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The world's tallest grass, which has sometimes grown 130 feet or more, is bamboo.

The average daily growth of a bamboo plant is 35.4 inches.

The world's windiest place is reputed to be Commonwealth Bay, George V Coast,


Antarctica, where wind speeds of 200 miles per hour have been recorded.

The average life expectancy of a white ash tree is 275 years.

The worst climate in the world may be at Yakutsk, in Russia. In winter, the temperature
falls to -84 degrees Fahrenheit. In summer, it can reach 102 degrees Fahrenheit.

The average mature oak tree sheds approximately 700,000 leaves in the fall.

The average rainfall around the world is 40 inches per year.

The worst storm to hit southern England occurred on the night of November 26, 1703.
The English writer Daniel Defoe described the storm in his diary. About 8,000 people
died, mainly at sea.

There are 250,000 species of flowering plants on Earth today.

There are more than 50,000 earthquakes throughout the world every year.

There are more than 700 species of plants that grow in the United States that have
been identified as dangerous if eaten. Among them are some that are commonly
favored by gardeners: buttercups, daffodils, lily of the valley, sweet peas, oleander,
azalea, bleeding heart, delphinium, and rhododendron.

There is about one quarter-pound of salt in every gallon of seawater.

There is an organization in Berkeley, California, whose members gather monthly to


discuss and honor the garlic plant. Called "The Lovers of the Stinky Rose," this unusual
organization holds and annual garlic festival and publishes a newsletter known as
"Garlic Time."

There's enough energy in ten minutes of one hurricane to match the nuclear stockpiles
of the world.

Three hundred and fourteen acres of trees are used to make the newsprint for the
average Sunday edition of the New York Times. There are nearly 63,000 trees in the
314 acres.

To qualify as a hurricane, a storm must develop winds in excess of 75 miles per hour.
Wind speeds as high as 220 miles per hour have been recorded.

Tornadoes seem to be an almost-exclusive North American phenomena they occur


more often in the U.S. than anywhere else in the world.

A "fulgerite" is fossilized lightning. It forms when a powerful lightning bolt melts the soil
into a glass-like state.

A "pogonip" is a heavy winter fog containing ice crystals.

A beautiful mirage called the Fata Morgana appears in the Straits of Messina, between
Sicily and Italy. It is an image of a town in the sky, but it seems more like a fairy
landscape than a real town. It is believed to be a mirage of a fishing village situated
along the coast.

A bolt of lightning can strike the Earth with a force as great as 100 million volts.

A cold front travels at a speed of about 30 miles per hour faster than the fastest
person can run and may overtake any warm front ahead of it. The resulting mix of
air is called an occluded front.

A cumulonimbus cloud can be enormous: six miles across and eleven miles high, and
twice as high as Mount Everest.

A dripping hot water faucet wastes an average of 40 kilowatt-hours of electricity per


month. This is the equivalent of running a color television 8 hours a day for about 31
days.

A drop of water may travel thousands of miles between the time it evaporates into the
atmosphere and the time it falls to the Earth again as rain, sleet, or snow.

A full seven percent of the entire Irish barley crop goes to the production of Guinness
Beer.

A green flash is sometimes seen just as the sun sets or rises. This occurs because green
light is bent most strongly by the atmosphere. So the green is seen before other colors
at sunrise, and after the other colors have vanished at sunset.

Traces of copper give the gemstone turquoise its distinctive color.

Twenty percent of China's plants are used in medicine.

Twenty thousand plants are listed by the World Health Organization as being used for
therapeutic purposes.

Use of less fertilizer at precisely the right times can cut costs by up to 17 percent for
farmers in developing countries and reduce damage to the environment.

Variations in color in pearls are still a mystery, but some experts believe that high water
temperatures contribute a golden cast to some pearls.

Venezuela's Angel Falls are a mile high. They were originally discovered from an
airplane.

Waste industry experts estimate that Americans discard 250 million tires each year, and
that more than 3 billion are stored in landfills or litter backyards and "wildcat" dumps.
Tires burning at landfills generate huge amounts of noxious air pollution. This problem
first came to national attention when hundreds of thousands of tires at an East Coast
landfill in the U.S. burned for three years during the 1980's. Tire fires are difficult, and
sometimes impossible, to extinguish.

