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Monday, September 30, 2013

Mapping Global Climate Change in Google Earth


Interesting piece on the Google Earth Blog. Some interesting maps related to climate change, including one titled: "The Rise, Fall and Migration of Civilization due to Climate Change."


Sunday, September 29, 2013

What Did the Continents Look Like Millions of Years Ago?


Excellent article where an artist-geologist renders the history of the Earth with maps
.
Read the full article from The Atlantic at:

What Did the Continents Look Like Millions of Years Ago?

The next three sequences show the evolution of the Earth's surface in reverse, from the present day to, at the very bottom, 600 million years ago, when nearly all of the planet's landmasses were joined together in the Antarctic. The first sequence shows roughly 90 million years of backward evolution, the continents pulling apart from one another and beginning a slow drift south. They were mapped using the Mollweide projection, and, in all cases, are by Ron Blakey.


[This post was originally published at V-e-n-u-e.com, an Atlantic partner site.]

Saturday, September 28, 2013

5 Unconventional Maps to Get Lost In

Posted by: Aaron Weyenberg


From the earliest days of human exploration we’ve made progressively more accurate and sophisticated maps. Maps help us find our way around the world we live in. Maps help us get to our destination. Maps keep us from becoming lost.

But what if you have no destination? What if becoming lost is the point? Well, there’s a map for that. Lots of them, actually.

See the TEDTalk: Eric Berlow and Sean Gourley: Mapping ideas worth spreading

Unconventional maps are on the mind today because today’s talk features one. TED Fellows Eric Berlow and Sean Gourley share how they created a map of the TEDx Universe – which looks a bit like an everlasting gobstopper — out of the diverse ideas expressed at TEDx events. The pair got the idea to create this map upon discovering that they had both spoken at TED conferences. They decided to use the YouTube transcripts of 24,000 TEDx talks to pinpoint the connections that exist between them. From there, they mapped the mathematical structure that underlies these ideas. Hear more about how they created this map, and how incredible it is to lose yourself in it, by watching the talk.

TEDx-Universe

Here are four other maps you can thoroughly lose yourself in.



The Atlas of True NamesHave you ever heard of the Mountain by the Noisy Lake? Or traveled through the Land of the Palefaces? Or visited the town of Sibling Love? The Atlas of True Names reveals the etymological origins of the names for places we see on today’s maps.



Bob Dylan’s World. Every place mentioned in every Bob Dylan song, mapped. Each pinned location contains a corresponding lyric, song and album — and is guaranteed to get a song running through your head.

blogpost-map4

Countries invaded by the British. Sir Ken Robinson, in his talk at our TED Talks Education PBS special, joked that the British have invaded every country they’ve ever visited. Was he exaggerating? This map suggests not so much.

blogpost-map5

GeoguessrPart map and all game, Geoguessr drops you somewhere on the planet in Google Maps street view. Your task is to figure out where in the world you are. Gather clues from things like signage, the lay of the land, architecture, vegetation or which side of the road vehicles travel on. You can even challenge your friends.

Monday, September 23, 2013

Map Porn!

What geographer could resist a site called "Map Porn"? Not me!

If you don't have a lot of time to kill, then don't click on this site. An incredible collection of maps that will have you clicking for hours.

Reddit's Map Collection: Map Porn

My personal favourite - "The Beer Map of Germany"


The Atlas Guide to Disorienting Places

Shannon O'Haire has put together a visual treat of "Ten of the World's Most Disorienting Places"

"There are many places to experience something new in the world, but there are a few out there that are really trying to trick your brain, challenge your limits, and confuse your senses. Mazes, temples, triangles, and strange landscapes all have the unique ability to confuse and mystify travelers, and these are just a few of our favorites. These ten places are full of puzzling circumstances, unexplained phenomena, and eerie locations. Let’s get lost together…"

Check out: The Atlas Guide to Disorienting Places

One of the examples - the Odessa Catacombes (see below)


Saturday, September 21, 2013

Seismologists Puzzle Over Largest Deep Earthquake Ever Recorded

Repost from Science Daily, September 19, 2013

A magnitude 8.3 earthquake that struck deep beneath the Sea of Okhotsk on May 24, 2013, has left seismologists struggling to explain how it happened. At a depth of about 609 kilometres (378 miles), the intense pressure on the fault should inhibit the kind of rupture that took place.



