Tag: geography

  • Iran, Not Persia

    Iran, Not Persia

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in

    So if you’ve a date in Tehran, she’ll be waiting, in, well, Tehran. Happy Friday, all. On Monday I critiqued a graphic from Bloomberg about airstrikes in the Middle East. As we head into the weekend, I opted to pull one of my (many) atlases off the bookshelf, because I just wanted to see how…

  • Reticulating Splines

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in ,

    Happy Friday, all. In looking at my calendar the other day, I saw that in three weeks I will be in Appalachia for Orthodox Easter. That means driving through Pennsylvania’s Ridge and Valley region and then sleeping in the mountains. But wherefore the mountains? Thankfully, xkcd posted a map explaining why all the natural features.…

  • A View Beneath the Ice

    A View Beneath the Ice

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in ,

    I love maps. And above the ocean’s surface, we generally have accurate maps for Earth’s surface with only two notable exceptions. One is Greenland and its melting ice sheet is, in part, contributes to the emerging conflict between the United States and Denmark over the island’s future. The other? Antarctica. Parts of the East Antarctic…

  • Showing All 50

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in ,

    Those who know me know one of my pet peeves are when maps of the United States do not display Alaska and Hawaii. I even noted yesterday that those two states were so late of additions to the United States and it made sense as to why they were not included. So when I was…

  • Mt Greylock Cross Section

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in ,

    I spent the better part of the last two weeks travelling and hanging out in the Berkshires and Connecticut River Valley in western Massachusetts. One of the coolest experiences was driving up the automobile route for Mt Greylock, the tallest point in Massachusetts. Most of the drive itself was just regularly spectacular as the mid-morning…

  • But Where Are the Spiders?

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in ,

    Yesterday I mentioned more about revolutions, well today we’re talking about Mars, a planet that revolves around the Sun. Late last week scientists working with the InSight lander on the Red Planet published their findings. Turns out we need to rethink what we know about Mars. First, the planet is probably much older than Earth.…

  • The Changing Colours of Rivers

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in ,

    No two rivers are the same, though they certainly can be similar. Rivers have their own ecosystems and when I was at school, I learned of the different classifications of rivers by the colour of their water: black, white, and clear. Broadly speaking, that just means the amount of sediment dissolved in the river’s water.…

  • The Earth Is a Bit Bumpy

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in ,

    Last Friday I shared an xkcd post about the relative smoothness of the Earth. This week he posted an illustration but a slightly different scale. You can see more of Earth’s jagged edges. Gotta love the Star Trek reference. I’m betting he used the length of the Kelvin timeline Enterprise, which I personally dislike, as…

  • The Earth Is Actually Quite Smooth

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in ,

    At scale. Not quite as smooth as a billiards ball, as is often claimed. But still, with the majority of the Earth’s surface covered by water, the highest mountains of Everest and K2 make for mere fractions of differences in height relative to the Earth’s size. But that did not stop xkcd from making a…

  • A Map of Unequal Comparisons

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in ,

    I’ve largely been busy creating and posting content on the Covid pandemic and its impact on the Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware tristate area along with, by request, both Virginia, and Illinois, my former home. It leaves me very little time for blogging, and I really do not want this site to become a blog…