Earth's Extremes
What is the largest hot desert in the world?
Sahara Desert
What continent is divided into the highest number of sovereign nations (54 countries)?
Africa
What type of rock forms directly from the cooling and solidification of molten magma or lava?
Igneous rock
Which river carries the largest volume of water on Earth?
Amazon River
What prime meridian city serves as the historical reference point for 0° longitude (GMT)?
London, England (Greenwich)
What is the deepest known point in the Earth's oceans?
Challenger Deep (in the Mariana Trench)
What narrow body of water separates Great Britain from continental Europe at its narrowest point?
The English Channel (Strait of Dover)
What point on the Earth's surface sits directly above where an earthquake originates underground?
Epicenter
What is the longest river located entirely in Europe?
Volga River
What line of latitude located at 23.5° North marks the northern boundary of the tropics?
Tropic of Cancer
What body of water is so hyper-saline that swimmers float effortlessly and marine life cannot survive?
The Dead Sea
What is the capital city of Australia?
Canberra
What layer of the atmosphere contains the ozone layer that protects Earth from harmful UV radiation?
Stratosphere
Which major ocean current transports warm water from the Gulf of Mexico across the Atlantic to Northwestern Europe?
The Gulf Stream
Which nation spans 11 time zones across its continuous landmass, more than any other country?
Russia
What is the tallest mountain peak in North America?
Denali (Mount McKinley)
What island nation is home to the northernmost national capital in the world?
Iceland (Reykjavík)
Which type of tectonic plate boundary creates deep oceanic trenches and volcanic island arcs through subduction?
Convergent boundary
What major Asian river flows through China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam before reaching the sea?
Mekong River
Which country possesses the longest total coastline of any nation in the world?
Canada
What name is given to the Oceanic Pole of Inaccessibility, the spot in the South Pacific Ocean furthest from any landmass?
Point Nemo
Sitting over 11,900 feet (3,600 m) above sea level, what city is the highest administrative capital in the world?
La Paz, Bolivia
What atmospheric effect causes global winds to deflect to the right in the Northern Hemisphere and to the left in the Southern Hemisphere?
The Coriolis Effect
Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the world, sits on the border of which two South American nations?
Peru and Bolivia
Lake Baikal, which contains roughly 20% of the world's unfrozen surface fresh water, is located in which country?
Russia