This has long been a popular holiday region for the Japanese, and along the 7 1/2mi/ 12km stretch of coast running from north to south there are more than 40 Japanese-style hotels (ryokan). In spite of this it is essential to book accommodation in advance.

There are many viewpoints along the coast and on the islands from which to see the scenery of the bay and the islands - always changing as the light changes at different times of day and different seasons; but the highly formalized Japanese approach to scenery, influenced by landscape painting, distinguishes four particular viewpoints, the Matsushima shi-daikan (”the four most excellent views of Matsushima”):

Otakamori, a hill (348ft/ 108m) on the island of Miyato, in the eastern part of the bay.

Ogidani, a hill to the south of Matsushima Station in the central part of the bay.

Tamonzan, a low hill on Cape Yugasaki, in the southwestern part of the bay.

Tomiyama, a hill 20 minutes’ walk north of Rikuzen-Tomiyama Station. On the hill is the Daigyoji Temple (17th C).

Transportation:

The town is only a short distance (thirty minutes) from prefectural capital Sendai and is easily accessible by train. Matsushima-Kaigan Station is near the attractions such as Zuiganji and the harbor. Matsushima Station, on a separate line is on the opposite side of the town.
Matsushima Bay is the inner part of Sendai Bay, immediately south of the Ojika Peninsula on the east coast of Honshu. The name means, “island of pines”, referring to the pine covered rocky islands and islets, more than 260 in number, which give this area its special character. The scenery of the region, diversified by its varied rock formations and the bizarrely shaped trees, which grow in its scanty soil, has long been renowned throughout Japan.

Together with Ama-no-hashidate and Itsukushima in Hiroshima Bay, Matsushima is one of the three famous stretches of coastal scenery in Japan, the sankei.

Although there are no rivers running into or out of the quiet lake, the water level barely changes throughout a year, which adds to the mystery. Surrounded by the sheer cliffs, the lake features a small isle in its center. The isle is the peak of a lava hill which rises about 230 meters (755 feet) from the bottom of the lake. The Ainu people who have long lived here call the isle “Kamuishu,” which roughly means “Island of the Gods.”

1. Lake Mashu, with 20km of circumference and 140m of depth is a comma-shaped caldera lake originated from a volcano activity of Mashu Caldera. It is classed with Lake Baikal in Siberia as one of the most transparent lakes of the world. Moreover it is well known that the lake keeps the constant water level in spite of the lack of in and out flows.
2. Small island called Kamuish (divine island) is found at center of the lake and Mt. Kamuinupuri (divine mountain in Ainu language or Mt. Mashu) is towering on the eastern shore. As called “foggy Lake Mashu”, it is frequently veiled by the fog, specially during Summer and scarcely visible.
3. A strong tribe chief has been killed. When his mother was running about trying to escape in dark fields and moutains with bringing her grandchild, she lost him. After looking for the beloved grandchild, she arrived finally the shore of Lake Mashu and asked to Mt. Kamuinupuri the permission to rest. By taking a rest, she transformed herself to an isle because of the fatigue and the sadness.

4. 1545m high, located at the base of Shiretoko Peninsula, Mt. Shari belongs to a regional national park above 700m. Many people climb there because of plenty of interesting sights such as strange-shaped rocks, waterfalls and Alpine flowers. There, you can find snows on the northern slope even in Summer and get a view to mountains of Shiretoko and Akan, Lakes Kussharo and Mashu and even clearly Kunashiri Island in a far distance when it is fine.

Detailed Information:
Mardalsfossen is one of the more well known waterfalls in Norway, mostly by reputation as being one of the tallest in the world. The falls, widely cited as having the tallest single drop in Norway (commonly cited at 297 meters, but really, the taller tier is 358 meters), consist of two major tiers, both plunges, and some smaller cascades at the base. The falls have been tapped for hydroelectric production, however, it is allowed to flow uninterupted during between June 20 and August 20 from approximately 9am to 9pm, thus the artificial “seasonal” ranking above.

Location and General Description:

The ecoregion is located along the border between northeastern Nigeria and northwestern Cameroon (11° N, 14° E). Found in the semi-arid tropics, the ecoregion is within the Sudano-Sahelian belt, and is wetter and more vegetated than the Sahelian zone to the north. It can be divided into three altitudinally distinct zones: mountains, plateau and plains (FAO 2001). Most of the botanical value lies in those highly restricted plateau areas above 1,200 meters in elevation. All parts of this ecoregion are highly degraded.

