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Deadvlei
Deadvlei is a white clay pan located near the more famous salt pan of Sossusvlei, in a valley between the dunes in the Namib-Naukluft Park in Namibia. Also written DeadVlei or Dead Vlei, its name means "dead marsh" (from English ''dead'', and Afrikaans ''vlei'', meaning lake or marsh). The pan also is referred to as "Dooie Vlei" which is the Afrikaans name. There are many references to the site on the Internet, its name often being translated erroneously in terms such as "dead valley"; a vlei is not a valley (which in Afrikaans is "vallei"). Nor is the site a valley; the pan is a desiccated vlei. Dead Vlei has been claimed to be surrounded by the highest sand dunes in the world, the highest reaching 300–400 meters (350m on average), named "Big Daddy" or "Crazy Dune", resting on a sandstone terrace. The clay pan was formed after rainfall, when the Tsauchab river flooded, creating temporary shallow pools where the abundance of water allowed camel thorn trees to grow. When the c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sossusvlei
Sossusvlei (sometimes written Sossus Vlei) is a salt and clay pan surrounded by high red dunes, located in the southern part of the Namib Desert, in the Namib-Naukluft National Park of Namibia. The name "Sossusvlei" is often used in an extended meaning to refer to the surrounding area (including other neighbouring ''vlei''s such as Deadvlei and other high dunes). These landmarks are some of the major visitor attractions of Namibia. The name "Sossusvlei" is of mixed origin and roughly means "dead-end marsh". Vlei is the Afrikaans word for "marsh", while "sossus" is Nama for "no return" or "dead end". Sossusvlei owes this name to the fact that it is an endorheic drainage basin (i.e., a drainage basin without outflows) for the ephemeral Tsauchab River. Environment The Sossusvlei area forms part of a wider region of the southern Namib Desert with homogeneous features (about 32.000 km²) extending between the Koichab and Kuiseb rivers. This area is characterized by hig ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Fall (2006 Film)
''The Fall'' is a 2006 adventure fantasy film produced, co-written, and directed by Tarsem, and starring Lee Pace, Catinca Untaru, and Justine Waddell. It is based on the 1981 Bulgarian film '' Yo Ho Ho'' written by Valeri Petrov and directed by Zako Heskiya. The film centers on a young girl (Untaru) who meets a stuntman (Pace) at the hospital they're both staying at, with the latter telling her a fantastic tale involving a group of heroes seeking revenge on an evil ruler. Presented by David Fincher and Spike Jonze, the film premiered at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival, before being released in the United States on 9 May 2008, and the United Kingdom on 3 October 2008. In the years since its release, the film has become noteworthy for its lack of distribution and absence from any streaming platforms, with Singh having worked to find distributors to re-release the film worldwide. In July 2024, streaming service Mubi announced their acquisition of select distribu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ayan (film)
''Ayan'' () is a 2009 Indian Tamil-language action thriller film directed by K. V. Anand and produced by M. Saravanan and M. S. Guhan. The film, starring Suriya, Prabhu, Tamannaah Bhatia, Akashdeep Saighal, Jagan, and Karunas. The film score and soundtrack was composed by Harris Jayaraj, edited by Anthony Gonsalvez, the film was filmed by M. S. Prabhu. The film was launched in Chennai, while filming also took place in various locations out of India, including Namibia, Malaysia, Zanzibar and South Africa. It released on 3 April 2009 worldwide. ''Ayan'' was declared as the solo blockbuster of 2009 in Tamil cinema, collecting about worldwide and became the highest grossing Tamil film of the year. The film was also successful in Kerala. Plot Deva is a computer science post-graduate in Chennai who works with Dass by smuggling pre-release unlicensed films on DVD and other small contrabands mainly through the air. Deva's widowed mother Kaveri does not appreciate his care ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dune
A dune is a landform composed of wind- or water-driven sand. It typically takes the form of a mound, ridge, or hill. An area with dunes is called a dune system or a dune complex. A large dune complex is called a dune field, while broad, flat regions covered with wind-swept sand or dunes, with little or no vegetation, are called ''Erg (landform), ergs'' or ''sand seas''. Dunes occur in different shapes and sizes, but most kinds of dunes are longer on the wiktionary:stoss, stoss (upflow) side, where the sand is pushed up the dune, and have a shorter ''slip face'' in the lee side. The valley or trough between dunes is called a ''dune slack''. Dunes are most common in desert environments, where the lack of moisture hinders the growth of vegetation that would otherwise interfere with the development of dunes. However, sand deposits are not restricted to deserts, and dunes are also found along sea shores, along streams in semiarid climates, in areas of Outwash plain, glacial outwash ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Cell (film)
''The Cell'' is a 2000 science fiction psychological horror film directed by Tarsem Singh in his directorial debut, written by Mark Protosevich, and starring Jennifer Lopez, Vince Vaughn, and Vincent D'Onofrio. The film follows a team of scientists as they use experimental technology to help a social worker enter the mind of a comatose serial killer in order to locate where he has hidden his latest kidnap victim. Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Jake Weber, Dylan Baker, Tara Subkoff, and Pruitt Taylor Vince appear in supporting roles. Protosevich began developing the film in the mid-1990s, and sold the screenplay to New Line Cinema in 1998, at which point Singh became attached as director. A co-production between the United States and Germany, ''The Cell'' was filmed in 1999 in California, with additional photography occurring in Namibia and Barcelona. ''The Cell'' premiered in the United States in August 2000 and received "deeply divided" reviews from film critics, with so ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tsauchab