Water from the north Pacific can be carried by deep ocean currents right around Africa
and into the North Atlantic.

We rely on the sun's output remaining steady for our climate to support life on Earth. If
the sun's energy output would decreased by one-tenth, the entire Earth would be
covered in ice one mile thick; if the sun's energy increased by 30 percent, all life on
Earth would be burnt to a cinder.

What is quicksand? Click Here to find out!

A hailstone weighing more than one-and-a-half pounds once fell on Coffeyville, Kansas.
No one was hit.

A hurricane that hit Puerto Rico in 1928 dropped 30 inches of rain over the island; the
deluge was estimated to weigh 2,800,000,000 tons.

A large cumulonimbus cloud can hold enough water for 500,000 baths. Most of the
water droplets in a cloud re-evaporate and never reach the ground; only one-fifth
actually falls as rain.

A lightning bolt generates temperatures five times hotter than the 6,000 degrees
centigrade found at the surface of the sun.

A polar air mass moving south from Canada may pick up from the Mississippi basin
more than nine times as much water as flows out from the mouth of the river.

A rainbow can be seen only in the morning or late afternoon. It is a phenomenon that
can occur only when the sun is 40 degrees or less above the horizon.

A saguaro can top 60 feet, and may live 300 years.

A single orchid plant of the genus Cymbidium was sold in the United States in 1952 for
$4,500.

A sizable oak tree, during the typical growing season, gives off 28,000 gallons of
moisture.

A soldier would wear a "havelock" on his head in the desert. It's a light cloth covering,
attached to a military cap that protects the back of a soldier's neck from the sun. It was
named for Sir Henry Havelock, a British officer serving in England.

A thousand tons of meteor dust fall to Earth every day

A wind farm at Altamont Pass, California, consists of 300 wind turbines. To produce as
much electricity as a nuclear power station, a wind farm would need to occupy an area
of approximately 140 square miles.

About 110,000 million tons of carbon dioxide enter the atmosphere each year as the
result of burning fossil fuels. Removing this amount of carbon dioxide from the
atmosphere requires a forested area the size of Australia.

About half of the energy entering the outer atmosphere from the sun reaches the
ground. Of the radiation that reached the ground, about one-third is radiated back into
space, one-third heats the lower atmosphere, and one-third is used in the process of
evaporating water.

About two-thirds of the world's fresh water flows out of the Amazon River in South
America. The amount is so immense that fresh water can be found on the sea surface
40 miles from the river's mouth.

According to experts, large caves tend to "breathe"; they inhale and exhale great
quantities of air when the barometric pressure on the surface changes, and air rushes
in or out seeking equilibrium.

According to international definition, fog occurs when visibility is 600 feet or less.
Visibility in mist may extend up to 3,000 feet.

According to NASA, the U.S. has the world's most violent weather. In a typical year, the
U.S. can expect some 10,000 violent thunderstorms, 5,000 floods, 1,000 tornadoes,
and several hurricanes.

According to one study, plant and animal species are becoming extinct at the rate of 17
per hour.

According to Professor Walter Connor of the University of Michigan, men are six times
more likely than women to be struck by lightning.

According to weather forecast experts, here is a rule of thumb for weather forecasting:
winds from the northwest, west, and southwest usually indicate fair weather for a time,
whereas winds from the northeast, east, and south predict unsettled weather.

Acorns are poisonous to humans, and, if eaten, will cause kidney damage.

Air masses can cover vast areas, up to 3 million square miles, about the size of Brazil.

All hurricanes are born over water, and their life span is about 10 days.

Aluminum forms one-twelfth of the Earth's crust.

Aluminum, glass, and paper are the three materials most easy to recycle.

An elementary rule of mushroom collecting is never to place edible and poisonous


specimens together. The slightest touch may contaminate.

An estimated 50 percent of U.S. landfill space is taken up by discarded packaging.

An item must contain 92.5 percent silver to be considered sterling silver.

An orange tree may bear oranges for more than 100 years. The famous "Constable
Tree," an orange tree brought to France in 1421, lived and bore fruit for 473 years.

In 1859, a shower of fish fell from the sky in Glamorgan, Wales. The fish covered an
area the size of three tennis courts.

In 1939, a shower of tiny frogs fell on the English town of Trowbridge. Strong winds had
carried them aloft from streams and ponds.

