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Philippines
Traded Blame Over Sea Collision
On Monday morning, Philippine officials said Chinese vessels “intentionally hit” Philippine boats over the weekend, escalating diplomatic tensions in the South China Sea. The countries have traded blame over the incident near Second Thomas Shoal in the Spratly Islands, with both sides releasing videos to support their accusations. Second Thomas Shoal is about 124 miles (200 km) from the western Philippine island of Palawan, and more than 620 miles (1,000 km) from China’s nearest major landmass, Hainan island. The two collisions occurred during a Philippine resupply mission to troops stationed on a navy vessel that was grounded on the shoal in 1999 to assert Manila’s territorial claims. Philippine officials called the “dangerous maneuvering” that resulted in collisions with a Philippine resupply boat and a Philippine Coast Guard vessel deliberate. Chinese officials accuse the Philippines of spreading false information and “hyping things up.”
This map depicts the territorial claims made by several countries in the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. Click on the map to learn more.
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Graphic Source: Barron’s
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Democratic Republic of the Congo
Fighting Resumes near Rwanda
Violent fighting broke out over the weekend between M23 rebels and pro-government soldiers and armed groups in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, once again shifting the balance of power in a strategic town near the Rwandan border. “The rebels are in Kitshanga and we are trying to find a way to retake the town. The war is not going to stop, we’re going to carry on”, said a spokesman for one of the armed groups, who describe themselves as “patriots” fighting the rebels. Kitshanga, located at a crossroads in the Masisi region, is 50 mi (80 km) north-west of the provincial capital Goma. The town has changed hands several times since 2012, the beginning of the M23 (March 23 Movement), a Tutsi-dominated rebellion supported by Rwanda.
This map depicts the location of Kitshanga in the northeastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Click on the map to learn more.
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Graphic Source: BBC
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United States
Supervolcano Cooling
Geologists from the California Institute of Technology have used seismic data to produce high-resolution images of the Earth beneath California’s Long Valley Caldera. Analysis of this data published in a study in the journal Science Advances has revealed the underground supervolcano there is cooling, but still has the potential to produce earthquakes. To collect the information about the caldera’s underground structure, the CalTech team measured over 2,000 seismic events using a 62-mile (100 km) cable fitted with 10,000 sensors stretched along the ground, in a new process called Distributed Acoustic Sensing. Formed around 760,000 years ago by a massive eruption that spread hot ash as far away as Nebraska, the Long Valley Caldera supervolcano is among three California underground volcanos classified as “very high threat” by the US Geological Survey. This assessment is based not on the relative risk of an eruption, but on the numbers of people and amount of property that would be threatened if an eruption did occur.
This map depicts the study area examined by a team from Caltech to image the underground structure of California’s Long Valley Caldera. The study found that the supervolcano beneath is cooling, though it still has potential to produce earthquakes. Click on the map to learn more.
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Q: The ancient Egyptians constructed their calendar around what natural occurrence?
A: Flooding
Every aspect of life in Egypt depended on the river – the Nile provided food and resources, land for agriculture, a means of travel, and was critical in the transportation of materials for building projects. It was a critical lifeline that literally brought life to the desert. The flooding of the Nile is the result of the yearly monsoon between May and August, causing enormous precipitation on the Ethiopian Highlands. Between July and November, the reaches of the Nile running through Egypt would burst their banks and cover the adjacent floodplain. When the waters receded, around September or October, they left behind a rich alluvial deposit of exceptionally fertile black silt over the croplands. Kemet or, “black land,” denotes the rich, fertile land of the Nile Valley, while Deshret, or “red land,” refers to the hot, dry desert. The Egyptians constructed their calendar around the yearly cycle of the Nile. It included three main seasons: Akhet, the period of the Nile’s inundation, Peret, the growing season, and Shemu, harvest season. The Egyptians made Nilometers (large columns or wells) to measure and track the height of the annual inundation – they used the recorded readings from these Nilometers much like more contemporary farmers would use almanacs. In the Ancient Egyptian religion, Hapi was the god of the Nile and its annual flooding, and represented fertility. The annual flooding of the Nile occasionally was said to be the Arrival of Hapi.
Source
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Q: Alexander the Great, king of Macedonia, overthrew what empire as he laid the foundations for the subsequent Hellenistic world of territorial kingdoms?
Stay tuned for the answer to today’s question in tomorrow’s DailyGeo.
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