The Great Rift Valley is the vast geographic depression that runs from the Jordan River Valley in Syria, South-western Asia to Mozambique in eastern Africa. The valley is approximately 6000 km, and its width varies from a few miles to more than one hundred miles. Its elevation varies from 1300 feet below sea level to 6000 feet above sea level. …

Guano is accumulated dung or excrement and remains of seabirds, bats and seals found along certain coastal areas and caves. It’s found mainly on the coastal islands of Peru, Africa, Chile and the West Indies. It contains about 6% phosphorus, 9% nitrogen, 2% potassium and moisture. Guano is found mixed with feathers and bones and used mainly as a fertilizer. …

Teasels are used in the making of woollen cloth. The common teasel grows wild in England and Wales and southern parth of Scotland. It is also found in Europe, Asia and North Africa. The teasel has large prickly flower heads which remain on the dead stems throughout winter. The actual flowers are tiny deep lilac clorets and round the base …

Movements of plates in the top layers of the Earth’s crust create enormous tension, which sometimes makes long cracks, or faults, in rocks. Continuing tugging movements make blocks of land sink down between roughly parallel sets of faults, forming troughs called rift valleys. The world’s biggest rift valley runs from south-eastern Africa, through East Africa and the Red Sea to …

When the huge plates that cover the Earth move, they create enormous tension that cracks rocks, forming long faults. Blocks of land pushed up between roughly parallel sets of faults form block mountains. Examples include the Ruwenzori Mountain range in Central Africa and the Sierra Nevada in the south-western USA.

In about 1500 B.C., Queen Hatshepsut of Egypt sent a fleet to the ‘Land of Punt’. No-one is sure where Punt was, but experts think the Egyptian sailors ventured out of the Mediterranean and sailed south along the coast of Africa. Astonishing voyages were also made by Arab and Chinese explorers. People from Asia reached Australia 25,000 years ago, by …

Many waterfalls occur where rivers flow over hard rocks which overlie softer ones. The hard rocks resist erosion, while the softer rocks are worn away. The hard lip of the waterfall often overhangs the softer rocks and slabs of hard rock sometimes break off and crash downwards. In this way, waterfalls, like southern Africa’s Victoria Falls (whose African name means …

International Telecommunication Union (ITU) recommendation defines the international public telecommunication numbering plan used in the PSTN. It also defines the format of phone numbers. As per these recommendations, numbers can have a maximum of 15 digits and are usually written with a + prefix. CCITT, the predecessor of the ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector, developed the first formal list of telephone …

Trees do not grow on mountain tops either because the situation is too exposed, or because the soil is too thin or too frozen to allow their roots to draw nourishment from the ground. In most mountainous areas there is usually a clearly marked timberline, a boundary above which there is no tree growth. Sometimes the height of the timberline …

Bono — Paul David Hewson famously known as Bono was born in the Rotunda Hospital, Dublin on 10 May 1960. He was raised in Glasnevin with his brother, Norman Robert Hewson (who is eight years older than Bono), by their mother Iris, a Church of Ireland Anglican, and their father Brendan Robert “Bob” Hewson, a Roman Catholic. His parents initially …