In 1940, silver coins fell from the skies on to the town of Gorky, Russia. A tornado had
lifted up an old money chest and dropped the coins it contained as the wind carried it
long.

In 1950, a tornado plucked some chickens from their coop in Bedfordshire, England. It
happened in more than one sense their feathers exploded because the normal air
pressure inside the quills was much higher than the low pressure air of the tornado.

In 1981, a tornado lifted a baby from its pram in the Italian city of Ancona. The baby
was carried 50 feet into the air and set down safely 300 feet away without waking.

In a belt along the equator, there are 3,200 thunderstorms each night, some of which
can be heard 18 miles away.

In Calama, a town in the Atacama Desert of Chile, it has never rained.

In living memory, it was not until February 18, 1979 that snow fell on the Sahara. A
half-hour storm in southern Algeria stopped traffic. But within a few hours, all the snow
had melted.

In Los Angeles, discarded garments are being recycled as industrial rags and carpet
underlay. Such recycling keeps clothing out of landfills, where it makes up 4 percent of
the trash dumped each year.

In one day, a full-grown oak tree expels 7 tons of water through its leaves.

Aromatic herbs provide ingredients for scented potpourris and sachets. Lavender is
probably the best known and one of the most popular of the fragrant herbs. There are
three kinds of lavender: English lavender is the showiest and has the most sweetly
fragrant flowers; French lavender is used as a bath scent; and spike lavender produces
large, fragrant leaves. Mint is another popular fragrant herb.

At any given time, there are 1,800 thunderstorms in progress over the Earth's
atmosphere. Lightning strikes the Earth 100 times every second.

At last count, there were about 226,000 trees in New York's Central Park.

Athens organized the first municipal dump in the western world, approximately 500
B.C. Scavengers had to dispose of waste at least one mile from the city walls.

Bamboo is not a tree. It is a wood grass.

Because of an incredible anti-dehydration system, some cactus species release 1/600th


the moisture of an ordinary plant the same size. Others are able to drink water from
humidity in the air.

Because of their dryness, ability to withstand earthquakes, and 800 degree Celsius
melting point (higher than radioactive wastes), scientists say salt bed deposits are the
safest nuclear graveyards.

Bees must collect nectar from two million flowers to make a one-pound comb of honey.

Boiling water absorbs over six times more energy in changing to steam than is needed
to heat the water from freezing to boiling.

By U.S. definition, a "hurricane" is any wind force exceeding 74 miles per hour; in the
Western Pacific, such a phenomenon is called a "typhoon" and, near Australia, it's a
"willy-willy."

In the King James translation of the Bible, there are more than 1,700 references to
gems and precious stones.

In the U.S. Southwest, lichens form stable crusts that protect desert soils from erosion.
Unfortunately, these crusts are quite fragile. They take decades to recover after being
crushed by livestock or off-road vehicles.

In the world, an average of 16 million thunderstorms are formed per year.

It is estimated that millions of trees in the world are accidentally planted by squirrels
who bury nuts and then forget where they hid them.

It is the impurities in gemstones which give them their color.

It snows more at the Grand Canyon than it does in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

It takes 4,000 crocuses to produce a single ounce of saffron. Saffron is used to color
and flavor foods and formerly as a dyestuff and in medicine.

It takes about five years for an oyster to produce a medium-sized pearl.

It takes nearly two million flowers to create one pound of jasmine.

Ivy has long been identified with immortality. Because it's always green and clings
tenaciously to life, it is often used as a symbol of eternal life in Christian art.

Cars produce about four times their own weight in carbon dioxide each year. The
average home produces 50 tons of carbon dioxide each year.

Chalk is made from tiny plankton fossils.

Cloud droplets measure about 0.0008 inches across, about one-fortieth the size of a
pinhead. They are so light that they float in the air.

Clouds fly higher during the day than during the night.

Continental snow cover would advance to the equator, and the oceans would eventually
freeze, if there was a permanent drop in just 1.6 to 2.0 percent in energy reaching the
Earth.

Cork comes from the bark of trees. Specifically, it is harvested from the cork tree, which
takes more than ten years to produce one layer of cork.

Cows, rice fields, and garbage dumps are the largest producers of methane gas.

