This book, which contains diverse terrains from around the world, will open a new chapter in nature learning for all of us.
Leads.
-Jeong Seong-hun, President of the Korean Geographical Society
From the Grand Canyon, the Amazon, and the Uyuni Salt Flats to Hawaii, Monument Valley, and the Dolomites.
A geography teacher with 30 years of experience shares stories of beautiful and mysterious landforms from around the world.

Geography teacher Lee Woo-pyeong, who introduced countless readers to the beautiful nature and unique landforms of our land through "Korean Geography Walk," has now returned with "World Geography Exploration in One Volume," a book containing 56 representative landforms from around the world.
This book selects beautiful and mysterious landforms from six continents, including the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone National Park, the Amazon, the Uyuni Salt Flats, the Seven Sisters, the Dolomites, Tsichai Dansha, Pamukkale, Lake Natron, and Uluru. It introduces the current appearance, formation process, ecosystem changes, and natural historical value of each landform in an easy-to-understand manner based on the latest research and abundant image data.
This comprehensive guide to the diverse geographic features of Earth's 4.5 billion-year history will be useful not only to readers interested in geography and natural history, but also to anyone wishing to embark on a journey into the vast and beautiful outdoors.

In Yellowstone, the massive underground heat energy is released to the surface in various forms, allowing you to experience a truly 'living, vibrant Earth'.
And not only is the scenery beautiful with the V-shaped canyons, waterfalls, rock formations, lakes, and forests created by the Yellowstone River, but it is also a paradise for wild animals such as deer, buffalo (called bison or buffalo), bears, and wolves, so it has high natural historical value.
In 1872, President Grant designated Yellowstone as the first national park in the United States, making it the world's first national park.

--- pp.16~17

Yellowstone's greatest geological feature is its geysers, which erupt periodically from underground hot water to the surface.
The most famous geyser, Old Faithful, spews water and steam up to 60 meters high every 90 minutes, creating a terrifying sight.
Geysers can also be found in volcanic areas like Japan, New Zealand, and Iceland, but Yellowstone has about 300 geysers, which is two-thirds of the total on Earth.

--- p.21

Death Valley's climate is the hottest and driest in North America because water vapor from the Pacific Ocean is blocked by the Sierra Nevada Mountains and then again by the Amargosa and Panamint Mountains, preventing it from reaching the Death Valley region, which is located deep inland.
The Foehn phenomenon, in which air laden with water vapor that flows inland loses moisture as it rises over the mountain range and its temperature rises as it descends (this is the case with the high winds that occur when the northeast wind blowing from the Sea of ​​Okhotsk crosses the Taebaek Mountains in early summer in Korea), also contributes to the dry climate of Death Valley.

--- pp.96~97

Approximately 11,000 pingos, measuring approximately 3 to 7 meters in height and 30 to 100 meters in diameter, have developed along the entire Arctic coast, with approximately 1,350 concentrated on the Tuktoyaktuk Peninsula.
Pingo's ice typically grows only a few centimeters per year, forming as ice beneath the sediments on the lakebed in winter gradually increases in volume and lifts the ice off the surface.
On the other hand, when the top sedimentary layer of the pingo is eroded and dissolved in the summer, the ice is exposed and melts, creating a lagoon, where the meltwater accumulates and forms a small lake.
Through this process, Pingo repeats growth and disintegration.
Due to global warming, the ice core at the summit is rapidly melting, exposing it, so it seems unlikely that Pingo will be seen again in the near future.

--- p.140

Coral reefs are reefs formed by the accumulation of calcareous skeletons and secretions of calcium carbonate after the death of coral. Depending on the location of the island and coral, they are classified as fringing reefs (coral reefs that develop around islands or land), barrier reefs, and atolls.
Atolls, which are arranged in a ring-shaped band above the sea, are thought to be formed by the growth of coral reefs that have formed on the edges of round craters below sea level.
However, British biologist Charles Darwin discovered that atolls, on the contrary, are formed when coral reefs that grow around volcanic islands sink and remain in a ring shape.

--- p.159

The rise and fall of sea levels are influenced by the development and decline of glaciers.
As the Earth's temperature drops, glaciers in polar and mountainous regions expand, causing sea levels to fall.
On the other hand, as the Earth's temperature rises, glaciers melt and sea levels rise.
From about 2 million years ago to the present, there have been five major ice ages and four interglacials (warmer periods between glacial periods when temperatures were relatively high compared to the glacial periods) in between.
As a result, the Great Blue Hole has repeatedly been submerged by the sea as sea levels rise and fall and become land as glaciers rise and fall.

