Qandil Mountains

The Kurdistan region adjacent to the Iran-Iraq border has a range of the Qandil Mountains. This part of the mountainous area belongs to the Zagros mountain range. By nature, the area is extremely rugged terrain and hard to access. The Kuhe Haji Ebrahim Mountain is the highest peak in Qandil Mountains, has an elevation of 3,587 meters a subrange of the Zagros Mountains. The Kuhe Ebrahim Mountain range is sit in Western Iran and Eastern Iraq in Western Asia. The Qandil Mountains sprawling several high summits, a clutter of interlocking peaks and plateaus, is snow-covered for much of the year, and further up the mountain, there are deciduous forests.

The region is noteworthy as a sanctuary and headquarters for the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party). This is about 5,000 PKK and other armed factions control an area of approximately 50 km². However, which has been at irregular intervals bombarded by the Turkish Air Force and shelled by Iranian military artillery for some years. The Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK) is also based in Qandil, which lets them infiltrate into Iran. The Turkish military carries out operations in the Qandil mountains where they believed PKK are hiding. Turkish military believed Qandil Mountains are a safe place for Turkey and no more doubt in them. However, the bulk of the Qandil Mountains itself is in Iranian territory.

 

Block Island – Rhode Island United States

Unpretentious Block Island is a barefoot-and-bicycle kind of place, with rolling green hills, hundreds of freshwater ponds, and dramatic 250-foot bluffs that remind many of Ireland. So bewitching is it that Nature. Conservancy was inspired to call the island “one of the last great places in the Western Hemisphere.” Not much happened here until tourists began arriving in the 1870s (leading to a boom in the construction of grand Victorian hotels).

Today, on peak summer weekends, up to 20,000 tourists flock to this 11-square-mile New England gem. Despite the island’s popularity, there is no Martha’s Vineyard–style social fuss. Residents and visitors tend to be quiet and protective of the natural beauty around them. A third of the island is set aside as wildlife refuge, with more than 30 miles of hiking trails and gorgeous cliffside biking paths.

The island is ringed by some 17 miles of beach, while the Great Salt Pond harbors hundreds of pleasure boats, most from nearby Newport (see next page). Situated on the Atlantic flyway, it’s a favorite of birdwatchers during the autumn migrations, when huge flocks representing more than 150 species pass through. Dubbed the “Bermuda of the North” during its Victorian-era heyday, Block Island still boasts a number of rambling porch-fringed buildings, which wear their age with dignity.

The Hotel Manisses is a big 1870s charmer that surprises by way of its upscale restaurant with garden seating. (Order the signature lobster mashed potatoes.) Of several sister properties, the nearby 1661 Inn is the most inviting while the ten-room Sea Breeze Inn is delightful: It sits on a bluff overlooking the ocean and is surrounded by flowering gardens. Where: 12 miles south of mainland Rhode Island. Visitor info: www.blockisland chamber.com. 

How: Ferries depart from Pt. Judith year-round. Seasonal departures from Newport; New London, CT; and Montauk, NY. Hotel Manisses and 1661 Inn: Tel 800- 626-4773 or 401-466-2421; www.blockisland resorts.com. Cost: Manisses from $75 (offpeak), from $240 (peak); dinner $50. 1661 Inn from $100 (off-peak), from $375 (peak). 

When: Hotel Manisses, Apr–Oct; 1661 Inn, year-round. Sea Breeze Inn: Tel 800-786- 2276 or 401-466-2275; www.seabreezeblock island.com. Cost: from $160 (off-peak), from $230 (peak). Best times: May–mid-Jun and mid-Sep–Oct for fewer crowds; Aug for nicest weather; Sep–Oct for bird-watching.

Yellow Dog Lodge - Duncan and Graham Lakes, Northwest Territories

 

You would be imagining this: a fly-in fishing adventure with wilderness solitude, pristine waters, and trophy-size lake trout and northern pike to complete a too-good-to-be-true scenario. Unfortunately, the not-so-dreamy component of a fishing holiday at the remote northern lake has often been the lodge itself—sometimes no more than a set of weather-beaten cabins that puts the rough back in roughing it. However, a new generation of Canadian fishing lodges is set to prove that you don’t need to give up on comfort and fine food as you fish the lakes of the little-visited Northwest Territories.

