For at least a few million years, since magma a hole under ancient Wyoming’s bedrock, Yellowstone periodically disgorged a small ocean of lava in eruptions hundreds of times worse than any recent volcanic explosion on earth. Today, volcanic action heats rock below the surface and this in turn creates all manner of thermal spectacle in thousands of steaming hot springs and hundreds of geysers, plus bubbling mud pots and fumaroles. Yellowstone, so extraordinary peculiar, was never to be ignored: In 1870, it was set aside by Congress as the world’s inaugural national park, the first place anywhere on the planet to be preserved simply because of what it naturally was. No one needs to worry about preserving the Mariana Trench since its situation is so remote and forbidding that it can be visited only in sea labs customized to go to the greatest. The Mariana, near Japan, is one of at least 22 trenches in the world’s oceans. Actually a series of ocean depressions, it claims the title as the lowest of the low. It is in fact the lowest location on earth. Just over 200 miles southwest of Guam is the Mariana’s Challenger Deep, the very floor of the trench. Named after a British vessel that explored it in 1951, it bottoms out at 36,201 feet—seven miles down. Consider: If Mount Everest sat in the Challenger Deep, there would still be nearly a mile and a half of seawater above its summit. Of course it is cold down there, but also warm in places due to conditions similar to those being produced in Yellowstone. Near hydrothermal vents, water is heated by acidic fluids from the planet’s core to temperatures of more than 500 degrees. The odd situation supports unusual forms of life: The Mariana Trench is one of the domains of the bizarre anglerfish met earlier in this book.
Countries and Statistics. South America
Here are the countries of South America, as well as their capitals,