Desert plants, like cactus, developed pointy spines as protection from animals.

Distinct bands of rainy weather and clouds can form up to 240 miles ahead of a warm
front. These bands are parallel to the front, and are often about 125 miles long and 30
miles wide.

During a severe windstorm or rainstorm, the Empire State Building may sway several
feet to either side.

The average speed of an avalanche is 22 miles per hour.

The banana and the Bird-of-Paradise flower are in the same family.

Katharine Lee Bates wrote the words to the classic American anthem "America The
Beautiful" after her trip to the summit of Pikes Peak in 1893.

The banana cannot reproduce itself. It can be propagated only by the hand of man.

Leaves, collected in the fall and spring, are the easiest material to compost, and they
are the most common materials handled at yard waste facilities.

The baobab tree of Australia has a short, fat trunk that develops into a shape that is an
almost perfect replica of a bottle. It is known throughout Australia as the "bottle tree."

Life preservers and the lining of aviators' jackets used during World War II were made
from fiber found in milkweed pods.

The bark of the redwood tree is fireproof. Fires in redwood forests take place inside the
trees.

Lightning bolt charges can propagate for up to 100 miles; however, the actual channel
of lightning is rarely larger than the width of a pen.

The bleakest places on Earth are the two poles: the South Pole has no sunshine for 182
days each year; the North Pole does slightly better it has no sunlight for 176 days.

Lightning bolts generate temperatures five times hotter than the 6,000 degrees
Centigrade found at the surface of the sun.

The California redwood coast redwood and giant sequoia are the tallest and largest
living organism in the world.

Lightning has hit the Empire State Building in New York as frequently as 12 times in 20
minutes. The building is hit by lightning about 500 times a year.

The cirrus cloud, the highest type of cloud in altitude, contains extremely cold water at
-31 degrees Fahrenheit.

Lightning kills more people in the US than any other natural disaster: an average of 400
dead and 1,000 injured yearly.

The core of a upward lightning stroke is only a few inches across but can carry a current
of 100,000 amperes, enough to run nearly 8,000 electric toasters at the same time.

Lightning puts 10 million tons of nitrogen into the Earth each year.

The discovery of garnet often indicates that diamonds are nearby.

Lightning strikes the Earth 1,800 times at any moment.

Lightning travels 90,000 miles a second almost half the speed of light.

During a tornado in Ponca City, Oklahoma, a man and his wife were carried aloft in the
house by a tornado. The walls and roof were blown away, but the floor remained intact
and eventually glided downward, setting the couple safely back on the ground.

During midsummer, the radical leaves of the compass plant invariably point precisely
north and south.

During the 1900's, piggeries were developed in small- to medium-sized towns where
swine were fed fresh or cooked garbage in order to cut down on waste in landfills. One
environmental expert estimated that 75 pigs could consume 1 ton of refuse per day.

During the heating months of winter, the relative humidity of the average American
home is only 13 percent, nearly twice as dry as the Sahara Desert.

Each rain drop is made up of several million cloud droplets.

Each seed of the palm tree Lodoicea seychellarum weighs 30 pounds.

Each year, 9 million tons of salt, more than 10 percent of all the salt produced in the
world, is applied to American highways for road de-icing. The cost of buying and
applying the salt adds up to $200 million.

Eighty percent of the world's rose species come from Asia.

Eskimos use refrigerators to keep food from freezing.

The Earth radiates back into space as much heat as it receives from the sun. If this was
not so, the temperature on Earth would steadily rise and life would become impossible.

The Earth's orbit around the sun is not perfectly circular: it is slightly oval-shaped. In
the northern hemisphere, the Earth is about 3 million miles closer to the sun during the
winter than in the summer.

Living creatures create tiny weather systems called microclimates in their nests and
burrows. For instance, bees fan their wings at the hive entrance during hot weather.
This makes a cooling draft blow through the hive.

The energy released by a hurricane each day would, if converted to electricity, keep the
entire United States supplied with electrical power for up to three years.

Many parts of a tree can die without killing the whole tree. In fact, much of a normal,
healthy tree is dead the wood in the center, for example.

The fastest jet stream seen was found to be traveling at a speed of 408 miles per hour
at height of 154,200 feet above South Uist, Outer Hebrides, Scotland.