--- p.162

A unique phenomenon can be observed at the mouth of the Amazon River where it meets the sea.
The Amazon River estuary region has a large tidal range, so the sea level rises above the river level during high tide.
At this time, the river water cannot flow into the sea and flows back upstream at a rapid speed of about 70 km/h, creating huge waves of about 5 m high.
It looks like a tsunami is coming, and this is called a 'resolution phenomenon'.

--- p.201

Before the Andes formed, a group of dolphins that used to travel between the Amazon River and the Pacific Ocean were trapped in the rivers when the Andes formed, and they evolved independently, adapting to freshwater systems.
The largest of the river dolphins is the Amazon river dolphin, also known as the 'boto'.

--- pp.204~205

The Uyuni Salt Flats are constantly changing throughout the year.
During the dry season from April to November, it is a desert of salt, but during the rainy season from December to March, it is a lake that is submerged in water to a depth of about 20 to 30 cm, so it is also called a salt lake.
It is known as a desert in Korea because the dry season lasts longer than the rainy season when it is submerged in water.
However, in English-speaking countries, it is also called the 'Salt Plains' due to its geographical feature of being a wide plain.

--- p.212

Iceland's land area is expanding slightly each year due to ongoing volcanic activity and magma eruptions.
According to measurements taken by the Icelandic National Survey in 2017, the country is expanding eastward in the east and westward in the west by about 2 cm per year.
Over the past 9,000 years, Iceland has expanded by about 70 meters from east to west, mainly because it is a volcanic island straddling the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.

--- pp.283~284

Another feature of Montserrat is its unusual and diverse rock formations, which come in shapes such as cones, carrots, or bananas.
The conglomerate layer of Montserrat is a horizontal layer with almost no folded structure caused by tectonic movements.
This is because the Montserrat area was hardly affected by folding during the process of the Alpine Orogenic Belt being formed by the collision of the African Plate and the Eurasian Plate.
Instead, numerous fault lines running in a northwest-southeast direction have developed due to the severe faulting, such as cracking, sinking, and rising of the crust.

--- p.312

The multi-colored bands of Chichaidansha are layers of sedimentary rock that were laid down sequentially at different times.
The stratum is inclined at an angle, indicating that it has undergone tectonic movements such as folding.
Chichaidansha began to form about 500 million years ago in the Paleozoic era.
The white layer right next to the red layer of Chichaidansha is made of limestone, which was formed when coral and seashells were deposited here about 500 million years ago when this area was a sea.

--- p.337

The current Yangtze River originates from the Tibetan Plateau, flows eastward across central China, and then flows into the East China Sea.
In the past, a single stream was divided into two rivers by the Wushan Mountains in Hubei Province, flowing in opposite directions.
Afterwards, these rivers were connected to form the present-day Changjiang River.
The course of the Changjiang River can be seen as a complex result of processes such as headwater erosion, river contention, and course change, similar to the Colorado River that flows through the Grand Canyon in the western United States.

--- p.373

The scientific name for the Chocolate Hills is Conkarst.
It was formed by the dissolution of limestone, the rock that makes up the Chocolate Hills, and its name comes from its shape resembling a cone or cone.
Conkarst belongs to the remnant landforms formed by differential erosion of limestone areas.
The river flowing along the joints of the earth's surface eroded the surrounding limestone, and the remaining hills are the present-day Chocolate Hills.
When the erosion progresses further than a cone and becomes closer to a tower shape, it is called a tower karst. Guilin, China and Halong Bay, Vietnam, seen above are examples of this.

--- p.426

The rock pillars of the Goreme Valley are punctured with countless honeycomb-shaped holes.
These holes are cave dwellings dug into the rock face to allow people to live inside, and it is estimated that people began living here around 4,000 years ago when the Hittites ruled.
The reason for creating cave dwellings was that the inland grasslands and semi-arid regions had unfavorable vegetation conditions and wood was scarce, while the tuff formed by hardening volcanic ash was soft and weak, making it easy to dig caves using sharp trees and stones.