The May 24, 2013 Mw 8.3 earthquake beneath the Sea of Okhotsk, Russia, occurred as a result of normal faulting at a depth of approximately 600 km (portion of USGS poster). 
(Credit: U.S. Geological Survey)
"It's a mystery how these earthquakes happen. How can rock slide against rock so fast while squeezed by the pressure from 610 kilometres of overlying rock?" said Thorne Lay, professor of Earth and planetary sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Lay is co-author of a paper, published in the September 20 issue of Science, analyzing the seismic waves from the Sea of Okhotsk earthquake. First author Lingling Ye, a graduate student working with Lay at UC Santa Cruz, led the seismic analysis, which revealed that this was the largest deep earthquake ever recorded, with a seismic moment 30 percent larger than that of the next largest, a 1994 earthquake 637 kilometres beneath Bolivia.

Deep earthquakes occur in the transition zone between the upper mantle and lower mantle, from 400 to 700 kilometres below the surface. They result from stress in a deep subducted slab where one plate of Earth's crust dives beneath another plate. Such deep earthquakes usually don't cause enough shaking on the surface to be hazardous, but scientifically they are of great interest.

The energy released by the Sea of Okhotsk earthquake produced vibrations recorded by several thousand seismic stations around the world. Ye, Lay, and their co-authors determined that it released three times as much energy as the 1994 Bolivia earthquake, comparable to a 35 megaton TNT explosion. The rupture area and rupture velocity were also much larger. The rupture extended about 180 kilometres, by far the longest rupture for any deep earthquake recorded, Lay said. It involved shear faulting with a fast rupture velocity of about 4 kilometres per second (about 9,000 miles per hour), more like a conventional earthquake near the surface than other deep earthquakes. The fault slipped as much as 10 meters, with average slip of about 2 meters.

"It looks very similar to a shallow event, whereas the Bolivia earthquake ruptured very slowly and appears to have involved a different type of faulting, with deformation rather than rapid breaking and slippage of the rock," Lay said.

The researchers attributed the dramatic differences between these two deep earthquakes to differences in the age and temperature of the subducted slab. The subducted Pacific plate beneath the Sea of Okhotsk (located between the Kamchatka Peninsula and the Russian mainland) is a lot colder than the subducted slab where the 1994 Bolivia earthquake occurred.

"In the Bolivia event, the warmer slab resulted in a more ductile process with more deformation of the rock," Lay said.

The Sea of Okhotsk earthquake may have involved re-rupture of a fault in the plate produced when the oceanic plate bent down into the Kuril-Kamchatka subduction zone as it began to sink. But the precise mechanism for initiating shear fracture under huge confining pressure remains unclear. The presence of fluid can lubricate the fault, but all of the fluids should have been squeezed out of the slab before it reached that depth.

"If the fault slips just a little, the friction could melt the rock and that could provide the fluid, so you would get a runaway thermal effect. But you still have to get it to start sliding," Lay said. "Some transformation of mineral forms might give the initial kick, but we can't directly detect that. We can only say that it looks a lot like a shallow event."

Friday, September 20, 2013

This is Your Brain on Maps


 I love this one! See BigThink. By Frank Jacobs. Posted: September 18, 2013, 7:45 PM




Croppedprojections


If you think that trawling the internet for cartography is a harmless endeavour, you are sorely mistaken. Think again. If you still can, that is.

The relentless perusal of maps - one more, and then another, but never the last one - is a perversion of the normal requirement in healthy individuals for spatial positioning.

Instead of going outside, taking in the fresh air of the real world, and interacting with the length and breadth of an actual landscape, so-called map-heads stay indoors, wedging themselves in stuffy rooms, to scan atlases for lurid cartography, or flick through websites for fringe maps, all to satisfy their marginal urges!


How sad! Here be monsters indeed. For these sins against normality are not without punishment. Horrible cranial disfigurement is one possible consequence of sustained cartophilia - usually commensurate with the type of cartographical projection preferred by the patient. 

projections

If he or she (but let's face it, usually a he) is lucky, that projection is the globular one. The subject's head is nearly normal, and only slightly pinched at the front and back of the skull. Occasionally, when the subject ventures out to buy another atlas, there will be shouts on the street like: Hey! Aren't you Austin Powers' dad? Being a map-head, the subject is used to a lot worse abuse than that. 

But it takes only a slight predilection for orthographic maps to end up with a pinhead like the one in the upper right corner of this image. Not only does this lead to a dramatic contraction of the cranial area, plus a severe reduction in mental facilities, it also doubles the ears in size, leaving the brain with much more audio input than it can process. 