The region has a six month wet season, from May to October. During this season, between 800 mm to 1,000 mm falls; the rest of the year is dry (FAO 2001). Mean temperature is moderated by altitude and ranges between 15° to 30 ° C. The Mandara range is composed of ancient granites (Morton 1986), unlike the volcanic rocks of the Cameroon mountains further to the southwest. The granites weather to produce an relatively infertile soil. However, there are also areas of more fertile clay soils. While agricultural activity is carried out most intensively on the plains, extensive areas of agriculture also affect the mountain slopes.

The area falls within White’s (1983) phytogeographical centre of Sudanian regional endemism. It is thought that Isoberlinia doka woodlands were once the dominant vegetation on Mount Mandara, which now supports only extremely degraded forms of this vegetation (Bellefontaine et al. 1997, MacKinnon and MacKinnon 1986). The trees here reach heights of 12 m to 18 m, and woody cover averages 50 percent or more (Bellefontaine et al. 1997). The herbaceous layer is largely dominated by hardy grasses (e.g. Andropogon spp. and Beckeropsis spp.) (Bellefontaine et al. 1997).

The ecoregion is, on the whole, heavily grazed and burnt. There are a few montane species and a number of submontane species in its flora. The highest points, from 1,200 m to 1,494 m, hold a mix of Sudanian and Afromontane species, such as the large succulent “tree” Euphorbia desmondi, Olea hochstetteri, and Pittosporum viridiflorum. The Mandara Plateau Mosaic, located at the northern limit of the Nigerian/Cameroon Mountain chain, has a long history of human settlement (Riddell and Campbell 1986). The region is one of the most environmentally, agriculturally and ethnically diverse areas of West Africa (FAO 2001).

In the Northern part of the river Manavgat there are the Lake of Oymapınar and Manavgat Dams. The Dams and its surroundings have a unique beauty. The plain of Manavgat, which is 2500 m2. is the most fertile plain of the province Antalya and is suitable for growing cotton, wheat, barley and 45 different kinds of fruit and vegetables. Fruit and vegetables growing in greenhousees in an important from of farming in the region. Greenhouse flowering has also improved recently. Trout is bred in some parts of the river. The history of the town is known to be very old and it is believed that the name Manavgat comesfrom the word “Munouwa” in the old language of luwi, meaning temple of matrilineal Goddess.

Geography

Between the Taurus Mountains to the north, and the sandy beaches of the Mediterranean coast, much of the district is flat. This is good farmland and agriculture is well-developed in Manavgat, keeping livestock and growing crops including grains, sesame and many fruits and vegetables; in recent years olives have been planted. There is no industry except for food-processing, so apart from agriculture the local economy depends on tourism.

The mountains are covered in forest and typical Mediterranean shrubs, there are small plains higher in the mountains too, traditionally used for summer grazing by the yörük nomads. Manavgat has a Mediterranean climate of hot, dry summers and warm, wet winters; the temperature rarely drops to freezing. The district is watered by the Manavgat River, which is dammed for hydro-electric power in two places. In 2001 plans began to export water from these reservoirs to Israel and other Mediterranean countries including Malta and Cyprus; as of 2006 these plans are on hold.

Tourism

With 64km of hot, sunny coastline, much of it sandy beaches, with a long river and the waterfall, well-protected countryside including mountain and forest, Manavgat has an important tourist industry. There is plenty of accommodation on the coast and many places to explore including historical sites, rivers, streams and caves. And there is the sea itself including the odd experience of swimming from fresh water into the salt sea at the rivermouth. Predictably the cuisine includes fish from the Mediterranean.

The huge influx of visitors every year is changing the shape of traditionally conservative Manavgat considerably; there are bars, discos, and all kinds of youth culture which 20 years ago would have been unthinkable. The villages of Kumköy and Ilıca on the coast are particularly lively.

The town of Manavgat has grown rapidly and chaotically, mainly with cheap apartment buildings, and the roads and other services are struggling to keep up. While keen to exploit the opportunity to the last cent, the people here are resisting the effect of foreign visitors on their traditional lifestyle as much as they can; the evening air is full of the sound of gangs of young men charging around in noisy Tofaş automobiles blasting Arabesque pop music at high volume.