The Tsauchab is an Ephemerality, ephemeral river in the Hardap Region of central Namibia. Its source is in the southern Naukluft Mountains, from where it flows westwards through the Namib-Naukluft National Park into Sossusvlei, an endorheic basin. The lower river has in the past had a slightly different courses and also formed two other basins, the Deadvlei and the Hiddenvlei. The Tsauchab is approximately long, its catchment area (including its tributary, the Zebra River) is estimated to be between 4,000 and . Since it is in the Namib Desert, the Tsauchab carries water only during the rare times when rain falls in the Naukluft Mountains and runs off, since it cannot seep into the soil fast enough (see ''flash flood''). During these rains, the Tsauchab becomes a rapid-running, strong river within a matter of hours. As a result of the occasional rains, it has over the past two million years carved the Sesriem Canyon, a long and up to deep canyon in sedimentary rock. Past th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vlei
A vlei (; ) is a shallow minor lake, mostly of a seasonal or intermittent lake, intermittent nature. It even might refer to seasonal ponds or marshy patches where frogs and similar marsh dwellers breed. Commonly, vleis vary in their extent, or even in the presence or absence of water, according to the fall of rain or dryness of the season."Compendium of South African history and geography", by George McCall Theal, Edition: 3 - 18779/ref> In terms of water salinity, vleis may be freshwater, Seawater, saltwater, or brackish. Over time a vlei may degrade into a Dry lake, salt pan or Dry lake, clay pan, such as Dead Vlei or Sossusvlei. Ecology Vleis of various types can be of considerable local ecological importance, harboring many Endemism, endemic and Animal migration, migratory species. Most vleis are too minor to be granted recognition in the form of a name. However, some major vleis are accorded names, for example Rondevlei Nature Reserve, Rondevlei and Zeekoevlei in the Cape ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Afrikaans Language
Afrikaans is a West Germanic language spoken in South Africa, Namibia and to a lesser extent Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and also Argentina where there is a group in Sarmiento that speaks the Patagonian dialect. It evolved from the Dutch vernacular of South Holland ( Hollandic dialect) spoken by the predominantly Dutch settlers and enslaved population of the Dutch Cape Colony, where it gradually began to develop distinguishing characteristics in the 17th and 18th centuries. Although Afrikaans has adopted words from other languages including German, Malay and Khoisan languages, an estimated 90 to 95% of the vocabulary of Afrikaans is of Dutch origin. Differences between Afrikaans and Dutch often lie in the more analytic morphology and grammar of Afrikaans, and different spellings. There is a large degree of mutual intelligibility between the two languages, especially in written form. Etymology The name of the language comes directly from the Dutch word (n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sandstone
Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar, because they are the most resistant minerals to the weathering processes at the Earth's surface. Like uncemented sand, sandstone may be imparted any color by impurities within the minerals, but the most common colors are tan, brown, yellow, red, grey, pink, white, and black. Because sandstone beds can form highly visible cliffs and other topography, topographic features, certain colors of sandstone have become strongly identified with certain regions, such as the red rock deserts of Arches National Park and other areas of the Southwestern United States, American Southwest. Rock formations composed of sandstone usually allow the p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Claypan
Claypan is a dense, compact, slowly permeable layer in the subsoil. It has a much higher clay content than the overlying material, from which it is separated by a sharply defined boundary. The dense structure restricts root growth and water infiltration. Therefore, a perched water table might form on top of the claypan. In the Canadian classification system, claypan is defined as a clay-enriched illuvial B (Bt) horizon. Location Claypan is present in a wide area of the central United States (about 4 million ha) across multiple states such as Kansas, Oklahoma, and Illinois. It can also be found in Australia throughout the south-west Queensland. Formation Claypan is formed in different parent materials depending on geological locations, such as floodplains. The formation of the claypan relates to a lack of vegetation coverage, soil particle size distribution, and high rainfall. The lack of vegetation coverage makes soil become more susceptible to raindrop attacks. When the raindr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vachellia Erioloba
''Vachellia erioloba'', the camel thorn, also known as the giraffe thorn, mokala tree, or Kameeldoring in Afrikaans, still more commonly known as ''Acacia erioloba'', is a tree of southern Africa in the family Fabaceae. Its preferred habitat is the deep dry sandy soils in parts of South Africa, Botswana, the western areas of Zimbabwe and Namibia. It is also native to Angola, south-west Mozambique, Zambia and Eswatini. The tree was first described by Ernst Heinrich Friedrich Meyer and Johann Franz Drège in 1836. The camel thorn is a protected tree in South Africa. The tree can grow up to 20 metres high. It is slow-growing, very hardy to drought and fairly frost-resistant. The light-grey colored thorns reflect sunlight, and the Pinnation, bipinnate leaves close when it is hot. The wood is dark reddish-brown in colour and extremely dense and strong. It is good for fires, which leads to widespread clearing of dead trees and the felling of healthy trees. It produces ear-shaped legume ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Salsola
''Salsola'' is a genus of the subfamily Salsoloideae in the family Amaranthaceae. The genus ''sensu stricto'' is distributed in Australia, central and southwestern Asia, North Africa, and the Mediterranean. Common names of various members of this genus and related genera are saltwort (for their salt tolerance) and tumbleweed or roly-poly. The genus name ''Salsola'' is from the Latin , meaning . Description The species of ''Salsola'' are mostly subshrubs, shrubs, small trees, and rarely annuals. The leaves are mostly alternate, rarely opposite, simple, and entire. The bisexual flowers have five tepals and five stamens. The pistil ends in two stigmata. The fruit is spherical with a spiral embryo and no perisperm. Systematics The genus name ''Salsola'' was first published in 1753 by Linnaeus in ''Species Plantarum''. The type species is ''Salsola soda'' L. The genus ''Salsola'' belongs to the tribe Salsoleae ''s.s.'' of the subfamily Salsoloideae in the family Amaranthaceae. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