Just 20 minutes north by floatplane from Yellowknife, the territorial capital, Yellow Dog Lodge is an exemplar of this new breed of backcountry destinations. On Pilot Point, which sits on a rocky divide between Duncan and Graham Lakes, Yellow Dog seamlessly blends the features of a high-toned ecotourism resort and a traditional fishing camp. During the long summer days, guided day hikes take guests past mossy bogs, across trickling ponds, and through the taiga, the boreal forest of spruce and fir that covers the rocky barrens.

From canoes and kayaks, guests can explore the lakeshore and view wildlife—moose, beaver, and nesting waterfowl all make a home in this aqueous landscape. In winter, when the lodge will open on special request, the frozen lakes become highways for snowmobiles, and the silent snow-filled forests invite exploration with snowshoes and Nordic skis. With zero light pollution, the pulsing, multicolored aurora borealis puts on a fantastic display in the fall and winter sky. But fishing remains the focus at Yellow Dog Lodge. Fishing guides will help ensure even amateurs a chance to catch that big one in the deep, pure crystal-clear waters of glacier-trenched Duncan Lake.

There’s also seasonal fly-fishing for Arctic grayling, a colorful trout relative with an outsize dorsal fin that gives a good, hard fight with lots of high, twisting jumps. The comforts of Yellow Dog Lodge are the reward for a long recreation-filled day in the arctic backcountry. Perched above the lake on a rocky outcrop, the lodge provides snug guest rooms, while private chalets extend along a pristine waterfront. The lodge’s food is a point of pride and expression of passion. Owners Kathy and Gordon Gin are excellent hosts and fine cooks, and lodge meals—served family-style in the cozy dining room or, in warm weather, on the lakeside patio—are jubilant occasions that combine great food and convivial conversation.

The wood-fired hot tub offers anglers and hikers a chance to relax weary muscles before another perfect day of adventure in the Canadian Arctic. Where: 30 miles/48 km north of Yellowknife. Tel 403-668-9936; yellow do lodge, double occupancy, includes all meals, lodging, use of equipment, and round-trip transportation from Yellowknife. When: closed Oct-May. Best times: Jan–Apr for winter sports; June–late Sept for fishing; Oct-Mar for northern lights.

Read More - Pallay Punchu – A New Enchanting Beauty in Cusco

 

El Yunque National Forest Puerto Rico

 Popular day trip from San Juan, El Yunque combines all the magic of a rain forest majestic trees, giant ferns, and mysterious peeps and trills emanating from the dense foliage in the rugged Luquillo Mountains. As the only tropical rain forest in the United States National Forest System, El Yunque provides paved trails that are easy on children and inexperienced hikers. It even offers a drive-through option for windshield tourists who can enjoy the misty landscape and roadside waterfalls along Route 191, the only road through the 28,000-acre forest. But El Yunque, considered sacred by the Taino Indians, is indubitably best experienced on foot. This place is home to thousands of plants, including 240 tree species (23 of which are found nowhere else) and 70 orchids. El Yunque has 13 hiking trails covering 23 miles of varied terrain. 

The hardy can summit El Toro and take in spectacular 360-degree views of the forest, but even small children can handle the less-than-a-milelong Big Tree Trail that wends past La Mina Falls, whose cascades plummet 35 feet into a cool, refreshing pool of water the perfect plunge on a hot day. The 3-mile El Yunque Trail is considered the most rewarding. The farther away you can get from the cruise-ship crowds, the more jungle magic you’ll find. 

There are no large creatures here such as monkeys or panthers, but there are plenty of small ones that you may not see but will certainly hear. Millions of tiny coqui, the endemic tree frog that is Puerto Rico’s mascot, live here, trilling “co-KEE” sporadically until evening approaches, or after a rainfall when it turns into a full-blown chorus. The most prized sighting is the bright-green Puerto Rican SABA parrot, once abundant but now quite rare and highly endangered. After the rain forest, it’s only 8 miles north of Luquillo Beach, a much-photographed palm-lined crescent of white sand and calm turquoise waters that attracts lots of local families from San Juan. Follow them: They know which roadside stand sells the best alcapurrias, plantain fritters stuffed with seafood.

Darvaza gas crater in Turkmenistan

The Gates to Hell also known as “Darvaza gas crater” and Door to Hell in Turkmenistan. This is a natural gas field that accidentally collapsed into a cavern in the Darvaza drilling rig to fall in. It is believed that the geologists of Russia may have purposely set it on fire to stop the spread of methane gas. The Gates to hell having punctured pockets of gas, poisonous fumes started fumes leaking at an alarming rate.

