DK - WOW! The Visual Encyclopedia of Everything

159 The surface of the lava cools to form a wrinkled or rough, fractured skin of solid black rock The lava that erupts on Hawaii ...

160 MEXICO CITY 1985 Mexico’s capital city is built on the dried- out clay bed of an ancient lake. The earthquake that hit the c ...

161 KOBE 1995 Japan was created by intense earth movements in the western Pacific, and it has more earthquakes than almost anywh ...

The world’s mountains were raised by the titanic forces that keep the plates of Earth’s crust moving. Where the plates grind tog ...

163 Mont Blanc can rise The icy summit of 16 m (52 ft) above its The frosty crags of Vinson highest rocky peak Massif pierce the ...

The oceans cover more than two-thirds of the surface of Earth, with an average depth of 3.8 km (2.4 miles), but they are not jus ...

165 INDIAN OCEAN This mainly tropical ocean is notorious for the tsunami that swept across it from Sumatra in 2004. It had a ser ...

ROCKS AND MINERALSRocks are mixtures of natural chemical compounds called minerals, which form crystals with distinctive shapes. ...

167 15 14 8 10 9 13 18 23 19 11 20 22 24 16 17 21 166_167_Rocks.indd 167 03/01/19 12:10 PM ...

168 Golden sapphire is a golden form of blue sapphire. Brown tourmaline is one of hundreds of the gem’s colours. Chrysoberyl can ...

169 Danburite is named for the US city of Danbury. Blue spinel, also called cobalt spinel, is rare. Pink sapphire is the same ge ...

170 Metals are minerals with a closely packed atomic structure, which makes them excellent conductors of electricity and heat. M ...

171 Cassiterite (tin ore) Bauxite (aluminium ore) Tin can Stainless steel hip replacement Mercury thermometer A deep-sea Alumini ...

The remains, impressions, or traces of organisms (such as plants and animals) that have been preserved in the rocks are known as ...

Mammoth tooth found on the bed of the North Sea shows the sea was once dry land 173 CENOZOIC ERA (RECENT LIFE) Non-bird dinosaur ...

Long ago, life on Earth was dominated by the dinosaurs, a group of reptiles that included huge, lumbering plant-eaters and fears ...

175 (^7) STEGOSAURUS Stegosaurus fed on plants in what is now North America and Europe, 155–150 million years ago. Scientists st ...

176 FLOODS ▶ Heavy rain can swell rivers until they overflow their banks, flooding nearby low-lying land. The water may rise slo ...

WEATHER Driven by the heat of the Sun, circulating currents of air swirl through the lower atmosphere, creating the winds that c ...

◀ SAND-BLASTING In deserts, the wind picks up grains of sand and hurls them against bare rock, scouring the surface and widening ...