It could be argued that the deformation caused by the stereographic deviancy (lower left corner) is the lesser of the four evils; except that it makes you look like Bashar al-Assad's twin brother. Which is not an ideal mug to have to carry around these days, either inside or outside Syria.

Perhaps the lesser of all evils is the Mercatorhead, shown bottom right. Yes, the inflated chin and ballooning skull will frighten children, and perhaps even put some pets to flight. But a this will provide the patient with a lot more alone-time, and consequently with a lot more opportunity to fill that big old head with a lot more maps.

However, a vicious circle of Mercatorial map-consumption and cranial growth will eventually cause the subject to outgrow his stuffy room, but too big to leave through the door or window. The consequences are nasty, and usually require expensive redecoration of said room.

So help us stop map abuse! If you know someone neglecting normal outdoor activities in order to indulge in cartography, have the courage to break the chain of addiction. Tell them: Life is more than maps! Real life is better than maps!  
________
This map found here on Twitter. Source: Scientific American.

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Is Canada's Northwest Passage the next Everest?

Northwest Passage a new magnet for marine adventurers, following more treacherous routes in smaller vessels. The Coast Guard fears more accidents.

Is Canada's Northwest Passage the next Everest?

Heavy sea ice in the Franklin Strait blocked Swiss yachtsman Philipp Cottier and his crew for two days.
VANCOUVER—For sailors drawn to the edge, the seas of Canada’s Northwest Passage pull like no other waters can.

The fabled Arctic voyage grabbed hold of Philipp Cottier’s imagination when he was a boy in Switzerland reading the logs of legendary explorers such as Sir John Franklin and Roald Amundsen.

It never let go.

As the climate warmed, and vast stretches of sea ice melted this summer, Cottier, 46, joined a growing number of yachtsmen trying to conquer a passage that has killed hundreds who sailed before them.

The Swiss hedge fund investor and philanthropist consulted naval engineers and toughened up the fibreglass hull of Libellule, a 14-metre catamaran, to give her a fighting chance against the Arctic.

He added Kevlar to the bows and sides, and reinforced the rudder shafts.

Then, in mid-July, Cottier, his wife Marielle and their three daughters, Naima, 14, Line, 12, and Anissa, 8, cast off for the Canadian Arctic by way of Nuuk, Greenland.

With two experienced French skippers to take the wheel, they set sail for history, determined to make Libellulethe first cruising catamaran to navigate the Northwest Passage, which joins the Atlantic to the Pacific across the top of the world.

Weeks later, Cottier is almost there. A lifelong dream is now riding on a hard Arctic reality: ice.
It’s back with a vengeance after retreating to record lows in recent years, almost disappearing completely over the past two summers.

Cottier and his crew are among dozens of mariners scattered across the Northwest Passage, searching for some way out as hull-crushing ice clogs up the exits and a bitter winter closes in.

“Life is too short to live it in a boring way,” he emails from aboard Libellule, heading northwest of Cambridge Bay, on Victoria Island.

“I prefer to live a full life, including some adventures from time to time (such as mountaineering or sailing expeditions). And, fortunately, I have a family who is willing to share some of these adventures.”

Word that the Arctic has been warming faster than anywhere else on the planet — and images of calm, ice-free waters, even of sunbathers on deck — has made the Northwest Passage a new magnet for marine adventurers.

Luxury cruise ships full of tourists are almost as common as polar bears in Canada’s Arctic. So being in the Northwest Passage is losing the buzz it had when only grizzled explorers dared venture. The race now is to transit by the most treacherous routes or in the smallest craft afloat.

At least three rowboats and a tandem kayak launched attempts this year. And a team of four Americans on jet skis set out on a voyage through the passage in search of reality TV glory.

Douglas Pohl, an American sea captain who keeps a close watch on traffic in the Northwest Passage after some 30 years navigating the world’s oceans, calls paddling rowers insane for launching such attempts.

“It serves no real purpose and places people at extreme risk,” he says from his 16.7-metre steel motor yacht Grey Goose, where he is cruising, and blogging about the Northwest Passage, among the Caribbean islands of Bocas del Toro Panama.

Mount Everest, another destination once reserved for major expeditions, is now inundated with climbers, many with more money than alpine experience. Fatal accidents keep rising with the crowds.