However, many geologists think it has been burning continuously since 1971 and is expected to keep on burning. The Gates to Hell situated in the middle of Karakum Desert, approximately 160 miles from Ashgabat, the Capital city of Turkmenistan. The engineers thought, to be a substantial oil field site to access the oil quantity in this site. The closer you get, the brighter it glows. The Gates to Hell was a dot of light moments ago and is now a giant crater with fire coming out of it.

The Gates to Hell crater has an area of 5,350 m2 with a 226ft diameter and its depth is about 98 ft). It’s a popular tourist attraction in Turkmenistan. The beautiful wild desert camping is my favorite surrounding area. The fiery glowing Darvaza Gas Crater can be seen from miles. The nearby village “Derweze” captured the public imagination as a mystery named it Door to Hell due to continuous fire, boiling mud, and orange flames of the crater.

Surprisingly, regardless of the crater’s menacing name and ever-present dangerous flames, tourists still trek into the wild desert to witness the burning site in all its blazing glory.  In 2010, Turk president Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow ordered the closure of the hole, to save the nearby towns from the dangerous release of poisonous gases however couldn’t due to various reasons. The Gates to Hell history is uncertain until 1960,s. After reviewing the samples of Gates of Hell soil, a crusty bacteria species discovered active at the bottom of the crater has the ability to live in high temperatures.

Groom Lake, Nevada United States

Groom Lake is a dry Salt Lake in Nevada. It is used for runways of the Nellis Bombing Range Test Site Airport Part of the Area 51 USAF installation. The lake lies at an elevation of 4,409 ft and it is about 3.7 miles from north to south and three miles from east to west at its widest point and is about 11.3 miles in circumference. Located within the namesake Groom Lake Valley portion of the Tonopah Basin, the lake is 25 mi south of Rachel, Nevada.

The nearest publicly accessible vantage point is Tikaboo Peak, twenty-six miles to the east. There were two closer vantage points, dubbed "Freedom Ridge" and "White Sides", but they were closed to public access in 1995 to prevent people from taking pictures of the installation. In popular culture, Groom Lake is a location in the zombie’s maps "Moon" and "Classified" in the Call of Duty: Black Ops franchise.

 

Groom Lake lead and silver were discovered in the southern part of the Groom Range in 1864. The English Groome Lead Mines Limited company financed the Conception Mines in the 1870s. That is giving the district its name (close mines included Maria, Willow, and White Lake). The mining claims in Groom were acquired by J. B. Osborne and partners and patented in 1876, and Osborne's son acquired the interests in the 1890s. The claims were proved in 1916 when two companies began working their mines; that work continued until 1918 and resuming after World War II until the early 1950s. Mineral production within the quadrangle has been principally leading and silver from the Groom mine in the Groom Range and silver from the Kelly mine located in the Pint- water Range south of Groom.

 

Papoose Lake is a dry lake bed located in Lincoln County, Nevada, U.S.[1] The lake lies within the plot of land referred to as the Groom Lake facility (also known as Area 51) and is a restricted area. The lake is located a few miles southwest of the Groom Lake facility nestled adjacent to the Papoose Range.

 

Geological Setting

 

Rocks within the Pahranagat Range Quadrangle range in age from Precambrian through Tertiary.  Precambrian rocks crop out mainly in the western portion of the quadrangle and consist of shale, siltstone, and silty limestone of the Johnnie Formation and quartzite, siltstone. The thin beds of limestone of the Sterling Quartzite in the Half-pint and Groom Ranges. Rocks in the Papoose Range to be Cambrian age. Maybe Precambrian and correlate with those in the Groom Range to the north. Paieozoic quartzite, shale, and carbonate units are present in most of the ranges within the quadrangle but the most extensive Paleozoic exposures are in the Pahranagat, Desert, and Pint water Ranges.

 

Tertiary volcanic units, including andesite and basalt flows, welded ash-flow tuffs. The intervocalic sedimentary units cover portions of the Hiko, Pahranagat, Groom, and Half-pint Ranges. The only intrusive rocks mapped within the quadrangle are porphyritic rhyodacite dikes, sills, and stocks in and adjacent to Bald Mountain in the central Groom Range. The major regional structural features exposed within the quadrangle are thrust faults and northeast-striking strike-slip faults. There were at least two periods of thrust faulting, Laramide and probably Cretaceous or Eocene.

