The One Minute Geographer: This Fragile Earth, Summary

Image from phys.org

If you are new to the One Minuter Geographer, or if you missed some, here are links to the 15 posts of This Fragile Earth

1. Have you ever driven 500 miles in a day? (Was that fun?) If you could drive the circumference of the earth at the Equator — ignoring oceans and impassable mountains, not to mention the lack of roads — just think: you’d be on the road for 50 days!

The One Minute Geographer: This Fragile Earth (1) Size of the Earth

Diagram from laulima.hawaii.edu showing how the earth is fatter at the Equator and flatter at the poles.

2. The Moon and it’s influence on Earth

The One Minute Geographer: This Fragile Earth (2) The Moon and Tides

The moon is smaller than we think. It’s only about 2,160 miles in diameter. That’s about the width of Australia.

Sizes of the tidal bulges are greatly exaggerated. Image from Wikipedia.

3. You’ve heard of the Northern Hemisphere and the Southern Hemisphere. You’ve heard of the Eastern Hemisphere and the Western Hemisphere. How about the land and water hemispheres?

The One Minute Geographer: This Fragile Earth (3) Land, Water and Other Hemispheres

Part of Africa is in all four hemispheres. The vertical line is 0-degee longitude; the horizontal line is the Equator, 0-degree latitude. Map from 9gag.com

4. Northernmost? Westernmost? Easternmost? Southernmost? Read this post before your next trivia contest.