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South Africa
78 Dead in Gold Mine Crackdown
Rescuers have pulled at least 78 dead miners and 166 survivors from a previously-abandoned South African gold mine, where they have languished for over two months during a standoff with authorities who demanded they surrender to police because they were mining illegally. Hundreds are still believed to be trapped, and the death toll is expected to rise in a disaster that has focused criticism on the South African government’s decision force the miners out by cutting off food and supplies. All 166 of the survivors rescued so far have been immediately arrested and charged with criminal offenses including illegal immigration, trespass, and illegal mining. Most of the workers are undocumented migrants from Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Lesotho. The death toll makes the crackdown on the Stilfontein mine one of the deadliest in recent South African history.
This map depicts the location of the gold mine in Stilfontein, South Africa, where police have been in a months-long standoff with miners operating illegally. Click on the map to learn more.
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Graphic Source: BBC
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Ukraine
Pokrovsk Coal Mine Closing
The Ukrainian company Metinvest has announced the closure of the Pokrovsk coal mine as Russian troops advance in eastern Ukraine. The Pokrovsk coal mine provided crucial coking coal for the Ukrainian steel industry, making it highly important for the domestic production of weapons in Ukraine. Metal and steel exports were also Ukraine’s second-largest export last year. The mine had operated for an extended period of time under Russian shelling, with miners who stayed over the past few months receiving pay raises for the dangerous conditions. Despite heavy losses, the Russian army has maintained a slow but steady advance in eastern Ukraine, where it recently claimed to have fully captured Kurakhove. Russian forces have been observed massing southwest of the city of Pokrovsk, indicating they may be making a push to take the city.
This map depicts the portion of the eastern front of the Russia-Ukraine war near the Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk, where a mine crucial to Ukrainian industry was recently closed in anticipation of the Russian advance. Click on the map to learn more.
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Graphic Source: Meduza
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World
Subterranean Forms Under Pacific
Scientists from the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich (ETH Zurich) have discovered a new rock structure in the lower mantle beneath the western Pacific that defies previous geological understanding of the area. Without the ability to see or drill into the Earth’s mantle, the thickest layer of the Earth that sits immediately below the crust, researchers can only assess the composition of the deepest parts of the Earth through analysis of waves produced by earthquakes passing through to the opposite side of the Earth and captured on seismographs. New readings have indicated the presence of “slabs” beneath the western Pacific that bear the appearance of areas where portions of the Earth’s outer crust have been forced beneath the surface, but there is no evidence of such a geological event having happened there. The ETH Zurich team recently published a study in the journal Scientific Reports, describing how the structures were discovered using a process of “full-waveform inversion” – using Switzerland’s Piz Daint supercomputer to stitch together multiple seismological readings to build a 3D model of the Earth.
This 3D map depicts the recently discovered unexpected rock structures in the Earth’s mantle under the western Pacific as a blue blob on the right. The 3D map was produced by running multiple seismological readings through a Swiss supercomputer. Click on the map to learn more.
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Q: What was the last country to be colonized by Britain?
A: Hong Kong
Britain acquired Hong Kong Island under the Treaty of Nanking (Nanjing) in 1842 at the end of its first war with China. Friction between China and the West, however, increased in 1850 when a new emperor assumed the throne in Beijing, and it became clear the treaties were not being observed. Another war, fought between 1856 and 1860, resulted in Britain’s obtaining the tip of the Kowloon Peninsula and Stonecutters Island. By the last quarter of the 19th century, Hong Kong had developed as a British Crown Colony. British and Chinese negotiations concluded in 1984 with the signing of the Joint Declaration, which ultimately led to the formal transformation of Hong Kong into a Special Administrative Region of China in 1997.
Source
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Q: From the late 16th century to the early 19th century, Spanish trans-Pacific routes connected Manila in the Philippines with what Latin American city?
Stay tuned for the answer to today’s question in tomorrow’s DailyGeo.
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