Melting ice absorbs almost as much energy in changing to liquid water as is needed to
heat the water from freezing to boiling.

The fastest temperature change on record is a rise of 49 degrees F in two minutes,


from -4 degrees to 45 degrees F. This occurred in Spearfish, South Dakota, January
1943, between 7:30 and 7:32 am.

Minus 40 degrees Celsius is exactly minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit. This is the only
temperature for which the readings on both scales are equal.

The female anglerfish is six times larger than her mate. The male anchors himself to
the top of her head and stays there for the rest of his life. They literally become one.
Their digestive and circulatory systems are merged. Except for two very large
generative organs and a few fins, nothing remains of the male.

Moist air holds heat better than dry, which is why nights in the desert are cool while
nights in the humid tropics are torrid.

The fiber of the stinging nettle was used to make the fine linen sheets upon which Mary,
Queen of Scots, slept.

More than 25 percent of the world's forests are in Siberia.

The first hurricane given a male name was "Bob," in July 1979.

More than 6,000 wrecked ships lay at the bottom of the Great Lakes. One of the better
known is The Edmund Fitzgerald. The ship sank on November 10, 1975 during a severe
storm on Lake Superior.

The flower of the Calla lily is 8 feet high and 12 feet wide. It is grown in Sumatra.

More than 71 million gallons of water pass over Victoria Falls in Africa every minute.

The fragrant patchouli is a member of the mint family.

More than 75 million people are estimated to have been killed by earthquakes in the
history of our planet.

Most gemstones contain several elements. Except the diamond it's all carbon.

Every day, 8.5 million tons of water evaporates from the Dead Sea, on the border
between Israel and Jordan.

Every second, a hurricane releases as much energy as the explosion of a Hiroshimatype atomic bomb.

Every three seconds, an area of the South American rain forest the size of a football
field is cut down.

Every time a ton of steel is recycled, it means 2,500 pounds of iron ore, 1,000 pounds
of coal, and 40 pounds of limestone will not have to be mined from the Earth.

Every time it erupts, Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park spurts up to 8,000 gallons
of 199-degree water about 140 feet into the air.

Fingernail polish often contains four or five chemicals the Environmental Protection
Agency calls potentially harmful. If a person bought fingernail polish in a 55-gallon
drum, the empty drum could not be legally thrown into a landfill. It would have to be
transported to the nearest state-regulated commercial hazardous-waste disposal
facility. As many as 350,000 nail-polish bottles find their way into the average U.S.
municipal waste landfill every year.

Fish can be susceptible to seasickness.

Fog is made up of tiny droplets between 1 and 10 microns across; mist droplets are
even smaller, less than 1 micron. One micron equals about 1/200th of the thickness of a
human hair.

Fogs over the seas on the Grand Banks, Newfoundland, Canada, can last for weeks on
end. These are the longest-enduring fogs recorded in the world.

Forty-six percent of the world's water is in the Pacific Ocean. The Atlantic has 23.9
percent; the Indian, 20.3; the Arctic, 3.7 percent.

The Fresh Kills Landfill site on Staten Island, New York, opened in 1948, is the world's
largest. It covers 3,000 acres and receives up to 14,000 tons of garbage a day. It is
scheduled to reach capacity and close by the year 2002.

When energy is used, it doesn't disappear; it merely goes elsewhere or is changed into
another form.

The General Sherman Tree in Sequoia National Park, California, is the largest tree in the
world. It weighs more than 6,000 tons.

Most landfilled trash retains its original weight, volume, and form for 40 years.

When viewed from above, rainbows are doughnut-shaped.

The Great Lakes are the most important inland waterway in North America. All the
lakes, except Lake Michigan, which lies entirely in the United States, are shared by the
United States and Canada and form part of the border between these countries.

Most plant pollen is highly inflammable. It will ignite and explode when placed on an
extremely hot surface. In the early days of modern theater, artificial lightning was
produced by throwing pollen grains of the club moss onto a hot shovel.

The Great Lakes contain 6 quadrillion gallons of fresh water, one-fifth of the world's
fresh surface water. The Great Lakes are the largest group of freshwater lakes in the
world.

Moving water rarely freezes solid.

Why do leaves change color?

The Great Lakes have a combined area of 94,230 square miles larger than the states
of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Vermont
combined.

