Tristan da Cunha : alone in the Atlantic

Tristan da Cunha  is a remote volcanic group of islands in the south Atlantic Ocean. It is the most remote inhabited island in the world, lying 2,816 kilometres (1,750 mi) from the nearest land, South Africa, and 3,360 kilometres (2,088 mi) from South America.

 The territory consists of the main island of Tristan da Cunha itself, which measures about 11.27 kilometres (7.0 mi) across and has an area of 98 square kilometres (37.8 sq mi), along with the uninhabited Nightingale Islands and the wildlife reserves of Inaccessible Island and Gough Island. It has a permanent population of 275. 

Tristan da Cunha is part of the British overseas territory of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha which also includes Saint Helena 2,430 kilometres (1,510 mi) to its north, and equatorial Ascension Island even farther removed, grouping the British South Atlantic islands into one far-flung centrally administered aggregate. 

The islands were first sighted in 1506 by Portuguese explorer Tristão da Cunha, although rough seas prevented a landing. He named the main island after himself, Ilha de Tristão da Cunha, which was later anglicised to Tristan da Cunha Island.

The 40 kms of coastline is exposed to the storm tossed seas, comprising magnificient basalt cliffs, some is rising steeply to 600 meters. The surrounding seas are rich in fish, providing Tristan da Cunha with one of its main sources of revenue - crawfish. Caught and deep frozen, the crawfish is shipped via South Africa to the United States and Japan, where it is much appreciated as a delicacy.

The other main source of income of the island is the sale of postage stamps, which are collected by numerous philatelists and collectors all over the world.

The Settlement of Edinburgh, the capital,  now numbers just over 300 proud and hospitable people with only seven surnames among them. Through the islanders veins flows the blood of English sailors from Nelson's fleet, Americans, Italians, Dutch and mulattos from St Helena and South Africa. English is the native tongue, albeit a slightly strange, preserved Georgian dialect laced with a few early Americanisms.

Tristan da Cunha with its neighbouring islands, Inaccessible and Nightingale, is an ornthologists dream with fourteen different types of petrel including the greater shearwater, the prion and the storm petrel; the rockhopper penguins; the yellowed-nosed albatross and the wandering albatross.

The Settlement of Edinburgh has a distict air of yesteryear about it, although it has all the moderna conveniences of mains water, electricity and sanitation. There is a small but interesting museum, a craft shop, a swimmingpool and a radio-station. There are old style local shops, and a large supermarket.

Life in Tristan da Cunha has strong family loyalties and high moral standards. The island is self supporting with a thriving economy, the people well provided for with income tax less than a pound per annum. Serious crime is unknown, unemployment is virtually non-existent. In 1961 a dramatic volcanic eruption forced the evacuation of the entire island, They were taken to what we glibly refer to as 'civilisation'. Almost all chose to return to the island when the the eruption was over.

Gates of hell in Turkmenistan

In the hot, expansive Karakum desert in Turkmenistan, near the 350 person village of Derweze, is a hole 328 feet wide that has been on fire.

This hole is known as the Darvaza Gas Crater or the "Gates of Hells" by locals, the crater can be seen glowing for miles around.

The hole is the outcome not of nature but of an industrial accident. In 1971 a Soviet drilling rig accidentally punched into a massive underground natural gas cavern, causing the ground to collapse and the entire drilling rig to fall in. Having punctured a pocket of gas, poisonous fumes began leaking from the hole at an alarming rate. To head off a potential environmental catastrophe, the Soviets set the hole alight. The crater hasn't stopped burning since.

Turkmenistan plans to increase its production of natural gas. In April 2010, the President of Turkmenistan visited the site and ordered that the hole should be closed, or other measures be taken to limit its influence on the development of other natural gas fields in the area.

Though little information is available about the fate of the Soviet drilling rig, presumably it is still down there somewhere, on the other side of the "Gates of Hell." 

Mirny : World’s Biggest Diamond Mine

Mirny Mine is an open pit diamond mine located in Mirny, Eastern Siberia, Russia. The mine is 525 meters  deep (4th in the world) and has a diameter of 1,200 m and is the second largest excavated hole in the world, after Bingham Canyon Mine.

The mine is so big and giat that the airspace above the mine is closed for helicopters because of a few incidents in which they were sucked in by the downward air flow.

The mine was discovered on June 13, 1955 by Soviet geologists Yuri Khabardin, Ekaterina Elagina and Viktor Avdeenko during the large Amakinsky Expedition in Yakut ASSR. They found traces of volcanic rock kimberlite which are usually associated with diamonds.For this discovery, in 1957 Khabardin was given the Lenin Prize, which was one of the highest awards in the Soviet Union.

To give an idea how big it is here is is a fine illustration.

The development of the mine had started in 1957 in extremely harsh climate conditions. Seven months of winter per year froze the ground, which was hard in winter, but turned into sludge in summer. The entire mine had to be covered at night to prevent the machinery from freezing.

In the 1960s the mine was producing 10,000,000 carats (2,000 kg) of diamond per year, but the production rate slowed to 2,000,000 carats (400 kg) per year near the pit bottom. The largest diamond of the mine was found on 23 December 1980; it weighed 342.5 carats (68 g). The mine operation was interrupted in 1990s at a depth of 340 m after the pit bottom became flooded but resumed later.

