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West African Forest Zone
In West Africa, the forest zone refers to the southern part of the region once covered by tropical rainforest. Sometimes this region is referred to as ''Guinea'' to distinguish it from the grassland-covered Sudan, drier Sahel and per-arid Sahara. It is made-up of vegetation having mainly trees and consist of the following local biotic communities: -mangrove swamp forest (salt and fresh water swamp) -tropical rain forest. Extent The forest zone of West Africa, in the strict sense, covers all of Liberia and Sierra Leone, most of Guinea, the southern halves of Côte d'Ivoire and Nigeria, and parts of Ghana, Togo and Guinea-Bissau. The ''Dahomey Gap'' splits the forest zone into two halves by producing an area of much drier climate - Accra receives less than 760 millimetres (30 inches) of rainfall per year - between the wetter regions capable of supporting rainforest. The western forest zone is known as the Upper Guinea forests, and extends from Guinea to western Togo, and the eastern ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
West Africa
West Africa, also known as Western Africa, is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations geoscheme for Africa#Western Africa, United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo, as well as Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha (United Kingdom Overseas Territories, United Kingdom Overseas Territory).Paul R. Masson, Catherine Anne Pattillo, "Monetary union in West Africa (ECOWAS): is it desirable and how could it be achieved?" (Introduction). International Monetary Fund, 2001. The population of West Africa is estimated at around million people as of , and at 381,981,000 as of 2017, of which 189,672,000 were female and 192,309,000 male.United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2017). World Population Prospects: The 2017 Revision, custom data acquired via webs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Upper Guinea Forests
The Upper Guinean forests is a tropical seasonal forest region of West Africa. The Upper Guinean forests extend from Guinea and Sierra Leone in the west through Liberia, Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana to Togo in the east, and a few hundred kilometers inland from the Atlantic coast. A few enclaves of montane forest lie further inland in the mountains of central Guinea and central Togo and Benin. In the drier interior, the Upper Guinean forests yield to the Guinean forest-savanna mosaic, a belt of dry forests and savannas that lies between the coastal forests and the savannas and grasslands of the Sudan further north. The Dahomey Gap, a region of Togo and Benin where the Guinean forest-savanna mosaic extends to the Atlantic coast, separates the Upper Guinean forests from the Lower Guinean forests to the east, which extend from eastern Benin through Nigeria and south along the coast of the Gulf of Guinea. The Upper Guinean forests are a Global 200 ecoregion. The Guinean moist forests are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Southern Africa
Southern Africa is the southernmost region of Africa. No definition is agreed upon, but some groupings include the United Nations geoscheme for Africa, United Nations geoscheme, the intergovernmental Southern African Development Community, and the #Definitions and Usage, physical geography definition based on the physical characteristics of the land. The most restrictive definition considers the region of Southern Africa to consist of Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia, and South Africa, while other definitions also include several other countries from the area. Defined by physical geography, Southern Africa is home to several river systems; the Zambezi, Zambezi River is the most prominent. The Zambezi flows from the northwest corner of Zambia and western Angola to the Indian Ocean on the coast of Mozambique. Along the way, it flows over Victoria Falls on the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe. Victoria Falls is one of the largest waterfalls in the world and a major tourist a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anticyclone
A high-pressure area, high, or anticyclone, is an area near the surface of a planet where the atmospheric pressure is greater than the pressure in the surrounding regions. Highs are middle-scale meteorological features that result from interplays between the relatively larger-scale dynamics of an entire planet's atmospheric circulation. The strongest high-pressure areas result from masses of cold air which spread out from polar regions into cool neighboring regions. These highs weaken once they extend out over warmer bodies of water. Weaker—but more frequently occurring—are high-pressure areas caused by atmospheric subsidence: Air becomes cool enough to precipitate out its water vapor, and large masses of cooler, drier air descend from above. Within high-pressure areas, winds flow from where the pressure is highest, at the center of the area, towards the periphery where the pressure is lower. However, the direction is not straight from the center outwards, but curved du ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
India
India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since 2023; and, since its independence in 1947, the world's most populous democracy. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast, it shares land borders with Pakistan to the west; China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the north; and Bangladesh and Myanmar to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is near Sri Lanka and the Maldives; its Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a maritime border with Thailand, Myanmar, and Indonesia. Modern humans arrived on the Indian subcontinent from Africa no later than 55,000 years ago., "Y-Chromosome and Mt-DNA data support the colonization of South Asia by modern humans originating in Africa. ... Coalescence dates for most non-European populations averag ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mont Nimba
Mount Richard-Molard, also known as Mount Nimba () is a mountain along the border of Guinea, Ivory Coast and Liberia in West Africa. The summit is on the border of Guinea and Ivory Coast and at is the highest peak for both countries and of the Nimba Range. The mountain is part of the Guinea Highlands, which straddles the borders between the three countries. The nearest major settlements are the town Yekepa in Liberia and the towns of Bossou and N'Zoo in Guinea. Toponymy The mountain is named after the French geographer Jacques Richard-Molard, who died in an accident at the mountain site in 1951. Before that it was called Mount Nouon. Geology The mountain is rich in iron ore and cobalt. The mix of iron rich quartzite sheets, schists and granite gneiss have characterised the geological pedogenesis. Conservation Mount Richard-Molard lies within the Mount Nimba Strict Nature Reserve, which currently covers 17,540 hectares and straddles the borders of Guinea and Ivory Coast. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fouta Djallon