Mammoth Cave, currently measuring 350 miles long and 379 feet deep, is known as the longest cave in the world. While most visitors to Cave City, Kentucky come to view Mammoth Cave National Park’s subterranean wonders, its surface beauty should not be overlooked. Aboveground, Mammoth offers 53,000 acres of scenic parkland perfect for hiking, fishing, paddling and wildlife viewing. Outside the park there are even more opportunities for family adventure and fun in the Cave City area!

For generations, people have brought their families to experience the wonder of this area. Visit Cave City, KY because there’s more Kentucky tourist attractions than ever before… see dinosaurs, go caving, horseback riding, visit a museum, a Wild West town or go antique shopping.

Plan your next vacation at Cave City, KY, Gateway to Mammoth Cave and experience a wide verity of Kentucky tourist attractions.
Climate
No matter the season, you’ll love Kentucky’s mild climate. Summers can be very warm with average temperatures in the upper 80s (upper 30s Celsius), but cool evenings are not unusual. For spring and fall, it’s a good idea to bring a light jacket. In the winter, we get a moderate amount of snow, and highs average in the low to mid 40s (4°-7° Celsius). The wettest seasons are spring and summer, and the driest is the fall. Annual average precipitation 48 inches, including an average snowfall of 13.7 inches

Visiting

The National Park Service offers several cave tours to visitors. Many of the most famous features of the cave, such as Grand Avenue, Frozen Niagara, and Fat Man’s Misery, can be seen on lighted tours ranging from one to six hours in length. Two tours, lit only by visitor-carried paraffin lamps, are popular alternatives to the electric-lit routes. Several “wild” tours venture away from the developed parts of the cave into muddy crawls and dusty tunnels.

The park’s tours are notable for the quality of the interpretive program, with occasional graphics accompanying artifacts on display at certain points in the cave. The lectures delivered by the National Park Service cave guides are varied by tour, so that in taking several tours the visitor learns about different facets of the cave’s formation, or of the cave’s human history and prehistory. Most guides are quite knowledgeable and open to visitor’s questions. Many guides include a “theatrical” component, making their presentations entertaining with gentle humor. The guide traditions at Mammoth Cave date back to the period just after the War of 1812, and to guides such as Stephen Bishop. The style of this humor itself is part of the living tradition of the cave guides, and is duly a part of the interpretive program.

The Echo River Tour, one of the cave’s most famous attractions, used to take visitors on a boat ride along an underground river. The tour was discontinued for logistic and environmental reasons in the early 1990s.

Interested members of the public can join an Earthwatch.org sponsored field survey of the history of Mammoth Cave. However, due to Mammoth Cave park regulations, participation on this project is restricted to US citizens only.

The Lake Malawi Drilling Project recently completed a scientific drilling campaign on Lake Malawi, recovering a series of continuous sediment cores for paleoclimate studies. Lake Malawi is situated at the southern end of the East African Rift Valley, and has long been recognized as an outstanding laboratory and archive for the study of tropical paleoclimatology, extensional tectonics, and evolutionary biology. Along with Lake Tanganyika, Lake Malawi holds the promise of a high-resolution paleoclimate record of unparalleled antiquity in the continental tropics. Lake Malawi is one of the world’s largest, deepest (maximum water depth of 700 m), and oldest lakes (>7ma?), and is the largest lake in the southern hemisphere (9º-14ºS) after Lake Tanganyika.

Geography

Lake Malawi is between 560 and 579 km long and is 75 km wide at its widest point; it’s total surface area is approximately 29,600 km². The lake is bordered by western Mozambique, eastern Malawi, and southern Tanganyika, the mainland portion of Tanzania. Its largest tributary is the Ruhuhu and its outlet is the Shire River, a tributary of the Zambezi.

Lake Malawi lies in the Great African Rift Valley, a large graben caused by crustal extension and is approximately 40,000 years old.

Transport
Large-scale transport between settlements along the shores of the lake and between the Malawi shore and Likoma and Chizumulu islands is provided by steamers. The MV Ilala is the best known, although in recent years has often been out of service. When running, it travels between Monkey Bay at the southern end of the lake to Karonga in the north, and occasionally to the Iringa Region of Tanzania.

