Similarities and differences between Ecuador and Antarctic natural environment

The equator runs across the north of the country, and Ecuador means "equator" in Spanish. The Andes runs through the central part of the country, which is divided into three parts: the western coast, the central mountainous area and the eastern region. 1. Western coastal areas: including coastal plains and hilly areas, the terrain is high in the east and low in the west, generally below 200 meters above sea level, and some hills and low mountains are 600-700 meters above sea level. It belongs to the tropical rain forest climate, and the southernmost part begins to transition to the tropical grassland climate. The average annual precipitation has decreased from more than 3,000 mm to about 500 mm from north to south. 2. Central mountain range: After Colombia entered Ecuador, the Andes were divided into East Cordillera and West Cordillera. The plateau between the two mountains is high in the north and low in the south, with an average elevation of 2500 to 3000 meters. Ridges crisscross, dividing the plateau into more than ten intermountain basins. The most important are Quito Basin and Cuenca Basin in the south. There are many volcanoes and frequent earthquakes in the territory. The famous Cotopaxi volcano is 5897 meters above sea level and is one of the highest active volcanoes in the world. Mount Chimborazo is located in central Ecuador, with an altitude of 6262 meters, which is the highest peak in Ecuador. From the center of the earth to the top of the mountain is 6384. 1 km. Qin Boraso, located in the west Cordillera Mountains of the Andes, has long been mistaken for the highest peak in the Andes. It is a dormant volcano, with many craters and many glaciers on the top, with an altitude of about 4694 meters and snow all year round. 1880, the British mountaineer E- Wilbur reached the summit for the first time. This is the plateau area in central Ecuador, with agriculture and animal husbandry as the main industries, including sheep, cattle, grains, potatoes, fruits, fiber plants and so on. The mountainous basin in this area belongs to the tropical grassland climate, and the mountainous area belongs to the subtropical forest climate, with perennial snow above 4000 meters above sea level. The annual average precipitation is about 1000mm, with rainy season from February to June and dry season from July to June. Third, the eastern region: it is a part of the Amazon river basin. At an altitude of1200-250m, the river at the foot of the mountain is swift, and the alluvial plain is below 250m, with wide river surface, gentle water flow and tortuous flow. It has a tropical rainforest climate, which is wet and rainy all the year round, with an average annual precipitation of 2000-3000mm.

Located in the Pacific Ocean, about 900 kilometers east of the mainland coast, the Galapagos Islands covers an area of 7,800 square kilometers, including 7 large islands and about 70 small islands, all of which are composed of volcanic cones and volcanic lava. Antarctica, located around the South Pole, is a continent covered with ice and snow, and the surrounding islands are dotted. The area of Antarctica, including the Antarctic continent and its islands, is about140,000 square kilometers, accounting for 10% of the world's land area, equivalent to the combined area of the United States and Mexico, 1.45 times that of China, twice that of Australia and the fifth continent in the world.

Antarctica is surrounded by the stormy and icy Southern Ocean, which is an extension of the Atlantic Ocean, the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean, covering an area of about 38 million square kilometers. For the convenience of research, it is called the fifth ocean in the world.

Antarctica is the closest to South America, separated by the Drake Strait, only 970 kilometers apart. It is about 3500 kilometers away from Australia; It is about 4000 kilometers away from Africa; It is about12000km from China.

Antarctica is the highest continent in the world, separated from Gondwana, with an average elevation of 2350 meters. The mountains across the Antarctic divide the Antarctic continent into two parts. These two parts are quite different in geography and geology.

East Antarctica is a very old continent with a history of hundreds of millions of years. Its center is located in the lonely spot, and any seaside is far from the lonely spot. East Antarctica has an average elevation of 2,500 meters and a maximum elevation of 4,800 meters. In East Antarctica, there is the largest active volcano in the Antarctic continent, namely Mount Erebus on Ross Island, with an altitude of 3,795 meters and four vents.