 

One-third of the area of pre-tertiary outcrops in the quadrangle is underlain by major thrust faults. The most prominent structural feature of the area is the Pahranagat shear zone, composed of northeast-striking faults with apparent strike-slip movement. Faults related to this regional structure pass through the Southeastern district at the north end of the Pint water Range. The south end of the Pahranagat Range, and possibly between the Groom, Papoose, and Desert Ranges, have defined a caldron centered on Bald Mountain in the Groom Range. Volcanic rocks in the Groom Range and the adjacent Desert Range may have originated from this caldron.

Devon Island - Largest Uninhabited Island in the World

Devon Island is the largest uninhabited island in the world. This is situated in Baffin Bay, Qikiqtaaluk Region, Nunavut, Canada. It is one of the largest members of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, and the 2nd largest of the Queen Elizabeth Islands. This is Canada’s 6th-largest island and the 27th-largest island in the world. It has an area of 55,247 km2 slightly smaller than Croatia.

The bedrock is Precambrian gneiss and Paleozoic siltstones and shales. The highest point is the Devon Ice Cap at 1,920 m which is part of the Arctic Cordillera. Devon Island contains numerous small mountain ranges, such as the Treuter Mountains, Haddington Range, and the Cunningham Mountains. The distinguished similarity of its surface to that of Mars has attracted interest from scientists.

In the early 16th century, Robert Bylot and William Baffin were the first Europeans to sight the island. After Devon in England, a name which was changed to Devon Island by the end of the 1800s. In 1924, an outpost was established at Dundas Harbour. That was leased to Hudson’s Bay Company in 1933. The collapse of fur prices led to the dispersal of 53 Baffin Island Inuit families on the island in 1934. It was considered a disaster due to wind conditions and the much colder climate, and the Inuit chose to leave in 1936.

Dundas Harbour was populated again in the late 1940s, but it was closed again in 1951. Only the ruins of a few buildings remain. Because of its relatively high elevation and its extreme northern latitude, it supports only a meager population of muskox and small birds and mammals; the island does support Hypolite communities. This island is the most interesting place on planet earth, as its desert setting and severe climate are very alike to conditions on Mars.

Animal life is concentrated in the Truelove Lowland is a polar oasis area of the island, which has a favorable microclimate and supports relatively lush Arctic vegetation. The green area supports animal life, such as foxes, muskoxen, and polar bears. The ground remains frozen for almost the entire year, however temperatures during the brief (35 to 55 days) growing season rarely exceed barely 8 °C, and in winter it can plunge to as low as −55 °C.

With a polar desert ecology and a glacier is in the vicinity. Devon Island Canada receives very little rainfall. In simple words, Devon Island Canada is a wasteland. Cape Liddon is an Important Bird Area (IBA) noteworthy for its black guillemot and northern fulmar populations.

Cape Vera, another IBA site, is also noted for its northern fulmar population. Devon Island is also distinguished for the presence of the Haughton impact crater, created some 40 million years ago when a meteorite about 2 km in diameter crashed into what were then forests. The impact left a crater around twenty-three km in diameter, which was a lake for several million years.

In 1960, The Devon Island Research Station was established, and it is maintained by the Arctic Institute of North America. It is in Truelove Lowland, on the northeast coast of Devon Island. The Flash line Mars Arctic Research Station project entered its third season in 2004.

Since 2004, this Island became a brief home for five researchers and two journalists, who were to use the Mars-like environment to simulate living and working on that planet. The years 2007 was the longest simulation period that consists of 20 scientific studies. Diesel-powered generators supply power to the cabins as required; a tool shed and “sauna” are on site.

The Haughton crater is now considered one of the world’s best Mars analog sites. It is the summer home to NASA’s complimentary scientific program, the Haughton–Mars Project. HMP (Haughton Mars Project) has conducted geological, hydrological, botanical, and microbiological studies in this punitive environment since 1997. HMP-2008 (Haughton Mars Project was the twelfth field season at Devon Island.

In 2007, fossils of the seal ancestor were found on the island. On July 16, 2013, the Canadian Space Agency assigned Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen to secondment with the Centre for Planetary Science and Exploration of the University of Western Ontario at Haughton Crater in preparation for a potential future manned exploration of Mars, the Moon, or the asteroids. Recommended Reading –  Cleft Island