--- p.449

Pamukkale was formed when hot spring water of about 35-50℃ rose from a fissure in the earth's crust underground in the limestone layer formed at the top of a hill during the Paleozoic and Mesozoic eras, flowed down the mountainside, and the calcium carbonate dissolved in the hot spring water precipitated and solidified in steps.
Therefore, the identity of the white powder is all lumps of calcium carbonate contained in limestone.
If you dip your hands into the hot spring water in the pool, you will collect the precipitated calcium carbonate powder.
As this slowly flows, it accumulates and hardens, creating a calcified terrace.

--- p.457

Every year, over 180 million tons of sand are released into the air from the Sahara Desert, and it is known that about 27.7 million tons of this sand dust is carried by the wind across the Atlantic Ocean in a single day and falls in the Amazon River basin in South America.
The United States Geological Survey took note of this and calculated the age of sand dust deposited in the Canary Islands off the coast of Morocco, west of the African continent.

--- p.481

The Richat Structure, located in western Mauritania in the Sahara Desert of North Africa, is a massive, circular vortex-shaped structure with a diameter of up to 50 kilometers in a vast desert area.
Its size and scale are so vast that to see its full form, you must climb to an altitude of at least 10 km.

--- p.492

The African and Arabian plates, which were initially connected to each other, began to split into three plates about 100 million years ago. Currently, the Arabian plate, the Afro-Somali plate, and the Afro-Nubian plate are splitting apart in a Y-shaped triple rift, moving away from each other across a fault zone.
The faulting and subduction that began about 20 million years ago continues unabated, and it is said that in 10 million years, the African continent will split in two.

--- p.512

Among birds, only the lesser flamingo (also called the lesser flamingo, a species found in the East African Rift Valley) uses this area as its breeding ground.
During the dry season, when the salinity of the lake increases, salt-loving blue-green algae flourish, and the number of crustaceans and ring-shaped or flat-shaped invertebrates that feed on them increases, creating conditions that are favorable for feeding and easy for raising young.
During the dry season, you can see a spectacular sight of the lake turning pink as about 2.5 million little flamingos flock to the lake.
This is also the reason why Lake Natron became an internationally protected wetland under the Ramsar Convention in 2001.

--- p.528

During the rainy season, a huge amount of water, approximately 300,000 cubic meters per minute, pours down.
The indigenous Kololo people called it "Mosi-oa-Tunya," meaning "the smoke that roars like thunder," because of the cloudy mist and thunderous roar that can be heard around the falls.
British explorer David Livingstone, who first discovered the falls in 1855, named them Victoria Falls after Queen Victoria.

--- p.535

Why did prosimians, once thought extinct, survive only on Madagascar? Madagascar split from the African continent approximately 150 million years ago.
This is because they evolved independently in an isolated island environment, without ancestors of large predators such as lions and leopards, and without competing hominids.

--- p.564

In 2017, the discovery of zircon grains estimated to be about 3 billion years old in Mauritius attracted extraordinary attention from the scientific community.
Zircon is a silicate mineral found within granite that is resistant to weathering and hard enough not to melt in magma. It is also a mineral that represents the geological record well, so its discovery is very significant.
Zircons are generally found in rocks of older continental crust rather than younger oceanic crust, but Mauritius belongs to the younger oceanic crust, having been formed only about 10 million years ago.

--- p.570

The reason Waitomo Caves are world famous is because of the blue-green luminescence inside the cave.
Glowworms, a type of firefly or dung beetle that lives inside caves, are known to emit light.
However, this creature is actually the larva of a fungus fly insect called Arachnocampa luminosa.
It is simply called a glowworm because it has the property of emitting light.
Arachnocampa luminosa is 5mm to 3cm in size, and spends 6 to 9 months in the larval stage. It has luminescent cells in the excretory organ at the end of its body that emit light.
It is an endemic species that only lives in New Zealand and Australia and has very high ecological value.

--- p.616

Most volcanoes occur at the boundaries of the Earth's tectonic plates, where they collide, separate, or slide past each other.
However, the Hawaiian Islands, located in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, are the most volcanically active in the world, even though they are not on a plate boundary.
This is because the Hawaiian Islands have volcanic activity through hot spot eruptions, in which magma from the mantle deep in the oceanic crust erupts through the crust, regardless of plate movement.

--- p.626

When people think of 'volcanic activity', they usually think of explosive and destructive volcanic eruptions.
However, Mount Kilauea on the island of Hawaii, the most active volcano in the Hawaiian Islands, is unique in that it erupts quietly and gently, and you can see the red-hot lava masses up close.

--- p.629