The Mir mine was the first and the largest diamond mine in the Soviet Union. Its surface operation lasted 44 years, finally closing in June 2001. After the collapse of the USSR, in the 1990s, the mine was operated by the Sakha diamond company, which reported annual profits in excess of $600 million from diamond sales.

Currently, the mine is operated by Alrosa, the largest diamond producing company in Russia, and employs 3600 workers. It has long been anticipated that the recovery of diamonds by conventional surface methods will saturate. Therefore, in 1970s construction has started of a network of underground tunnels for diamond recovery. Production of diamonds by this method started in 1999 and is estimated to last for another 27 years. This estimate is based on depth explorations down to 1220 meters. In order to stabilize the abandoned main pit, its bottom was covered by a rubble layer 45 meters thick.

Atacama Desert : 1 millimetre rainfall per year

The Atacama Desert is a plateau in South America, covering a 600-mile (1,000 km) strip of land on the Pacific coast of South America, west of the Andes mountains. The Atacama occupies 40,600 square miles (105,000 km²) in northern Chile, composed mostly of salt basins, sand, and felsic lava flows towards the Andes.

Atacama Desert is commonly known as the driest place in the world. These incredibly dry mountains see an average of less than .004 inches/.01cm of rain per year. Many times this area will go without rainfall at all for years. Some places in the Atacama Desert have not had rainfall for over 400 years. 

Unlike more familiar deserts, like the Sahara desert in Africa and the Mojave in California, the Atacama is actually a pretty cold place, with average daily temperatures ranging between 0°C and 25°C.

Because of its high altitude, nearly non-existent cloud cover, dry air, and lack of light pollution and radio interference from the very widely spaced cities, the desert is one of the best places in the world to conduct astronomical observations. The European Southern Observatory operates two major observatories in the Atacama: The La Silla Observatory and the Paranal Observatory, which includes the Very Large Telescope. A new radio astronomy telescope, called ALMA, is being built by Europe, Japan, the United States, Canada and Chile in the Llano de Chajnantor Observatory. A number of radio astronomy projects, such as the CBI, the ASTE and the ACT, among others, have been operating in the Chajnantor area since 1999.

      Paranal Observatory

For the most part, Atacama is a pretty lonely place. Humans have lived in the Atacama for many thousands of years, based on the cultural relics and artifacts that archaeologists have found. The South American Indians who have set up housekeeping in the desert over the millennia have left relics from their culture and even themselves. Because the Atacama is so bone-dry the bodies of the buried indians have dried perfectly preserved turning them into mummies. Some of the oldest mummies found anywhere on earth have come from the Atacama Desert and have been dated to be 9,000 years old.

The desert has rich deposits of copper and other minerals, and the world's largest natural supply of sodium nitrate, which was mined on a large scale until the early 1940s. The Atacama border dispute over these resources between Chile and Bolivia began in the 19th century.

A reason that the Atacama doesn't get enough rainfall is because of a phenomenon called rainshadow. The warm, moist tropical air that blows on the tradewinds from the east, which douse the South American rainforest, get hung-up on the east side of the Andes. The mountains are so high in altitude that the air cools, condenses and rains (or snows) on the mountains. As the air descends the other side of the mountain range it warms, holding in its moisture preventing rain from falling on to the ground below.

This is one of the reasons why the Amazon basin and river are the largest anywhere in the world. The mountains that cause the Amazon to be the largest river from collecting all the rainfall are also responsible for preventing the Atacama from ever receiving any rainfall. The driest and one of the wettest places in the world are right next to each other.

Kansai International Airport : landing in the sea

Kansai International Airport (KIX) is the main international airport of Japan's Kansai region, including the cities of Osaka, Kyoto and Kobe.

Kansai International Airport was built at exorbitant cost on an artificial island in Osaka Bay, some 40 kilometers to the south of the city of Osaka.

The airport's single terminal, designed by star Italian architect Renzo Piano, is reputedly the longest building in the world at 1.7 kilometers, over one mile, from end to end. Arrivals are on the 1st floor, while departures are from the 4th floor.

      Kansai International Airport's terminal

Kansai opened in 1994 to relieve undercapacity at Osaka International Airport, which is closer to the city of Osaka and now handles only domestic flights.The second runway was opened on 2 August 2007. Kansai Airport has become an Asian hub, with 499 weekly flights to Asia, 66 weekly flights to Europe and the Middle East, and 35 weekly flights to North America. It was ranked 4th overall in the Airport of the Year 2006 awards named by Skytrax, after Singapore Changi Airport, Hong Kong International Airport and Munich Airport.

The construction of the man-made island, 4 km (2.5 mi) long and 2.5 km (1.6 mi) wide started in 1987.Engineers needed to overcome the extremely high risks of earthquakes and typhoons (with storm surges of up to 3 m (10 ft).The sea wall was finished in 1989 (made of rock and 48,000 tetrahedral concrete blocks). In 1990, a three kilometer bridge was completed to connect the island to the mainland at Rinku Town, at a cost of $1 billion.

                      Kansai Airport's access bridge

The total cost of Kansai Airport so far is $20 billion. This includes land reclamation, two runways, terminal and facilities. Most additional costs were initially due to the island sinking, expected due to the soft soils of Osaka Bay. After construction the rate of sinking was considered so severe that the airport was widely criticized as a geotechnical engineering disaster. The sink rate has since fallen from 50 cm (20 in) during 1994 to 7 cm (2.8 in) in 2008.

       Tower control

      Inside Terminal building