Canada’s overstretched Coast Guard fears the same will happen in the Northwest Passage, where the agency says emergency rescues are still rare despite a steady increase in inexperienced, poorly prepared boaters.

“So far, we’ve been lucky that we haven’t really had any major incidents involving any of those type of navigators or vessels to date,” says Jean-Pierre Sharp, regional supervisor, maritime search and rescue, from his base in Trenton, Ont.

Pohl says he tried to talk the rowboaters out of making the trip. Two have abandoned their attempts in recent days after only making it about half way.

The final rowboat and the tandem kayak won’t last much longer, Pohl predicts.



Since 2010, Ottawa has required all Arctic-bound ships over 300 tonnes, or carrying dangerous goods, to register. That remains voluntary for smaller vessels, which make up the majority of traffic through the Northwest Passage.

Although Canada claims the route as territorial waters, it doesn’t require vessels to get permission to enter the way Russia does in the much busier waters along its Arctic coast.

So even though Prime Minister Stephen Harper declares Arctic sovereignty one of his top priorities, the Coast Guard can only estimate how many vessels are passing through.

It knows even less about who is on board or what they are up to. Harper closed the only Coast Guard station in the western Arctic last year.

Shifts of three Coast Guard staff in Iqaluit are left to monitor sea traffic, and field calls for weather and hazard information, across Canada’s vast north.

They keep watch over a dangerous wilderness from Greenland west to Alaska, from the northern tip of Ellesmere Island south to James Bay, and along the busy Mackenzie River.

Some of their information comes from listening to radios, or monitoring GPS satellite locations. They also search the Internet for clues about vessels that haven’t declared their intentions.

If you run into trouble in the Northwest Passage and radio “Mayday,” and the Coast Guard can’t raise another ship nearby, you’ll likely have a long wait for help. Rescue operations in Canada’s Arctic are run out of Trenton, 170 kilometres east of Toronto.

The Coast Guard doesn’t have the authority to tell boaters to stay out — even if they look like they’d be in over their heads in Arctic waters.

“We just hope, and try to tell them to be prepared,” says Sharp. “Hopefully, they may have groups with them, or monitoring them, or have a good support team in that sense.

“But we really can’t persuade people not to go. The Coast Guard has no ‘legal side’ to us, if you will. It’s not just the North. I can’t refuse people from venturing out on the Great Lakes or anything else.”

By late August, the Coast Guard knew of 24 vessels either in the Northwest Passage or planning to go there, and only three of those were large ships required to file notice, says Iqaluit spokesman Louis Robert.

Pohl has counted around 35 vessels in the passage this season, several of which contacted him for free guidance.

Russia is much more strict in regulating its Arctic sea passages, called the Northern Sea Route. At least 270 ships, mostly large commercial vessels, received permits to sail at least part of the way between Asia and Europe this year.

All vessels must apply for a permit to transit the Russian route. Getting one requires, among other things, proof of experience navigating in sea ice, adequate preparations and insurance.

Russia also charges Arctic mariners hefty fees to pay for mandatory icebreaker escorts.

Canada’s much smaller fleet of Coast Guard icebreakers only help vessels in the Northwest Passage if a call for help goes out.

The Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker CCGS Sir Wilfrid Laurier had to rescue the American jet skiers and drop them off at Gjoa Haven, the only settlement on King William Island.

Rachelle Smith, a spokesperson for the department of fisheries and oceans, declined to say specifically whether the jet skiers or the producers of the Dangerous Waters TV show have to pay for the costly rescue.

Coast Guard “operations are funded on a yearly/seasonal basis not on a service basis,” she says in an email. “Therefore, the department does not calculate cost estimates or assess cost recovery for individual search and rescue cases.”

To Pohl, it’s obvious the jet skiers, and small self-propelled craft like rowboats, shouldn’t be trying to voyage across the Arctic in the first place.

“I knew it was sheer madness from the start and it has got to be gut-wrenching to know that Mother Nature once again showed her power and kicked their butts,” Pohl says. “Their failure was their poor preparation for the legendary Arctic ice and weather. They just didn’t do their homework.”



By the end of last year, 185 vessels had navigated the Northwest Passage since 1903, when Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen was the first to sail through aboard Gjoa, according to Robert Headland, a polar historian at Cambridge University.

Amundsen and his crew took three years to succeed.