Fouta Djallon (, , ; ) is a Highland (geography), highland region in the center of Guinea, roughly corresponding with Middle Guinea, in West Africa. Etymology The Fulani people call the region Fouta Jallon Kingdom, Fuuta-Jaloo ( ) in the Pular language. 'Futa' is a Fula language, Fula word for any region inhabited by the . 'Djallon' means 'mountain' in old Yalunka language, Jallonke.Mohamed Saidou N’Daou. “Sangalan Oral Traditions as Philosophy and Ideologies.” History in Africa, vol. 26, 1999, pp. 239–67. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/3172143. Accessed 23 Oct. 2024. French is the official language of Guinea, and or sometimes is the French spelling. Common English spellings include ''Futa Jallon'' and ''Futa Jalon''. The French, during the colonial period, wrote: * “The name of this region has often been spelled ‘Fouta‑Djallon’, with a ‘j’ after the capital ‘D’, which contradicts the local pronunciation: the natives themselves all say ‘Fouta‑Diall ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Volta River
The Volta River (, , ) is the main Drainage system (geomorphology), river system in the West African country of Ghana. It flows south into Ghana from the Bobo-Dioulasso Department, Bobo-Dioulasso highlands of Burkina Faso. The three main parts of the river are the Black Volta, the White Volta, and the Red Volta. In the northwest, the Black Volta forms the international borders of the Ivory Coast, Ghana, and Burkina Faso. The Volta flows southward along the Akwapim-Togoland highlands, and empties into the Atlantic Ocean at the Gulf of Guinea at Ada Foah. One of its smaller tributaries, the Oti River, Oti River, enters Ghana from Togo in the east. The Volta River has been dammed at Akosombo for generating hydroelectricity. The reservoir named Lake Volta stretches from Akosombo Dam in the south to the northern part of the country, and is the largest man-made reservoir by area in the world. The country of Burkina Faso was formerly called Republic of Upper Volta, Upper Volta, after ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Niger River
The Niger River ( ; ) is the main river of West Africa, extending about . Its drainage basin is in area. Its source is in the Guinea Highlands in south-eastern Guinea near the Sierra Leone border. It runs in a crescent shape through Mali, Niger, on the border with Benin and then through Nigeria, discharging through a massive River delta, delta, known as the Niger Delta, into the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean. The Niger is the third-longest river in Africa, exceeded by the Nile and the Congo River. Its main tributary is the Benue River. Etymology The Niger has different names in the different languages of the region: * Fula language, Fula: ''Maayo Jaaliba'' * Manding languages, Manding: ''Jeliba'' or ''Joliba'' "great river" * Tuareg languages, Tuareg: ''Eġərəw n-Igərǝwăn'' "river of rivers" * Songhay languages, Songhay: ''Isa'' "the river" * Zarma language, Zarma: ''Isa Beeri'' "great river" * Hausa language, Hausa: ''Kwara'' *Nupe language, Nupe: ''Èdù'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phanerozoic
The Phanerozoic is the current and the latest of the four eon (geology), geologic eons in the Earth's geologic time scale, covering the time period from 538.8 million years ago to the present. It is the eon during which abundant animal and plant life has population growth, proliferated, evolutionary radiation, diversified and colonization (biology), colonized various ecological niche, niches on the Earth's surface, beginning with the Cambrian period when animals first developed hard shells that can be clearly preserved in the fossil record. The time before the Phanerozoic, collectively called the ''Precambrian'', is now divided into the Hadean, Archean, Archaean and Proterozoic eons. The time span of the Phanerozoic starts with the Cambrian Explosion, sudden appearance of fossilised evidence of a number of animal phylum (biology), phyla; the evolution of those phyla into diverse forms; the evolutionary history of plants, evolution of plants; the evolution of fish, arthropods ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Craton
A craton ( , , or ; from "strength") is an old and stable part of the continental lithosphere, which consists of Earth's two topmost layers, the crust and the uppermost mantle. Having often survived cycles of merging and rifting of continents, cratons are generally found in the interiors of tectonic plates; the exceptions occur where geologically recent rifting events have separated cratons and created passive margins along their edges. Cratons are characteristically composed of ancient crystalline basement rock, which may be covered by younger sedimentary rock. They have a thick crust and deep lithospheric roots extending several hundred kilometres into Earth's mantle. Terminology The term ''craton'' is used to distinguish the stable portion of the continental crust from regions that are more geologically active and unstable. Cratons are composed of two layers: a continental '' shield'', in which the basement rock crops out at the surface, and a '' platform'' which o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Precambrian
The Precambrian ( ; or pre-Cambrian, sometimes abbreviated pC, or Cryptozoic) is the earliest part of Earth's history, set before the current Phanerozoic Eon. The Precambrian is so named because it preceded the Cambrian, the first period of the Phanerozoic Eon, which is named after Cambria, the Latinized name for Wales, where rocks from this age were first studied. The Precambrian accounts for 88% of the Earth's geologic time. The Precambrian is an informal unit of geologic time, subdivided into three eons ( Hadean, Archean, Proterozoic) of the geologic time scale. It spans from the formation of Earth about 4.6 billion years ago ( Ga) to the beginning of the Cambrian Period, about million years ago ( Ma), when hard-shelled creatures first appeared in abundance. Overview Relatively little is known about the Precambrian, despite it making up roughly seven-eighths of the Earth's history, and what is known has largely been discovered from the 1960s onwards. The Precambrian ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
