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Pedogenesis (from the Greek pedo-, or pedon, meaning 'soil, earth,' and genesis, meaning 'origin, birth') (also termed soil development, soil evolution, soil formation, and soil genesis) is the process of soil formation as regulated by the effects of place, environment, and history. Biogeochemical processes act to both create and destroy order (anisotropy) within soils. These alterations lead to the development of layers, termed soil horizons, distinguished by differences in color, structure, texture, and chemistry. These features occur in patterns of soil type distribution, forming in response to differences in soil forming factors. Pedogenesis is studied as a branch of pedology, the study of soil in its natural environment. Other branches of pedology are the study of soil morphology, and soil classification. The study of pedogenesis is important to understanding soil distribution patterns in current (soil geography) and past (paleopedology) geologic periods.

3.1K
03 Nov 2022

Topic Review

Nicaea or Nicea (/naɪˈsiːə/; Greek: Νίκαια, Níkaia; Turkish: İznik) was an ancient city in northwestern Anatolia, and is primarily known as the site of the First and Second Councils of Nicaea (the first and seventh Ecumenical councils in the early history of the Christian Church), the Nicene Creed (which comes from the First Council), and as the capital city of the Empire of Nicaea following the Fourth Crusade in 1204, until the recapture of Constantinople by the Byzantines in 1261. The ancient city is located within the modern Turkish city of İznik (whose modern name derives from Nicaea's), and is situated in a fertile basin at the eastern end of Lake Ascanius, bounded by ranges of hills to the north and south. It is situated with its west wall rising from the lake itself, providing both protection from siege from that direction, as well as a source of supplies which would be difficult to cut off. The lake is large enough that it could not be blockaded from the land easily, and the city was large enough to make any attempt to reach the harbour from shore-based siege weapons very difficult. The ancient city is surrounded on all sides by 5 kilometres (3 mi) of walls about 10 metres (33 ft) high. These are in turn surrounded by a double ditch on the land portions, and also included over 100 towers in various locations. Large gates on the three landbound sides of the walls provided the only entrance to the city. Today the walls have been pierced in many places for roads, but much of the early work survives and, as a result, it is a major tourist destination.

3.1K
08 Nov 2022

Topic Review

A deserted island or uninhabited island is an island that is not permanently populated by humans. Uninhabited islands are often used in movies or stories about shipwrecked people, and are also used as stereotypes for the idea of "paradise". Some uninhabited islands are protected as nature reserves and some are privately owned. Devon Island in Canada is claimed to be the largest uninhabited island in the world. Small coral atolls or islands usually have no source of fresh water, but at times a fresh water lens (Ghyben–Herzberg lens) can be reached with a well.

3.0K
14 Oct 2022

Topic Review

The Golan Heights (Arabic: هَضْبَةُ الْجَوْلَانِ or Arabic: مُرْتَفَعَاتُ الْجَوْلَانِ, Hebrew: רמת הגולן‎, romanized: Ramat HaGolan), or simply the Golan, is a region in the Levant spanning about 1,800 square kilometres (690 sq mi). The region defined as the Golan Heights differs between disciplines: as a geological and biogeographical region, the term refers to a basaltic plateau bordered by the Yarmouk River in the south, the Sea of Galilee and Hula Valley in the west, the Anti-Lebanon with Mount Hermon in the north and Wadi Raqqad in the east. As a geopolitical region, it refers to the border region captured from Syria by Israel during the Six-Day War of 1967; the territory has been occupied by the latter since then and was subject to a de facto Israeli annexation in 1981. This region includes the western two-thirds of the geological Golan Heights and the Israeli-occupied part of Mount Hermon. The earliest evidence of human habitation on the Golan dates to the Upper Paleolithic period. According to the Bible, an Amorite kingdom in Bashan was conquered by the Israelites during the reign of King Og. Throughout the Biblical period, the Golan was "the focus of a power struggle between the kings of Israel and the Aramaeans who were based near modern-day Damascus." After Assyrian and Babylonian rule, the region came under the domination of Persia, following which Jews were freed from Babylonian captivity and allowed to return and resettle in the land. The Itureans, an Arab or Aramaic people, settled in the area in the 2nd century BCE. In the 16th century, the Golan was conquered by the Ottoman Empire. Within Ottoman Syria, the Golan was part of the Syria Vilayet. The area later became part of the French Mandate in Syria and the State of Damascus. When the mandate terminated in 1946, it became part of the newly independent Syrian Arab Republic. By the late-19th century, the Golan Heights was inhabited mostly by colonized peasants (fellaḥîn), Bedouin Arabs, Druze, Turkmen, and Circassians. Since the Six-Day War of 1967, the western two-thirds of the Golan Heights has been occupied and administered by Israel, whereas the eastern third remains under the control of Syria. Following the war, Syria dismissed any negotiations with Israel as part of the Khartoum Resolution at the 1967 Arab League summit. Construction of Israeli settlements began in the remainder of the territory held by Israel, which was under a military administration until the Knesset passed the Golan Heights Law in 1981, which applied Israeli law to the territory; the move has been described as an annexation. The Golan Heights Law was condemned by the United Nations Security Council in Resolution 497, which stated that "the Israeli decision to impose its laws, jurisdiction, and administration in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights is null and void and without international legal effect", and Resolution 242, which emphasizes the "inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war". Israel maintains it has a right to retain the Golan, also citing the text of Resolution 242, which calls for "secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force". After the onset of the Syrian Civil War in 2011, control of the Syrian-administered part of the Golan Heights was split between the state government and Syrian opposition forces, with the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) maintaining a 266 km2 (103 sq mi) buffer zone in between to help implement the Israeli–Syrian ceasefire across the Purple Line. From 2012 to 2018, the eastern half of the Golan Heights became a scene of repeated battles between the Syrian Army, rebel factions of the Syrian opposition (including the United States -backed Southern Front) as well as various jihadist organizations such as al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant-affiliated Khalid ibn al-Walid Army. In July 2018, the Syrian government regained full control over the eastern Golan Heights. On 25 March 2019, then-President of the United States Donald Trump proclaimed US recognition of the Golan Heights as a part of the State of Israel, making it the first country to do so. The 28 member states of the European Union declared in turn that they do not recognize Israeli sovereignty, and several experts on international law reiterated that the principle remains that land gained by either defensive or offensive wars cannot be legally annexed under international law.