Nationwide, U.S. experts say there are too few honeybees. This is cause for alarm, as
honeybees are the natural pollinators of all vine crops as well as certain nuts, some
citrus, and backyard apples. Up to 90 percent of feral bees have been killed off in the
northeast United States.

Why does it actually get warmer when it snows? Click Here to find out!

The Gulf Stream travels 111 miles across the Atlantic Ocean each day.

Nauru, a small island country in the Central Pacific once had one of the highest per
capita incomes in the world based on "guano," a phosphate-rich bird-poop. During the
19th century, Peru also did well selling guano to countries in Europe who bought it to
fertilize their fields.

Why is the sky blue? Click Here to find out!

The guppy gets its name from the man who discovered it and presented specimens to
the British Museum, naturalist R. J. L. Guppy of Trinidad.

Nearly 65 percent of America's aluminum cans are recycled.

Wind barriers such as hedges give protection downwind for a distance of up to ten
times the height of the barrier.

The highest ordinary type cloud is the cirrus, which occurs at an average altitude of
27,000 feet.

Next to wood, coal is the oldest of fuels. The Chinese mined it as long ago as 1000 B.C.
and used it to smelt iron and copper.

Without any greenhouse effect, Earth would be cold and lifeless with an average
temperature of 0.4 degrees Fahrenheit.

The highest temperature ever recorded on Earth was 136 degrees Fahrenheit on
September 13, 1992, in Azizia, Libya.

Ninety percent of all volcanic activity occurs in the oceans. In 1993, scientists located
the largest known concentration of active volcanoes on the sea floor in the South
Pacific. This area, the size of New York state, hosts 1,133 volcanic cones and sea
mounts. Two or three could erupt at any moment.

The highest tides in the world are in the Bay of Fundy in southeastern Canada. Tides
have reached 70 feet at the head of this bay.

No one has ever discovered two snowflakes with exactly the same crystal pattern.

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No true mosses grow in salt water.

From 70 to 80 percent of all ripe olives are grown in California's approximately 35,000
acres. In the 1700's, Franciscan monks brought olives to Mexico and then into California
by way of the missions. The first cuttings were planted in 1769 at the San Diego
Mission. Commercial cultivation of California olives began in the late 1800s. Today,
anywhere from 80,000 to 160,000 tons of olives are produced in California each year.

Gardenias and orange blossoms both smell terrific, but when placed together in the
same bouquet, they will neutralize each other's odor and there will be no smell at all.

Given their sheer volume, 99 percent of the living space on the planet is found in the
oceans. The average depth of the oceans is 2.5 miles (4 km). The deepest point lies in
the Mariana Trench, 6.8 miles (10.9 km) down. By way of comparison, Mount Everest is
only 5.5 miles (8.8 km) high.

Glaciers occupy 5.8 million square miles, or 10 percent of the world's land surface, as in
an area as large as South America.

Gold is the sixteenth most rare of the chemical elements.

Hail destroys hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of crops and property each year, a
greater toll than that taken by tornadoes.

Hot air can contain more water than cold air. In the tropics, air can hold as much water
vapor as the air in a sauna bath.

Hurricanes often cause between 3 to 6 inches of rain to fall in a short period. In 1921, a
hurricane deposited 23 inches on Texas in a day.

Hurricanes, cyclones, and typhoons spin counter-clockwise north of the equator, and
clockwise south of the equator. This is known as the Coriolis Effect.

Ice-fog containing minute ice crystals shines and glitters in sunlight. It is rather
colorfully known as 'diamond dust.' Ice fogs frequently occur around Alaska, where
temperatures may drop to -40 degrees Fahrenheit in winter.

The highest wind speed recorded at ground is at Mt. Washington, New Hampshire, on
April 12, 1934. The winds were three times as fast as those in a hurricanes.

The Hope diamond is the biggest (45.5 carats) blue diamond known in the world.

No truly freshwater fishes have reached Bermuda or could survive there, for all of the
ponds are brackish and the streams are temporary.

The jet streams blow from the west with such a power that eastbound airliners fly
across North America about an hour faster than airliners flying westward.

Oak trees are struck by lightning more often than any other tree. It has been theorized,
this is one reason that the ancient Greeks considered oak trees sacred to Zeus, god of
thunder and lightning.