By far the majority of the voyages through the passage — 109 of them — have been completed since 2000. Most of those vessels were sailboats or motor yachts, Headland’s research shows.

The Northwest Passage is made up of seven possible routes, and ice choke-points have blocked several of the main ones this summer, Pohl says.

That “puts extreme pressure on vessel skippers to make a decision — to wait or to attempt to find a way through the ice,” Pohl adds. “Good decisions are never made under duress — you only get one chance in the Arctic.

“A poor decision usually means someone is going to suffer. Ice pressure against a ship’s hull usually means you lose and Mother Nature wins — imagine the forces from thousands of tons of ice being moved by winds coming to rest against a ship’s hull.”

As ice closes in, skippers close enough to a hamlet that is equipped to haul them out can surrender, put the boat on blocks so she stays in one piece, and be ready to try again next summer. Mariners call it “going on the hard.”

But the facilities to do that are few and far between in the Canadian Arctic.

And mariners who want bragging rights for transiting the Northwest Passage crave the phrase “in a single season.” Winter breaks don’t have quite the same cache.

“I think Roald Amundsen had sage advise: ‘Adventure is just bad planning,’” Pohl says.

Even in a good year, the Arctic’s patience for mariners is short and the window for transiting the Northwest Passage shuts fast.

Pohl has some advice for the seamen still there: “Get out of the Arctic before Sept. 15 or else make plans to winter over near a hamlet with services.”

Despite the risks, Cottier has had enough magic moments, such as watching his daughters’ eyes light up as they floated past polar bears on an ice floe, and met enough friendly people on his voyage to ask: “What can you wish more?”

But it’s easy to be romantic about the Arctic, until her icy breath hits you in the face in a howling gale.
Cottier felt it on Sept. 1 when winds gusting to 45 knots dragged Libellule on her anchor for some 200 metres. With snow blowing horizontally, two-metre waves hammered the boat while shoals and rocks waited to tear a hole in the hull.

But the storm passed and she sailed on.

So far, ice has been the biggest headache and the most stunning sight. Judging from Amundsen’s account of his voyage, Cottier thinks he’s come up against more of it than the Norwegian did in 1903.

“Generally, being in the ice is very, very beautiful, but very extreme at the same time because you never know how to get out,” Cottier says. “It is very scary.

“As our youngest daughter nicely summarized it, being in the pack ice is ‘like a labyrinth, except that it is for real, and the labyrinth is constantly changing, and you don’t even know if there is an exit!’”

That held up Libellule so long that Cottier’s wife and daughters had to go ashore at Cambridge Bay.

It was time for the girls to fly back to school, leaving their father and crew to see what was stronger, a boyhood dream or the ice.

Cottier completed his transit of the Northwest Passage Tuesday, when Libellule crossed the Arctic Circle in the morning and then headed into the Bering Strait that evening.

“The sun was shining, for the first time since Herschel Island, Canada, and we could clearly see Siberia on our starboard side and Alaska on our port side,” the triumphant yachtsman writes.

He and his crew celebrated with the last beer on board and a bottle of rum as they set sail for port in Nome, Alaska.

“Life is beautiful . . .”

“We have just spotted a walrus colony on nearby Fairway Rock,” Cottier says, signing off on a 7,500-kilometre voyage “across the Arctic waters and ice of Greenland, Canada and Alaska.”

Originally published by:  Toronto Star,  Fri Sep 13 2013

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

In India, bottled water may not offer protection from Delhi belly

In India, bottled water may not offer protection from Delhi belly

It’s been a forgettable year for India tourism.

When foreign media aren’t reporting on gamg rapes and sexual assaults in the country of 1.2 billion, journalists are documenting the freefalling Indian economy.

Now for some more sour news for every visitor to sprawling India who carefully avoids ice in their drinks, believing that avoiding tap water will help them avoid awkward cases of travelers diarrhea: bottled water may not help prevent Delhi belly.

According to a report in The Times of India, as much as 20 per cent of bottled water tested in New Delhi during 2010-11 and 2011-12 failed quality testing. The results were revealed last week by consumer affairs minister K V Thomas in a written reply to a question posed in Indian parliament,  Lok Sabha.

At least 23 of 190 samples in the national capital region failed and the licences of two bottled water companies were revoked.

Bacteria-laden bottled water might sound familiar. In the Academy Award-winning movie Slumdog Millionaire, one of the young characters lands a job at a restaurant, filling water bottles up with tap water, and then using a glue to fix the top it in place and making it seem like a new bottle.

