Earth

Articles

• Relief
  16 May 2012, by M. R.

  The relief of a region can be defined, as a first approximation, as the different forms, or the salient and hollow volumes that make it up - "a family of topographical forms" in the phrase of De Martonne. However, while relief is a geographical object that has been widely studied, analysed and interpreted by generations of specialists, explorers and geographers, it has not often been precisely "defined". This is probably because the notion of relief includes one of the most obvious (...)

• Longitude
  8 September 2010, by H. C.

  To know the position of a place on «earth,» we need to know its position in «latitude» and longitude, that is to say its coordinates. In Jules Verne’s well-known novel Les enfants du Capitaine Grant, the Captain’s children have a document eaten away by sea water giving the coordinates of the place where the Captain has been shipwrecked. But while the latitude indication is legible, the longitude is not. In order to find their father, they will have to travel to the known degree (...)

• Continent
  11 January 2014, by B. E., G. H.

  The word continent is derived from the Latin terra continens – a continuous tract of land. The word has thus come to refer to a vast continuous surface area of the globe surrounded by oceanic masses. In a second approach, the word continent is used, in particular among island communities, to refer to what is more generally known as the mainland. In this case there is a «discontinuity» between islands and archipelagos some distance from the continental mass and the mainland, (...)

• Energy
  1 November 2005, by B. E., F.D.-D.

  The first scientific meaning for the word energy was elaborated within the discipline of Physics, and applies to the faculty that a body has to produce mechanical work. In geography, the notion of energy is used in three main fields: In its most commonly accepted meaning today, the notion of energy is likened to a resource used to meet human needs, and involves all the means that human societies have used to appropriate and transform natural elements. Energy is not limited to fossil (...)

• Sustainable development
  1 February 2014, by S. B.

  For the economist Catherine Aubertin, sustainable development is the "normative ambition of ecologising and humanising the economy", that is to say of reconciling economic growth with social and above all environmental concerns, thus preserving the future and implementing forms of «development» that respect natural «resources» and ecosystems. Thus sustainable development guarantees economic efficiency by justifying it on the basis of social finalities, while at the same time ensuring its (...)

• Latitude
  22 December 2008, by H. C.

  Latitude is a coordinate that, in association with “longitude”, enables the position of a point on the globe to be known. Certain cosmic characteristics of the movements of the Earth are used for this purpose. The Earth rotates on an axis between the poles joining the only two points that do not move with the rotation. An infinite number of perpendicular planes can be defined in relation to the polar axis.
  In earlier geographical manuals, it was stated that the Equator was an (...)

• Ocean
  22 April 2016, by S. G.-V.

  An ocean is a vast expanse of water between two continents, and covering several climatic zones. In Greek mythology the ocean is the titan Oceanus, son of Gaia (the Earth ) and Uranus (the sky) and consort to his sister, Tethys (marine goddess). Oceanography distinguishes ocean from sea by the surface area of the continental shelf, generally less then 10-15% for the ocean. The ocean in thus characterised by extensive abyssal areas. However, oceans and seas are often gathered under the term (...)