Boats travel about twice a week from Nkhata Bay on the mainland to Likoma and Chizumulu islands, taking about five hours to cross the lake. Neither island has a usable port, and boats moor offshore before transferring passengers and produce to the shore in small dinghies.

Informal transport between the two islands and from Likoma Island to the Mozambique town of Cobue is provided by small dhows.

Malaspina Glacier Flows Over Lowlands

At the top of Alaska’s panhandle, Malaspina Glacier spills from a funnel of rock in the St. Elias Mountains and spreads out to form a huge pancake between the mountains and the sea.

This massive glacier is the largest “piedmont” glacier on the continent. Piedmont glaciers occur where steep valley glaciers exit a mountain range onto flat plains or lowlands. They are no longer confined, and the ice spreads out in wide bulb-like lobes.

Malaspina Glacier is actually a compound glacier, formed by the merger of several valley glaciers. Spilling out of the Seward Ice Field, it covers 1,500 sq. miles / 3,880 sq. km as it spreads across the coastal plain. It is so large that only satellite images can provide a complete overview.

Introduction
Canada’s longest river, the Mackenzie River, empties into the Beaufort Sea in a region known as the Mackenzie Delta. The Mackenzie Delta is the largest delta in Canada and the twelfth largest delta in the world. Its watershed drains five provinces or approximately twenty percent of Canada. Two hundred and ten kilometers in length with an average width of sixty-two kilometers, the Mackenzie Delta covers an area of 13,500 km2 and contains approximately 25,000 lakes.

Located in the far northwest corner of Canada, the delta is situated in the Gwich’in Settlement Region and in the ISR of the Northwest Territories. Of the five communities that have strong ties to the delta, two are Gwich’in and three are Inuvialuit. Within the delta proper are the sub arctic communities of Inuvik and Aklavik. Fort McPherson and Tsiigehtchic (formerly Arctic Red River), while not truly in the Mackenzie Delta, are generally considered delta communities because of their close proximity and interactions with the people and resources of the region. The hamlet of Tuktoyaktuk, is situated on the extreme northeastern rim of the delta, on the coast of the Beaufort Sea.

The region possesses a variety of landscapes ranging from high mountains to flat alluvial plains. The contrasting scenery is a result of differing rock type, structure, and geomorphic evolution. Differing from other deltas in the world, the Mackenzie Delta is confined on two sides by high landforms: the Richardson Mountains to the west and the Caribou Hills to the east. These boundaries constrain the expansion of the delta’s width.

Sub arctic in location, permafrost plays a dominant role in the formation of the delta. Situated above 67.5 degrees N., the majority of the delta still remains in the discontinuous permafrost zone. This is due to the warming of the landscape caused by the Mackenzie River. The unfrozen, nutrient rich soil allows treeline to reach farther north in the Western Arctic than elsewhere in the NWT. In the northern part of the delta, near Tuktoyaktuk where the permafrost is continuous, the world’s largest concentration of pingos (cone-shaped hills with a core of ice) are found dotting the landscape.

Two types of vegetation dominate the plant communities of the delta, tundra along the Beaufort Sea and taiga further inland. Successional changes in some plant communities are maintained by seasonal flooding and by fire. This transitional zone provides a home for a variety of wildlife not normally seen at these latitudes.

In warmer climates deltas are usually prime agricultural land. In the North, however, productivity is expressed instead in seasonal abundance of various forms of wildlife. Many of these wildlife species are migratory and also play an important role in the traditional lives of peoples living in and around the delta. Approximately fifty-four species of mammals, one hundred and thirty-seven species of birds, one amphibian, and a total of fifty-five fish species are known to occur in the delta region.

Mackenzie Delta Climate:
Few places experience the extreme contrast between summer and winter found here in the Mackenzie Valley Delta. Summer temperatures of 35 degrees Celsius can stiffen to minus 45 degrees Celsius and colder during the 24 hour darkness which descends on the Delta in December and January. Soaking up the long summer sunlight, and warmed by southern breezes, the Mackenzie Valley stays several degrees warmer than the  tundra and mountains lying to the east and west. It is not unusual for Inuvik to be hotter than Edmonton or Vancouver on a July afternoon.