The junk mail that Americans receive in one day could produce enough energy to heat
250,000 homes.

Oil of wintergreen does not come from the wintergreen plant but from the bark of the
sweet birch.

The largest known volcanic eruption occurred in Yellowstone Park when some 10,000
cubic kilometers of ejecta were spewed into the atmosphere. By comparison, Mount St.
Helens coughed up about one cubic kilometer of debris.

On a clear day with blue skies, lightning can jump outside of its parent cloud and travel
for more than five miles through clear air. This is called the "bolt from the blue"
phenomenon. The study of lightning is called keraunopathology.

The largest snowflake on record measured 8 inches in width.

On a hot afternoon, the atmosphere draws up 5,500 million gallons of water an hour
from the Gulf of Mexico.

The largest water eddy in the world is the Sargasso Sea, a huge slowly-revolving area
of water in the mid-Atlantic Ocean between the Azores and the West Indies.

On August 12, 1990, Typhoon Winona, combined with the summer holiday rush,
created the longest traffic jam in Japan's history, an 84-mile-long chaotic mess. About
15,000 vehicles were involved.

The longest lightning flashes measured have been 20 miles in length. Long flashes
occur most often by high clouds. The smallest flashes may measure less than 300 feet.

On March 16, 1952, 6 inches of rain fell in one day on the town of Cilaos in the Reunion
Islands.

The mistral wind of southern France once blew a string of locomotive cars from Arles to
Port-St.-Louis 25 miles away before the cars could be stopped.

One hurricane deposited enough water on Baquio on the Philippines to cover the entire
island to a depth of 3 feet.

The most destructive tornado on record occurred in Annapolis, Missouri. In 3 hours, it


tore through the town on March 18, 1925, leaving a 980-foot-wide trail of demolished
buildings, uprooted trees, and overturned cars. It left 823 people dead and almost
3,000 injured.

One-third of the solar energy reaching the Earth is used in evaporating water; about
95,000 cubic miles each year. This is equivalent to 30 lakes the size of Lake Superior.

Only about 1.6 percent of the water on Earth is fresh. Most of it is locked unusable
for living things in snow and the ice at the poles and on the peaks of the highest
mountains.

If there would be no greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the average temperature on


Earth would be 5 degrees Fahrenheit, instead of the present average of 57 degrees
Fahrenheit.

If all the Earth's atmosphere was moving at the speed of a light breeze, its total energy
would be equal to that generated by a large hydroelectric dam operating continuously
for 7,000 years.

If all the water in the atmosphere at any one time was to fall as rain, it would cover the
entire Earth's surface to a depth of 1 inch.

If all the water vapor in the Earth's atmosphere were condensed to liquid water at the
same time, there would be enough water to cover the United States (including Hawaii
and Alaska) with a 25-foot-deep layer of water.

If harnessed, the energy liberated by an average hurricane could supply the electrical
energy used in the U.S. during half a year.

If the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was doubled, the average
temperature of the Earth would rise by 4 degrees Fahrenheit. Many forecasters expect
carbon dioxide to double by the year 2025. The world would then be warmer than at
any time in the last 100,000 years.

If the Earth's axis was not tilted, there would be 12-hour days everywhere, and no
seasons. At the poles, the sun would always be on the horizon.

If the fresh water of the earth (only 1.6 percent of the water on the planet) was divided
equally among all the people on earth, each one would get 40 million gallons.

If today's ice caps melted completely, sea level would rise across the world by between
200 and 230 feet. This means the Statue of Liberty would be immersed up to her
armpits, and the clock face on the Houses of Parliament in London would be under
water.

In 1798, a mirage of the French coast was seen from Hastings, a town in Southern
England, 60 miles away. A hundred-mile stretch of the French coast from Calais to
Dieppe was seen clearly for three hours.

The most drought resistant tree is the baobab tree. It stores 35,900 gallons of water in
its trunk for later use.

The most intense hurricane to hit the Caribbean was Hurricane Gilbert in 1988. Wind
gusts were measured at over 200 miles per hour.

Only about 20 percent of diamonds are made into jewels. Because they are so hard,
most diamonds are used to make tools such as dental drills and metal cutters.

FIQUEI NA PAG.30 INCLUSIV


http://www.absolutetrivia.com/Environment/more30.shtml

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