Guinness World Records 2018

EARTH LARGEST GLACIAL ERRATIC BOULDER Glacial erratics are rocks that have been carried by glaciers before being deposited on th ...

HEAVIEST... Naturally occurring element In 1971, US scientist Darleane Hoffman published her discovery of small amounts of pluto ...

EARTH LIGHTEST METAL THAT IS LIQUID NEAR ROOM TEMPERATURE Discovered in  18 75, the unusual metal gallium (Ga) possesses an atom ...

Tectonics EARTH LARGEST AND SMALLEST TECTONIC PLATES The Earth’s rocky outer shell is broken into large pieces called “plates”, ...

EARTH LONGEST EARTHQUAKE The Sumatra-Andaman Islands earthquake in the Indian Ocean, on 26 Dec 2004, was the longest-lasting eve ...

Warmest month on record On 12 Sep 2016, NASA revealed that the warmest months on record were Jul and Aug 2016. The analysis by s ...

EARTH LARGEST DARK-SKY PRESERVE On 28 Jun 2013, Wood Buffalo National Park in Canada was declared a dark-sky preserve by the Roy ...

Wildfires EARTH WILDFIRES The picture above shows a wildfire in Brazil’s Cerrado ecoregion. Such conflagrations are usually man- ...

EARTH LARGEST WILDFIRE (CURRENT) According to Greenpeace, as of Jun 2016 wildfires covered some 35,000 km² (13,513 sq mi) of Sib ...

Fungi EARTH MOST EXPENSIVE FUNGUS The edible white truffle (Tuber magnatum pico) is the world’s priciest fungus, commanding up t ...

EARTH HEAVIEST EDIBLE FUNGUS On 15 Oct 1990, Giovanni Paba of Broadstone, Dorset, UK, found a huge “chicken of the woods” mushro ...

“marine snow”. One 40-tonne (88,000-lb) whale carcass provides a source of carbon equivalent to 100–200 years’ worth of marine s ...

EARTH DEEPEST MANNED DESCENT On  23  Jan 1960, Dr Jacques Piccard (CHE, top) and Lt Donald Walsh (USA, bottom) piloted the Swiss ...

Earth Round-Up EARTH MOST LETHAL SMOG The term “smog” derives from the words “smoke” and “fog”. On 5–9 Dec 1952, London experien ...

EARTH LARGEST MUD VOLCANO ERUPTION Since May 2006, a mud volcano has been erupting in East Java, Indonesia. Expelling a mixture ...

0–6 m 6–30 m Average height of a human 1.66 m (5 ft 5 in) Zeng Jinlian (1964–82) of Yujiang village in the Bright Moon Commune, ...

In Feb 2008, residents of Bethel in Maine, USA, built a snowman (named Olympia, so technically a snowwoman) measuring 37.21 m (1 ...

Animals Researchers estimate that there may be as many as 1 trillion species of micro and macro lifeforms on Earth. A single spo ...

ANIMALS CONTENTS Beetles............................ 40 Deer............................... 42 Eagles........................... ...

Largest taxonomic group The term “taxonomy” refers to the scientific classification of organisms. Beetles constitute the taxonom ...