3.0K
18 Nov 2022

Topic Review

Maritime Southeast Asia

Maritime Southeast Asia comprises the countries of Brunei, East Timor, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore. Maritime Southeast Asia is sometimes also referred to as Island Southeast Asia, Insular Southeast Asia or Oceanic Southeast Asia. The 16th-century term "East Indies" and the later 19th-century term "Malay Archipelago" are also used to refer to Maritime Southeast Asia. In Indonesia and Malaysia, the Old Javanese term "Nusantara" is also used as a synonym for Maritime Southeast Asia. The term, however, is nationalistic and has shifting boundaries. It usually only encompasses the Malay Peninsula, the Sunda Islands, Maluku, and often Western New Guinea and excludes the Philippines . Stretching for several thousand kilometres, the area features a very large number of islands and boasts some of the richest marine, flora and fauna biodiversity on Earth. The main demographic difference that sets Maritime Southeast Asia apart from modern Mainland Southeast Asia is that its population predominantly belongs to Austronesian groups. The region contains some of the world's most highly urbanized areas—Greater Jakarta, Greater Kuala Lumpur, Metro Manila, and Singapore—and yet a majority of islands in this vast region remain uninhabited by humans.

2.9K
28 Nov 2022

Topic Review

Terminology of the British Isles

The terminology of the British Isles refers to the various words and phrases that are used to describe the different (and sometimes overlapping) geographical and political areas of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, and the smaller islands which surround them. The terminology is often a source of confusion, partly owing to the similarity between some of the actual words used, but also because they are often used loosely. In addition, many of the words carry both geographical and political connotations which are affected by the history of the islands. The purpose of this article is to explain the meanings of and relationships among the terms in use; however many of these classifications are contentious and are the subject of disagreement (See the British Isles naming dispute).

