Hyperion California

Hyperion is a Coast Redwood, and has the distinction of being the tallest living organism ever measured. It is 379.3 feet tall. That’s 38 ...

Maelstroms

Maelstroms, hugely powerful whirlpools, have a long history in fiction as being terrible dangers to sailors. In real life there have never ...

Aurora

In my opinion there is no greater natural spectacle than the Aurorae. I first saw them while standing on a frozen lake in the north of Finl...

Mont Saint-Michel

Le Mont-Saint-Michel, perched on its tidal island, is a monastic fortress. Parts of the rampart on the south-west and south sides date fro...

The rain forest is a natural phenomenon

In the late 1990s ranchers stripped the forest in the Brazilian state of Acre, across the border from the Beni—only to find earthworks from...

Lilypads

The planet is warming, glaciers are melting and sea levels are rising, which means that people living in low-lying areas will be displaced ...

From mythological approaches to independent geological expertise

In former times, things used to be very different, and for most of human history the observation of geological phenomena and the acquisitio...