LET’S GO TO EXTREMES

HERE ARE TIDBITS OF GLOBAL EXTREMES of one sort or another gleaned from a variety of online sources. A principal one is the dailypassport website.

Unexpected Geographical Superlatives. The dailypassport begins with one that puts my “Great (and Neat-o) Lakes” in perspective.

The World’s Largest Lake. “So big that it’s often considered a sea,” dailypassport writes, “the Caspian Sea is nevertheless the world’s largest inland body of water — and it isn’t even close. At 149,200 square miles, it dwarfs its closest competitor, Lake Superior, which spans 31,700 square miles between the United States and Canada.”

The website continues, “The Caspian Sea, meanwhile, spreads across parts of Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Azerbaijan, and Iran. Due to both its size and salinity (it’s about one-third as salty as most seawater), ancient peoples thought it was an ocean, hence its name.”

The World’s Lowest Grand Prix.The website describes that Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan on the Caspian, is the lowest capital city in the world. It’s 92 feet below sea level (and hence, so is the Caspian Sea). 

What About Utah’s Great Salt Lake? Hmm. Wikipedia describes, “The Great Salt Lake is the largest saltwater lake in the Western Hemisphere and the eighth-largest terminal lake in the world.” I hadn’t heard this latter term before (click on it). 

The Great Salt Lake’s salinity varies from location to location, Wikipedia saying “it ranges from 5 to 27 percent.”

So Long, Great Salt Lake, It’s Been Good to Know You. As for its size, Wikipedia notes, “Drought conditions, climate change, and the overuse of snowmelt have caused the Great Salt Lake to shrink considerably. As of July 2022, the Great Salt Lake occupies approximately 950 square miles (2,500 km²). In 1987, it occupied about 3,300 square miles (8,500 km²).” Gad, it’s tiny compared to our other “Great” lakes.

What’s worse, Wikipedia recounts, “In 2023, scientists at Brigham Young University estimated that without policy changes, the lake would dry up in 2028, with local species killed off by overly salty water somewhat before that.”

It continues, “Environmentalists proposed establishing a level of 4,200 ft (1,300 m) above sea level as an official state policy, among other interventions. University of Utah researchers proposed a level between 4,198 and 4,205 feet. A non-binding resolution in the state legislature to adopt 4,198 feet was voted down and governor Spencer Cox called it ‘dumb.’”

I wonder what Brigham Young would have thought.

An Extreme of Prominence. Here at SimanaitisSays, I described the Alps as “Mountains of Prominence”

The dailypassport website describes Canada’s Mount Thor as the “greatest vertical drop,” a world’s extreme of prominence: “Mount Everest may be the tallest mountain on Earth, but it isn’t home to the planet’s greatest vertical drop. Canada’s Mount Thor is ‘only’ 5,495 feet tall compared to Everest’s 29,032 feet, but if you tossed a rock from its cliff face in Auyuittuq National Park, it would keep falling for 4,100 feet. It’s the largest vertical drop on the planet, and one that takes about 26 seconds from top to bottom.”

Mount Thor. Image by Ed Dods/Shutterstock via dailypassport. 

The website continues, “Mount Thor isn’t the only mountain to best Everest in a key category, either. Hawaii’s Mauna Kea is actually taller, but because more than half of its 33,500 feet are underwater, it reaches a much lower point (13,802 feet) above sea level.”

Other Global Facts, Familiar and Not. See “Global Truths and Things to Ponder” and “ ‘Round Atlas’ Fun”. Also, dailypassport offers me a new one: “Maine is closer to Africa than any other U.S. state. It beats even Florida by more than 900 miles. The two closest points between Maine and Africa are a lighthouse on the Quoddy Head peninsula and El Beddouza, Morocco.” ds

© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2024