Beautiful World

Costa Rica’s pristine ‘Shark Island’ now a massive marine reserve Three times the size of the country’s mainland, the reserve’s abundance of sharks, whales, turtles, and other marine life has been described as an “underwater Jurassic Park.”

The Pacific Ocean is Earth’s largest ocean basin.
It covers about 63 million square miles, after all.

The wettest place in the world is Mawsynram.
When it comes to annual rainfall, Mawsynram, India takes the cake with over 10,000 millimeters of rain per year. You can thank monsoon season for that!

The most snowfall per year happens in Japan.
Surprising? Perhaps, but Aomori City, Japan may just be the snowiest place in the world. On average, Aomori City experiences 312 inches of snowfall annually.

The world’s largest living structures are coral reefs.
What’s a living structure, you ask? Well, a coral reef is, in fact, alive. According to NOAA, coral reefs are a crucial part to thousands of species per unit of any of the other ecosystems on Earth.

Oceans cover about 70 percent of Earth’s surface.
According to NOAA, about 70 percent of the surface of Earth is covered in oceans.

However, humans haven’t even discovered all of Earth’s oceans.
But that doesn’t mean we’ve explored it all! The NOAA adds that we—meaning, humans—have only discovered about 20 percent of Earth’s waters.

The largest earthquake to hit Earth occurred in Chile.
With a massive magnitude of 9.5, the world’s largest earthquake took place in Bio-Bio, Chile on May 22, 1960.

About 20 percent of the U.S. is a coastline.
However, that’s not including Alaska.

Stromboli Volcano is the world’s most active volcano.
Contrary to popular belief, of course, as historically, Kilauea—in Hawaii—has been recorded as such. But it’s not true. Located off the coast of Italy, the aptly-named Stromboli Volcano has been non-stop erupting for more than 2,000 years.

Rocks have been known to “walk” at The Racetrack Playa, Death Valley.
In a specific part of Death Valley National Park in California—known as The Racetrack Playa or The Racetrack—rocks have been known to “walk” on their own. According to NASA, these ice-encrusted “sailing stones” as they’re called retain meltwater from the hills above, allowing the wind to pick them up and throw them around. This phenomenon has been known to leave “racetrack” imprints on the ground—hence its moniker.

Glaciers are retreating, causing sea levels to rise.
It’s one of the many terrible effects of climate change. That also means that we’re losing a lot of the world’s freshwater.

The moon experiences moonquakes, just as Earth experiences earthquakes.
Moonquakes, however, aren’t nearly as powerful as earthquakes, but they are, in fact, caused by the moon’s tidal relationship with Earth.

We don’t actually know what the tallest mountain on Earth is.
But we can narrow it down to two! Mount Everest’s summit is higher above sea level than the summit of any other—about 29,029 feet high. But Everest is actually, technically tied with Mauna Kea because when measured from the base of the summit below sea level to its top point, Mauna Kea measures 56,000 feet.

Some hikers have summited Everest without oxygen.
Speaking of Mount Everest, did you know that people have actually climbed the mountain without the help of oxygen before? Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler became the first to do so on May 8, 1978, according to Respiratory Physiology and Neurobiology.

‘A forest on caffeine’? How coffee can help forests grow faster Waste left over from the coffee-making process can jolt destroyed forests back to life.