KIDS – Interesting information – 188

Weather and nature facts (1)

You may have heard someone say, “It’s raining cats and dogs.” There have been actual documented cases from all over the world of fish, frogs, dead birds, snakes, snails, beetles, worms and jellyfish raining down from the sky in great numbers, but no reports of showers of cats or dogs.

Almost two-thirds of the earth’s surface is covered by water. If the earth were flat, water would cover everything in a layer two miles deep!

During a solar eclipse, the shadows of leaves make the same crescent shape of the eclipsing sun. The image is made by light passing through tiny holes in the leaves.

Geologists have discovered there seems to be more water miles deep between the rocks of earths mantle than in all the oceans of the world. The intense pressure of the tons of rocks above keeps the hot water from turning to steam and escaping.

Water is the only substance on earth that is lighter as a solid than a liquid.

The biggest canyons in the world are under water. Beneath the Bering Sea off Alaska there are seven giant canyons: Bering Canyon, 386km long; Navarin Canyon, 97km wide; Zhemchung Canyon, 2,7km deep. In comparison, the Grand Canyon in Arizona is only 16km wide, one mile deep and 402km long.

The Sahara, one of the world’s largest and driest deserts with sand up to 914m deep was once a land with flowing rivers, humid swamps and lush fields. Cave painting, 9 000 years old, found in the heart of the Sahara, show men herding cattle and hunting lions and hippos. About 2 000 years ago the cave painters, herders and animals left because the area that was rapidly becoming the desert we know today.