“I have also seen young boys filing up 25 litre Bisleri and Kinley bottles from the roadside taps,” notes one Times of India reader.

So what's a tourist to do?

The Website Matadornetwork.com offers a few pointers that may help avoid a bad stomach bug. Its best advice: avoid fish you don't see caught and cooked; avoid eggs and cheese; and wash your hands regularly.


Repost of article by Rick Westhead is a foreign affairs writer at The Toronto Star. He was based in India as the Star’s South Asia bureau chief from 2008 until 2011 and reports on international aid and development.

Monday, September 16, 2013

How fracking caused 109 earthquakes in Ohio town



Caption: Anti-fracking protestors demonstrate at the state legislature in Albany, New York, in this photo. The recent surge in U.S. oil and gas production has been linked to an increase in small to moderate induced earthquakes in Oklahoma, Arkansas, Ohio, Texas and Colorado. (Reuters photo.)

For over a century, there were no earthquakes in Youngstown, Ohio. In fact, there were no recorded seismic events in the town since observations began in 1776. But between December 2010 and December 2011, Youngstown recorded 109 earthquakes.

So what gives?

Fracking. So say authors of research published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

Fracking involves injecting millions of litres of water and thousands of litres of chemicals underground at very high pressure to create fractures in shale rock formations to extract previously inaccessible natural gas. An average well takes four million to eight million gallons of water to drill in and frack. There can be up to 20 wells on a single pad that is spread over an acre.

It is considered a boon because it has opened a hidden treasure trove; it has also divided communities, created fears about health.

In December 2010, Northstar 1, a well built to pump wastewater produced by fracking in the neighbouring state of Pennsylvania, came online. In the next 12 months, Youngstown recorded 109 earthquakes; the strongest was a magnitude 3.9 quake on Dec. 31, 2011.

The authors of the study analyzed the earthquakes and found that their onset, cessation, and temporary dips were tied to activities at the Northstar 1 well. The first earthquake recorded in the city occurred 13 days after pumping began; the tremors stopped soon after the Ohio Department of Natural Resources shut down the well in December 2011.

Won-Young Kim, a seismologist at Columbia University and one of the authors of the study, said the earthquakes in Youngstown were directly caused by the pressure buildup and stopped when pressure dropped.

The earthquakes, according to the paper, were apparently centered in an ancient fault near the Northstar 1 well, and pressure from wastewater injection caused this fault to rupture.

However, of the 177 wastewater disposal wells of this size active in Ohio during 2011, only the Northstar 1 well was linked with this kind of seismic activity, suggesting this ability to cause earthquakes was rare. 

Repost of blog article by:  Raveena Aulakh, How fracking caused 109 earthquakes in Ohio town

Sunday, September 15, 2013

Some Good News: "90 million child deaths prevented since 1990, UNICEF says"

Jennifer Yang, Global Health reporter for the Toronto Star. Thursday September 12, 2013.

Innovations in health care delivery and political commitment credited for improved child survival.

Nearly half as many children under 5 are dying today compared to two decades ago, with 90 million deaths prevented since 1990, according to new estimates published by UNICEF and other international agencies.“I think we’re seeing a child survival revolution going on,” said David Morley, president and CEO of UNICEF Canada. “Fewer children are dying today than ever before in human history.”

These latest figures were published in two new reports, jointly released on Thursday by UNICEF, the World Health Organization, the World Bank and the UN Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation.
They estimate that in 2012, 6.6 million children died before the age of 5, or 18,000 deaths per day. While these numbers are still unacceptably high, they are a huge improvement from 1990, when 12.6 million children died before celebrating their fifth birthdays.

What’s changed over the last two decades? Chalk it up to cheaper and better treatments, innovations in health care delivery and sustained political commitment toward improving child survival, UNICEF deputy executive director Geeta Rao Gupta said in a telephone news conference.

Gupta noted that some of the world’s poorest countries have also defied expectations by making the biggest strides in improving child survival. Bangladesh, Nepal and Malawi, for example, have slashed their under-5 mortality rates by two-thirds or more since 1990 — thus achieving one of the Millennium Development Goals, a set of eight international targets established in 2000.

Despite the progress, there is an urgent need for more to be done, Gupta said. Only two regions (East Asia and Pacific and Latin America and the Caribbean) are on track to meeting the same millennium goal by the 2015 deadline.

