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France
New Caledonia Evacuations
The Australian and New Zealand governments announced Tuesday they were sending planes to evacuate their nationals from New Caledonia, amid violent unrest over a voting reform rejected by indigenous Kanaks. Australia and New Zealand sent an initial batch of planes to Noumea Magenta airport, prioritizing passengers based on need, with subsequent flights promised in coming days. Six people have died and hundreds more have been injured in New Caledonia since riots erupted last week after controversial electoral reforms passed in Paris. Indigenous Kanaks, who represent some 40 percent of the population, say the latest voting regulations would dilute their political influence. Over 270 rioters have been arrested as of Tuesday, and a 6pm-6am curfew is in effect. France has sent over a thousand security officers, with hundreds more due to arrive Tuesday.
This map depicts the French overseas territory of New Caledonia, where riots over an electoral reform said to dilute the political influence of the indigenous Kanak people have occurred over the past week. Click on the map to learn more.
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Graphic Source: Le Monde
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United States
Ship Moved From Bridge Collapse
The container ship that struck the Key Bridge in Baltimore on March 26th has been refloated and removed from the crash site. After reportedly losing power and steering, the vessel Dali collided with one of the bridge’s support columns and became stuck under the collapse, blocking ship traffic in the Port of Baltimore. On May 14th, a new deep-water channel was opened to allow vessel traffic to resume, but the ship and crew remained in place. Almost two months after the accident, a multiagency effort requiring several tugboats pulled the 106,000-ton ship to the Seagirt Marine Terminal in Baltimore. The crew, coming from India and Sri Lanka, is expected to remain onboard during the vessel’s travels for repairs as their visas that allow them onshore have expired. The channel will be opened to its original width of 700 feet (213 m) once bridge debris is removed from the site, resuming all commercial ship operations.
This map depicts the location of the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge and vessels in proximity of the site. Click on the map to learn more.
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Space
Anomaly in Earth’s Magnetotail
Scientists at the US-based Southwest Research Institute (SWRI) have released a report about an unusual occurence in the tail of Earth’s magnetic field that occured in 2017. The “magnetotail” is like a long shadow of the magnetic field that trails our planet’s wake, and it’s in this tail that the lines of the magnetic field frequently connect, break apart, and reconnect again, creating energy “flurries” called substorms. These same flurries, when they occur close to Earth, are what cause auroras. However, in 2017, NASA’s Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission, a series of four satellites launched in 2015 that study Earth’s outer magnetic field, detected something ususual. They found the signature of a substorm – a magnetic reconnection in the magnetotail – without the accompanying violent electrical currents and fluctuations in the field. The team at SWRI haven’t explained this anomaly, but are now planning to use the MMS to take further measurements of magnetic reconnections and compare those with simulations being prepared by researchers on the ground.
This map depicts Earth’s magnetosphere, including the trailing magnetotail, where a system of research satellites tracked an anomolous magnetic reconnection that was not accompanied by the expected violent electric substorm.. Click on the map to learn more.
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Q: What is the largest and most populated island of the Mediterranean Sea?
A: Sicily
Sicily, an island off southern Italy, is the largest and one of the most densely populated islands in the Mediterranean Sea. Over 4.8 million people live in an area of 9,974 square miles (25,832 km2). Together with the Egadi, Lipari, Pelagie, and Panteleria islands, Sicily forms an autonomous region of Italy. It lies about 100 miles (160 km) northeast of Tunisia (northern Africa). Its strategic location at the center of the Mediterranean has made the island a crossroads of history, a pawn of conquest and empire, and a melting pot for a dozen or more ethnic groups whose warriors or merchants sought its shores. It retains many characteristics of more rural regions bred of its isolation and distance from mainland Italy.
Source
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Q: What country is home to the Black Sea’s largest port?
Stay tuned for the answer to today’s question in tomorrow’s DailyGeo.
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