West Antarctica is only half the size of East Antarctica. It is an archipelago, some of which are below sea level. But all the islands are covered by continental ice sheets. The older part (including southern Mary Bird Land, Ellsworth Land, Ross Ice Shelf and Queen Maud Land) has a mountain system composed of granite and sedimentary rocks. The mountain system extends southward to the central part of the Antarctic Peninsula and protrudes northward. The northern part of West Antarctica, that is, the higher part, was caused by volcanic movement during the Tertiary geological period. Mount Vincent (5 140m), the highest point in Antarctica, is located in the west of Antarctica.

Beardmore Glacier, located in the Antarctic Plateau, is the largest glacier in Antarctica. Ross Ice Shelf, whose drainage area is equivalent to that of France, is the southernmost boundary of Ross Sea. The Weddell Sea, located on the other side of the mainland, is another deep bay that goes deep inland and ends at the Fersina ice shelf. The Felsina Ice Shelf extends to the south and joins the Ross Ice Shelf, which is located in front of the polar plateau and has a high altitude.

There are many freshwater and saltwater lakes in Antarctica, the most famous of which is Lake Tangjuan. The salinity of the lake is extremely high, and the salinity of each liter of lake water can reach more than 270 grams. Even at MINUS 70 degrees, the lake won't freeze. There is also a kind of lake with frozen surface and high temperature and high salt at the bottom in Antarctica, such as the famous Wanda Lake and Bonnie Lake. This lake is covered with 2? Under the 3-meter-thick ice layer, the lake is clear, with little plankton, and the salt content of the lake increases with the depth. The salt content of lake bottom water can often be 10 times higher than that of seawater. The temperature of the lake also increases with the increase of depth. Under the environment of the annual average temperature of -20℃, the water temperature at the bottom of the lake can be as high as 25℃.

Antarctica is usually colder than the North Pole at the same latitude and is the coldest region in the world. At the seaside, the weather is not as cold as in the higher inland areas. During the International Geophysical Year, the average Leng Yue temperature measured by scientists in coastal areas was-18℃, while the average temperature in the same month in Antarctica was -62℃. On July 3rd10983, Soviet scholars recorded a low temperature of -89.2℃ at Dongfang Station, which was the lowest natural temperature recorded in the world at that time. The winds in Antarctica vary from place to place. Generally speaking, the wind power is strongest near the coast, with an average wind speed of17-18m/s, and the wind power is strongest from the coast of enderby to the coast of Adelie in the southeast pole, with a wind speed of 40-50m/s ... According to the statistical data of Australian Mawson Station for 20 years, there are 300 windy days of magnitude 8 every year, and the maximum wind speed observed at Mawson Station is/. A hurricane with a wind speed of 100m/s was observed at Deveer station in France, and its wind force was three times that of a typhoon with a magnitude of 12, which was the largest wind speed recorded in the world so far.

The Antarctic continent is the driest continent on the earth, with an average annual precipitation of only 30-50 mm. The deeper the continent, the less precipitation, which is only 3 mm near the South Pole. There is more precipitation in coastal areas, with an average annual precipitation of 200-500mm, and more precipitation in south shetland islands. Almost all the precipitation in Antarctica is snow.

Antarctica is rich in mineral resources. At present, more than 220 species have been discovered, including coal, iron, copper, lead, zinc, aluminum, gold, silver, graphite, diamond and petroleum. There are also rare mineral deposits with important strategic value such as thorium, plutonium and uranium. According to scientists' estimation, there are 654.38+05 billion barrels of oil and 3 trillion cubic meters of natural gas in the Ross Sea, Weddell Sea and Billings Gaojin Sea. There are about 500 billion tons of coal in Antarctica. South of Victoria Land in the East Pole, coal reserves are extremely rich, with a coalfield area of 250,000 square kilometers.