Pneumonia and diarrhea continue to be the top killers of young children, collectively accounting for more than 4,600 deaths every day in 2012, according to the report.

“These statistics are all the more outrageous because so many of these deaths . . . are preventable,” Gupta said.

The first month of life is also the most dangerous and nearly 44 per cent of under-5 deaths now occur during the first 28 days. Last year, 2.9 million newborns died within a month of being born, according to the new estimates; roughly one million died on their very first day.

As survival rates continue to improve globally, 81 per cent of under-5 deaths are now concentrated in two regions: South Asia (which has actually seen the biggest reduction of under-5 deaths since 1990) and sub-Saharan Africa, which together account for four out of every five deaths under 5.

Sub-Saharan Africa has the world’s highest child mortality rates, with 98 deaths for every 1,000 babies born. (Canada, by comparison, has a rate of five deaths per 1,000 live births.) But even greater challenges loom: despite making the least progress, the region will have the world’s largest population of under-5 children by 2050.

Leading global health expert Dr. Zulfiqar Bhutta, the new co-director of Sick Kids’ Global Child Health centre, welcomes these updated estimates on child mortality.

He cautions, however, that they are largely based on projections. As the UNICEF report itself points out, less than 3 per cent of causes for under-5 deaths are medically certified and only 60 countries have registration systems for tracking data on child deaths.

Bhutta said he would like to see whether these new estimates are corroborated by two other groups expected to release child mortality estimates in early 2014.


Saturday, September 14, 2013

Recommended Resources

One of my former students who is now teaching geography asked me to recommend a couple of resources I use for teaching geography - particularly the "Canadian and World Issues" course.

I would highly recommend the the following as my current 'Top Three."





Stratfor provides a detailed and insightful analysis of world affairs, and tends to be ahead of conventional media sources. The information is relatively bias and agenda free.  For geographers, it is one of the few sources that actually makes specific reference to location, space and place in explaining current geopolitical events. Stratfor covers a broad range of topics - from economics, to politics, to human rights - that fit beautifully with any course in World Issues. A subscription allows not only access to the full-range of products on their website, but also entitles the user to customizable e-mail updates. I find the "sit-rep" e-mails particularly useful as they provide "real time" updates on breaking news.






The Economist specializes in information on international business and world affairs. Headquartered in London, UK, with offices around the world, the Economist provides a much more "European" take on issues - a refreshing alternative to many of the traditional sources that tend to be more "American-centric." I subscribe to the print version, but web access comes with the subscription. The web content is very user friendly and provides additional information that helps to flesh out many of the issues explored in this weekly publication. While some may be deterred by the cost - $165.00 per year - it is well worth the investment. Division of the magazine into sections by geographic region allows you to get to the areas of specific interest quickly, and the articles themselves are well-written and provide detailed analysis of the issues. The one drawback for some is the heavy emphasis on economics/business stories.






Still one of the best sources for everything Canadian! Good value for the cost, and a must if you are teaching Canadian geography or social sciences. The articles are well-written and the photographs stunning. Reading level is appropriate for a wide range of ages.  If I have one criticism, it is that the magazine has drifted from its geographic mandate, and has of late been far too historical in its focus.








Friday, September 13, 2013

Geo.me - Choropleth Mapping of World Bank Data



Geo.me has developed a series of choropleth maps using recently released World Bank data.  It uses more than 1,000 data indicators between the years 1960 and 2008, and renders them on an interactive map.

To get going, select a year and click on one of the data topics listed below. A second table showing the individual data indicators available under that topic will then appear. Click on the required topic and an interactive map will be generated via a call to the World Bank API.

Check it out at: Geo.me World Bank Data

(Thanks to Ross Williams for this great resource!)

Saturday, September 7, 2013

World's Largest Volcano Located Underwater


A volcano the size of New Mexico or the British Isles has been identified under the Pacific Ocean, about 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) east of Japan, making it the biggest volcano on Earth and one of the biggest in the solar system.

Called Tamu Massif, the giant shield volcano had been thought to be a composite of smaller structures, but now scientists say they must rethink long-held beliefs about marine geology.

Caption: A 3-D map of the Tamu Massif formation, which scientists now say is one huge shield volcano


For the full story see The National Geographic Daily News article:
New Giant Volcano Below Sea Is Largest in the World

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Bizarre Borders - Canada and the United States


Colin Grey takes a look at the Canada-U.S. border - the longest international border in the world.