A view from the top of the world

This follows on from 3D maps in current affairs: it showed an intriguing feature bisecting the Arctic on a proxy topography for the earth's crust; it's only visible on a Polar Stereographic projection, looking straight down the North Pole, mapped here for features N of 50° N lat.

This was seen when mapping ArcticDEM - High-resolution Elevation Models of the Arctic (Esri Living Atlas) and Seabed Sediment Thickness (clipped to N of 50°N, Esri Living Atlas).  From the poster & overlay at the bottom:

Hi-res. DEM and sediment thickness are a proxy for depth-to-basement. Approximating a level seafloor in a closed ocean with no continental shelf or abyssal plain, they form a continuous above- and below-sea-level proxy continent surface topography minus ice and sediments. The marked N-S lineament across North Pole likely reflects a crustal mega structure from the southern Baltic Sea to along the Alaska-Yukon border .

click to enlarge, original

Anecdote: the Lomonosov Ridge, looking above like the hand of a clock centred at the North Pole and indicating 08:30, is the basis for Russia to claim the North Pole as that ridge extends to it from Russia (Perplexity).

This visual has an actual underpining in the bedrock geology:

• the tectonic plate boundaries (Esri Education Services) running roughly left to right in this Alaska polar sterographic projection reflect the mid-oceanic ridges. Notice the sudden bend toward the vertical on this projection, forming a chicane immediately above the North Pole..
• the subsea geology shows also marked breaks & offsets in the bedrock geology compiled by the Geological Survey of Canada (Arctic Circumpolar GSC EN 1:5M Offshore Bedrock_Geology from Geological Map of the Arctic, 1:5 000 000). 
  
  

click to enlarge, original

Does it not seem like that break in the bedrock geology lines up with the chicane in the plate tectonic boundaries? Notice also that in the proxy topography 2nd from above, thick purple sections to the left have no counterparts to the right... The same goes for the bedrock geology in green above! This is not unlike the juxtapposition of precambrian terranes described here in this blog, in revisiting my thesis 40 yrs. later. That is why I said at the top that the "... lineament... likely reflects a crustal mega structure".

Poster & overlay:

click to enlarge, original

click to enlarge, original

Other anecdote: 40 yrs. ago I compiled Arctic Islands geology at Nat. Res. Can. in Calgary AB. We thought "wouldn't it be cool to add offshore bedrock geology to what we compiled onshore?" It took the Int'l Polar Year 20 yrs. later to compile what's used above. Did you also know that work there was part of my transition from geology to GIS? It's described in Medium and linked back to an earlier blogpost here.

Mapping Arctic Boreal Peatlands

 A recent article, Peatlands across the Arctic are expanding as the climate warms, research shows  via @physorg_com, made me look to map data for that. I wrote a lot about East Anglia peatlands in this blog, and I recently used polar Arctic basemaps N of 50°lat., like Arctic Waterfront, a measure of geopolitical stakes, amongst this blog's Arctic coverage.

Mapping USAF Global Range

This follows on a previous post mapping long-haul flights (this blog) in a similar manner.

Currently in the news, the UK prohibited the use of forward bases by the US, whereas that issue was sidestepped last summer for US intervention in Iran (Perplexity). Having looked at the range of fighter jets in Arctic War games (this blog), I did the same for B52 bombers (Perplexity). Here are the relevant data:

The travels of La Macareña

 ... Aaand now for something completely different! Following on tracing travels & travails on simple maps for my travels over a decade ago and recently Samurais & Richard Lionheart, I traced the journey of that song&dance everyone knows.

It all started with ye olde beer advert popping up on YouTube shorts:

Henry VIII Dissolution of Monasteries in England

This continues history posts from Roman Roads vast network and local effect, to medieval travels by Richard I and by Samurais.

Inspired by National Archives' story map: Discover the Dissolution of Monasteries by Henry VIII from 1536 to 1540, here is its intro:

 Henry VIII's break from Rome and the creation of the Church of England set in motion a revolutionary chain of events that resulted in the closure of almost 900 religious houses, displacing 12,000 people from their religious orders. While some were allowed to remain or convert, many were given pensions to surrender their churches and many still were simply evicted with no compensation. The dissolution changed the kingdom's schooling, medical care, land ownership and powerful figures - but why did it happen, and how did it affect your local area?

A Belgian holiday

 This picks up from A Roman Holiday about aspects of Roman Roads. A friend pointed out this YouTube video, How A Roman Road Changed Belgium Forever, here is their synopsis:

Why does Belgium speak two languages? The answer is a 2,000-year-old Roman road.

In this video, I explain how the Via Belgica, a highway built by the Roman empire around 50 BC, created a language border that still divides Belgium today. The road ran from Tongeren to Bavay, separating Romanized Gaul in the south from Germanic tribes in the north. That linguistic divide has persisted through the Middle Ages, Spanish rule, Austrian rule, French occupation, and Belgian independence.

Today, Dutch speakers live north of the line, French speakers live south of it, and the border is still influenced by that ancient Roman road. Even Belgium's election results are decided by this 2,000-year-old line.

Having mapped Roman Roads, I recreated a focussed map on the region, adding the Belgian Wallonie region in green. As roads were unidentified in the AWNC database, I selected them per video. I found a source (no metadata in arcgis.com) that put Via Belgica right along it, confirming my choice.

3D maps in current affairs

This picks up on the previous Beautiful maps... as well as Arctic Waterfront... re: the distribution of influence over the Arctic in the news of late.

Update: see in A view from the top of the world more on an intriguing lineament bisecting the Arctic from top to bottom on an Alaska Polar Strereographic projetion.

This time let's look at the elevation maps of the area:

• High Resolution Elevation Model of the Arctic (Esri Living Atlas)
• Seabed Sediment Thickness (Esri Living Atlas)

Arctic Waterfront, a measure of geopolitical stakes

 Update: next in the series on the Arctic is here with more data & a 3D view.

A mid-2011 post Beautiful maps in current affairs (note the updates) said: 

UN Convention on the Law of the Sea [...] by Dr Parson of the Southampton UK National Oceanographic Centre [...] described how nations were given an opportunity to claim Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) beyond the standard 200 nautical mile limit (viz. UNCLOS and UNEP). [...]

Bird-dogging COVID, a five year retrospect

This follows on the last COVID update  here, 5 yrs. after polling COVID stats Jan. 2020 to May 2021.

I went to London exactly 6 yrs. ago to get my Canadian passport: my UK "settled status" as a French national wasn't in yet; if they didn't take me as EU citizen, they couldn't refuse me as Commonwealth citizen... I met my best friend in Chinatown to witness my passport pics, before I went to the consulate to renew my passport... Well Chinatown was already all set up with one-way ingress-egress in stores, social distancing & face masks! The consulate also closed for no reason given. So, everyone but uk.guv seemed to know what had started in China late Nov. early Dec 2019 had already arrived here... 

Exhuming my thesis, part IV

This follows on my previous post here of a series started here. Also here under Great Lakes with a different perspective. And here its pivotal role in my career. Lastly a case of "AI to the rescue", it's  listed on my blog's pinned post under 2026. 

In my initial post of this series, I wrote (caps added):

That prompted me now to look up geophysical data (aeromagnetic anomalies, Wikipedia): will it allow to GLIMPSE terranes in the subsurface below the Great Lakes, as well as earlier Archean and later Phanerozoic features such as, respectively, the Wawa Lineament and the Niagara Escarpment? Lo-and-behold, I found aeromagnetic data (NOAA) and sketch-mapped them below on my desktop GIS (Esri)!