec, 23:59:56	1.5	Muhammad, Maya civilization, Song Dynasty, rise of Byzantine Empire
31 Dec, 23:59:58	1.0	Mongol Empire, Crusades, Christopher Columbus voyages to the Americas, Renaissance in Europe

The current second

Date / time	kya	Event
31 Dec, 23:59:59	0.5	modern science and technology, American Revolution, French revolution, World War I, World War II, Apollo Moon landing

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Earth’s mass is 6.580 sextillion tons according to the World Book of Facts 2003 edition.

Mass and weight are different. Mass is the amount of matter in an object. Unlike weight, it is not affected by location. Weight is the effect of gravity on mass.

Earth is increasing in mass by many thousands of tons daily by the daily accretion of extraterrestrial meteorites and meteor dust.

Hopefully this big Earth can slap away and deflect that big bad ass asteroid that is supposed to hit in 2,500 years. Or was that 25,000 years?