China has suffered some terrible earthquakes, and it isn't surprising that China's scientists want to find ways of forecasting them. In 1975, they were successful. They cleared the city of Haicheng two hours before a devastating quake and saved the city's popu...

If you look at a map of the Atlantic Ocean, you will see that the coastal shapes of the Americas resemble those of Europe and Africa. Might these, continents have once been joined together like pieces in a giant jigsaw? A German meteorologist, Alfred Wegener (1880-1930)...

Unless you are a meteorologist (a person when –dies, the weather), it is unlikely that you will know that this is, in fact, a coded description of the climate of the Mediterranean regions:- Devised by a Russian meteorologist, Vladimir Koppen, in the - early 20th Centur...

Because of continental drift, the world's surface is always changing. About* 300 million years ago, there were two continents. One, called Gondwanaland, contained parts of South America, Africa, India, Australia and Antarctica, which were then joined together. The other, ca...

Most Europeans speak one of the Indo European languages. However, one language, Basque, which is spoken by people in north-eastern Spain and south-western France, isn't related to any other tongue. Its origins are shrouded in mystery and some people have ev...

The stars are so far away from us that astronomers do not use normal measurements such as kilometers or miles. Instead, 'they have invented a unit called the light year. This is the distance travelled in one year by a beam of light, which moves at the fastest speed in ...

Natural forces are constantly changing our world. Some rocks are dissolved by rainwater and others are split by frost or rapid temperature changes. Worn rock is then carried away by running water, glaciers and, in dry regions, by the wind. Weathering, running water, glaciers...

Car exhausts fumes and smoke from factories and power stations release chemicals, including sulphur dioxide and nitrogen, oxides, into the air. The chemicals react with water vapour to form specks of sulphuric and nitric acid. These acids return to the ground in raindrops,...

Volcanoes vary in shape, because they are formed in different ways. Some steep-sided ash and cinder cones are made of small fragments, of magma exploded out of the vent (opening) On the other hand; quiet volcanoes emit streams of molten lava. If the lava is thick...

For many years, Tokyo and Shanghai headed the world league table of the largest cities, but in the early 1980s Mexico City pulled ahead Present forecasts suggest that it will have 30 million people by AD 2000. The expansion of Mexico City is part of a trend...