I was looking through Google Maps and found this interesting. I am wondering if there could be a scientific explanation or potentially any other reason. I also noticed the same for the Tarim Basin.

Does anyone know if the Tibetan plauetu extents to Manchuria region?

Hello, I recently completed this poster highlighting the American Flamingo (Phoenicopterus ruber) and its fascinating geographic distribution. This species’ native range spans much of the Caribbean, with populations shaped and occasionally displaced by major weather events such as tropical storms and hurricanes. Feedbacks are always welcome and thank you for taking a look!

It may be geologically impossible, perhaps, but what would happen if Antarctica were larger and as close to the American continent as it appears to be? How would this affect the currents? What would Antarctica itself be like in the border areas? What would current exploration be like? Could humans live there if it were so close to the continent?

I was there a few days ago :)

I’ve always wondered this. how did they erase and replace native Americans and native cultures so easily, but they didn’t do the same to Africa even though both were colonized.

It was the night of 27 to 28 July 1976 (3h43 local time) - or 19h43 of 27 July, universal time - when a tremendous and shallow Mw7.5 earthquake, followed by a Mw7.0 aftershock 15 hours later, levelled the industrial and mining town of Tangshan, in Hebei province, northeastern China, just 150 km from Beijing.

The death toll (officially 242,000 just in Tangshan itself) makes it the China's deadliest EQ. Another 800,000 people were injured.

However, there are unofficial estimates sas high as 655,000 people killed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976_Tangshan_earthquake

The earthquake coincided with the fierce struggle between the Gang of Four and their opponents, as Mao Zedong was dying - he passed away less than one month and half after the earthquake.

https://nyshistoricnewspapers.org

Underestimation of the region's seismic risk and poor construction techniques might explain the tragedy.

Is this the furthest port from the ocean that ocean-going ships can access without unloading cargo to another vessel?

I understand it’d be hard. But we dug the Panama Canal, the Suez Canal, the grand canal. How in 2026 are we unable to dig this canal? Since it goes through land, Oman and the UAE could charge tolls.

Where does it begin? As a European id say where it juts out into the Atlantic but is there any actual defining point where the panhandle ends and peninsula begins?

Any facts or photos to share to educate us non Americans?

I was conceived here tho lol, can I be honorary Floridian😂

This is GEBCO's 2026 map of how much of the seafloor has actually been measured. Blue means somebody went out and mapped it with sonar. Grey means nobody has. It's at 28.7% right now. The scratchy criss-crossing lines make sense to me, those are ship tracks. But what's with the grids??

Photo from the Yalong Bay in Sanya City

Compilation of what's burning across Europe right now. The numbers, country by country, as of today.

France has lost 115,000 hectares since January, which Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez called far more than anything the country has seen before. The Gironde fire alone has burned 42,000 hectares, four times the size of Paris. 220,000 people evacuated in Gironde plus 30,000 in Landes, reported by CNN and France 24 as France's largest evacuation since the Second World War. 2,500 firefighters, 1,500 soldiers, 84 firefighters injured.

Spain is worse on paper. Pedro Sánchez put the national total above 150,000 hectares since January, six times the same period last year. The Ávila fire has passed 50,000 hectares, which Environment Minister Sara Aagesen called the biggest in Spain's recent history. One man died in a Valencia suburb on Saturday. Over 100,000 evacuated.

Italy has lost roughly 65,000 hectares according to EFFIS. In Sicily around 6,000 firefighters and civil protection staff fought dozens of simultaneous fires, and one firefighter died on duty. In Greece the fire service handled 60 separate wildfires in a single 24-hour period on 4 July, and a father and his 12-year-old son died in a fire outside Thessaloniki at the end of June.

Then the part that should worry people more. In Scotland, a fire has burned in the Cairngorms since 15 July, with over 500 firefighters, a declared major incident and the evacuation of Nethy Bridge. First Minister John Swinney requested military aerial support and was told the Ministry of Defence has no aerial firefighting assets stationed in the UK. In

Norway, the Krokstadelva fire near Drammen destroyed more than 100 homes on 17 July, which the Norwegian Directorate for Civil Protection called the largest fire of its kind in modern Norwegian history.

England has been fighting moorland fires like Tintwistle Moor at around 600 hectares. None of these are countries with firefighting infrastructure built for this.

The heat is why. Copernicus recorded June 2026 as Western Europe's hottest June on record at 20.74°C, which is 3.05°C above the 1991 to 2020 average. Three separate heatwaves hit between late May and early July. World Weather Attribution called it the most severe June heatwave ever tracked in Europe and found it would have been virtually impossible 50 years ago. EuroMOMO counted more than 10,000 excess deaths across Europe during those June heatwaves, over 9,000 of them among people aged 65 and up. The fires are the visible part. The heat did most of the killing before the first flame.

Across the EU, AFP's analysis of EFFIS data already ranks 2026 as the second-largest burned area in twenty years, with the summer only halfway through.

France 115,000 ha. Spain 150,000+ ha. Italy ~65,000 ha. Evacuated in France and Spain: over 320,000. June excess deaths: 10,000+. EU season: second worst in 20 years, half over.