The only plants found on rocks or steep slopes in the Antarctic continent are the lowest plants, which grow north towards the sun. Biologists have found about 400 different bryophytes on the continental margin and nearby islands. Two pink flowering plants are also found outside the warmest south shetland islands in Antarctica and in the northern part of the Antarctic Peninsula. In the pond thawed in summer, 200 species of freshwater algae were also found. Algae also grow in snow.

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Animals in Antarctica mainly include whales, seals and penguins. They look for food in the ocean around the land. In 1950s, the amount of whaling in Antarctic waters reached about 70% of the world's whaling. The largest blue whale caught, 37.8 meters long, is the largest known animal in the world. Seals that produce precious fur in Antarctic waters have been killed, and there are 6 kinds of seals. There are four kinds of penguins living in Antarctica, namely, Emperor Penguin, Adelie Penguin, Golden Penguin and Hooded Penguin. Most hooded penguins are distributed in the Antarctic Peninsula. The emperor penguin is the largest, with a height of about 122 cm and a weight of 4 1 kg. Adelie penguin is the most common bird in Antarctica, about 48 cm high and weighing about 5 kg. There are other kinds of birds on many islands in Antarctica, including snow birds, albatrosses, seagulls, skuas and terns. There are some flightless insects in Antarctica. Pink bugs were found within 483 kilometers from the South Pole. A characteristic of Antarctic waters is that plankton, such as crustaceans, are abundant, among which krill reserves are 65.438+100 million tons to 5 billion tons. Some scientists believe that the annual capture of100000 tons to10.5000000 tons will not affect the ecological balance of the southern ocean.

Hypon

98% of the Antarctic continent is covered with ice and snow. After years of measurement and calculation by scientists, the total volume of Antarctic ice sheet is 28 million cubic kilometers, with an average thickness of 2,000 meters and a maximum thickness of 4,800 meters. The thickest ice sheet is located 5 10 km east of Cassidy Station in Australia in the east of Antarctica. The Antarctic continent is covered with ice and snow all the year round, which makes the Antarctic continent, especially East Antarctica, form a dome-shaped plateau with an average height of 2350 meters, which is the highest continent on earth and 2.5 times higher than the average height of the Asian continent including the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. But if you don't count this huge ice sheet, the average height of the Antarctic continent is only 4 10 meter, which is far lower than the average height of the land on the whole earth.

The Antarctic ice and snow is the largest freshwater reservoir in the world, where 90% of the world's ice and snow are stored, accounting for 72% of the fresh water reserves on the whole earth's surface. There are many glaciers in Antarctica. Among them, Lambert glacier is the largest glacier in the world. This glacier is filled in a huge rift with a length of 400 kilometers, a width of 64 kilometers and a maximum depth of 2500 meters. Flowing into the sea at an annual flow rate of 350 meters, forming the Emory Ice Shelf. There are about 300 continental ice shelves of different sizes in Antarctica. Among them, the Ross Ice Shelf in West Antarctica and the Filshie Ice Shelf in Weddell Bay are the most famous ice shelves in the world. The Ross ice shelf covers an area of about 540,000 square kilometers, and the Fersina ice shelf covers an area of about 400,000 square kilometers. There are 10 ice barriers around Antarctica. The Ross ice barrier on the Ross ice shelf is 900 kilometers long.

With an average elevation of 50 meters, it is the largest ice barrier in Antarctica. According to experts. The ice barrier has been moving. The front end of Ross ice barrier usually moves 3 meters every day, and the fastest is 4 meters. Queen Maud's land and glacier tongue in Adelie, Antarctic continent, extend to the sea 100 kilometers, with a width of more than 50 kilometers and a height of 20? 30 meters. Because sea ice extends from the coast to the ocean, the Antarctic continent is very different in winter and summer. Scientists have determined that on the Greenwich meridian, the diameter of the Antarctic continent is 3600 kilometers in summer and 5400 kilometers in winter.