Located in a shifting sea of ice, the North Pole sits at the center of the Arctic Ocean, the literal top of the world. The shifting of the ice makes it impossible to establish a permanent base at the pole, though drifting stations have been created through the decades that are manned for several weeks …
In the previous post of this blog series, Extremities of the Earth, we explored the depths of the lowest natural point on earth. We will now travel in the opposite direction, to the heights of Mount Everest, the highest point on earth from sea level at 29,029 feet (8,848 m) above sea level. The peak …
It was once thought that the ocean floor was a vast, flat, featureless plain. In the 1840s, explorers began to measure the depth of the ocean and came to the realization that there was as much variety in the contours of the ocean floor as there was on dry land. It is at the bottom …
Where is the lowest point on dry land? Or the northernmost inhabited point on earth? How about the highest city? All of these questions and many more will be unraveled in this new occasional series, Extremities of the Earth, created to explore the farthest reaches of our planet. For this inaugural post for the series, …
If you have read other Library of Congress blogs, in particular the Prints and Photographs Division’s Picture This, you may recognize my name. I am now working in the Geography and Map Division and will be an active member of the Worlds Revealed blog team. I am excited for the opportunity to share my findings …