2.9K
03 Nov 2022

Topic Review

Cyrillic Script

The Cyrillic script (/sɪˈrɪlɪk/ sə-RIL-ik) is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia and is used as the national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking countries in Southeastern Europe, Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, Central Asia, North Asia and East Asia. (As of 2019), around 250 million people in Eurasia use Cyrillic as the official script for their national languages, with Russia accounting for about half of them. With the accession of Bulgaria to the European Union on 1 January 2007, Cyrillic became the third official script of the European Union, following the Latin and Greek alphabets. In the 9th century AD, the Bulgarian tsar Simeon I the Great – following the cultural and political course of his father Boris I – commissioned a new script, the Early Cyrillic alphabet, to be made at the Preslav Literary School in the First Bulgarian Empire, which would replace the Glagolitic script, produced earlier by Saints Cyril and Methodius and the same disciples that created the new Slavic script in Bulgaria. The usage of the Cyrillic script in Bulgaria was made official in 893. The new script became the basis of alphabets used in various languages, especially those of Orthodox Slavic origin, and non-Slavic languages influenced by Bulgarian. For centuries Cyrillic was used by Catholic and Muslim Slavs too (see Bosnian Cyrillic). Cyrillic is derived from the Greek uncial script, augmented by letters from the older Glagolitic alphabet, including some ligatures. These additional letters were used for Old Church Slavonic sounds not found in Greek. The script is named in honor of the Saint Cyril, one of the two Byzantine brothers, Saints Cyril and Methodius, who created the Glagolitic alphabet earlier on. Modern scholars believe that Cyrillic was developed and formalized by the early disciples of Cyril and Methodius in the Preslav Literary School, the most important early literary and cultural centre of the First Bulgarian Empire and of all Slavs. The school developed the Cyrillic script: The earliest datable Cyrillic inscriptions have been found in the area of Preslav. They have been found in the medieval city itself, and at nearby Patleina Monastery, both in present-day Shumen Province, in the Ravna Monastery and in the Varna Monastery. With the orthographic reform of Saint Evtimiy of Tarnovo and other prominent representatives of the Tarnovo Literary School (14th and 15th centuries) such as Gregory Tsamblak or Constantine of Kostenets the school influenced Russian, Serbian, Wallachian and Moldavian medieval culture. That is famous in Russia as the second South-Slavic influence. In the early 18th century, the Cyrillic script used in Russia was heavily reformed by Peter the Great, who had recently returned from his Grand Embassy in Western Europe. The new letterforms, called the Civil script, became closer to those of the Latin alphabet; several archaic letters were abolished and several letters were designed by Peter himself. Letters became distinguished between upper and lower case. West European typography culture was also adopted. The pre-reform forms of letters called 'Полуустав' were notably kept for use in Church Slavonic and are sometimes used in Russian even today, especially if one wants to give a text a 'Slavic' or 'archaic' feel.

2.8K
22 Nov 2022

Topic Review

Frame of Reference

In physics, a frame of reference (or reference frame) consists of an abstract coordinate system and the set of physical reference points that uniquely fix (locate and orient) the coordinate system and standardize measurements within that frame. For n dimensions, n + 1 reference points are sufficient to fully define a reference frame. Using rectangular (Cartesian) coordinates, a reference frame may be defined with a reference point at the origin and a reference point at one unit distance along each of the n coordinate axes. In Einsteinian relativity, reference frames are used to specify the relationship between a moving observer and the phenomenon or phenomena under observation. In this context, the phrase often becomes "observational frame of reference" (or "observational reference frame"), which implies that the observer is at rest in the frame, although not necessarily located at its origin. A relativistic reference frame includes (or implies) the coordinate time, which does not correspond across different frames moving relatively to each other. The situation thus differs from Galilean relativity, where all possible coordinate times are essentially equivalent.

2.8K
21 Oct 2022

Topic Review

Scottish Highlands

The Highlands (Scots: the Hielands; Scottish Gaelic: a’ Ghàidhealtachd [ə ˈɣɛːəl̪ˠt̪ʰəxk], 'the place of the Gaels') is a historical region of Scotland. Culturally, the Highlands and the Lowlands diverged from the Late Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lowland Scots replaced Scottish Gaelic throughout most of the Lowlands. The term is also used for the area north and west of the Highland Boundary Fault, although the exact boundaries are not clearly defined, particularly to the east. The Great Glen divides the Grampian Mountains to the southeast from the Northwest Highlands. The Scottish Gaelic name of A' Ghàidhealtachd literally means "the place of the Gaels" and traditionally, from a Gaelic-speaking point of view, includes both the Western Isles and the Highlands.The area is very sparsely populated, with many mountain ranges dominating the region, and includes the highest mountain in the British Isles, Ben Nevis. During the 18th and early 19th centuries the population of the Highlands rose to around 300,000, but from c. 1841 and for the next 160 years, the natural increase in population was exceeded by emigration (mostly to Canada, the United States, Australia and New Zealand, and migration to the industrial cities of Scotland and England.):xxiii, 414 and passim The area is now one of the most sparsely populated in Europe. At 9.1/km2 (24/sq mi) in 2012, the population density in the Highlands and Islands is less than one seventh of Scotland's as a whole, comparable with that of Bolivia, Chad and Russia . The Highland Council is the administrative body for much of the Highlands, with its administrative centre at Inverness. However, the Highlands also includes parts of the council areas of Aberdeenshire, Angus, Argyll and Bute, Moray, North Ayrshire, Perth and Kinross, Stirling and West Dunbartonshire. The Scottish Highlands is the only area in the British Isles to have the taiga biome as it features concentrated populations of Scots pine forest: see Caledonian Forest. It is the most mountainous part of the United Kingdom .

2.7K
30 Nov 2022

Topic Review

Hauran (Arabic: حوران / ALA-LC: Ḥawrān), also spelled Hawran, Houran and Horan, known to the Ancient Greeks and Romans as Auranitis, is a volcanic plateau, a geographic area and a people located in southwestern Syria and extending into the northwestern corner of Jordan, it’s known to be the birth place of the dabke dance which is the most popular dance in all of the Levant.

2.7K
10 Nov 2022

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