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Mapped from the Canaries to the West Indies, against a blank background, the Sargassum Belt seems removed from the levels of phosphorous of our coastal oceans leaving the high density of its thirteen million tons on a blank screen as the latest whacky disturbance of the Anthropocene. Increasing density of the sargassum floating across the central Atlantic into the Gulf of Mexico is the latest global disturbance we have trouble to process. Continue reading →
over a year ago

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More from Musings on Maps

Victory!

Sensing a need for administering a national shot of dopamine without much to accomplish for n end to war in Ukraine–despite promises of one being imminent–and with less low-rate beachfront properties available than hoped for amidst the rubble in Gaza, … Continue reading →

2 months ago 25 votes
Counterfeit Puppets: Hustler’s University, Red Pills and the Manosphere

HU–“Huster’s University”–bills itself as the only real access to a world of Money Makers where they can lead a fulfilling life, able to lead those who enter to an alternative reality, mentoring users who ar able to click on “the … Continue reading →

2 months ago 26 votes
Putting out Fires and Ensuring Water Flow

Before the mass firings of civil servants, members of government, and oversight by the Trump administration, we were already shocked by two major disruptions that suggest the danger of the new President’s reflexive knee-jerk responses from his over-sensitive gut. Both–the … Continue reading →

2 months ago 30 votes
“You Know,–It’s Over”

“I am looking at the whole Gaza Strip right now,” President Trump told Jordan’s Abdullah II, “and it’s a mess. It’s a real mess.” Trump seemed not to consider the scale of American arms’ involvement in its destruction, but to … Continue reading →

2 months ago 33 votes
Along Narnia’s Enchanted Shores

As we face an age when the norms of legal conduct in the United States stand to be shredded, we have been suggested to benefit from looking, both for perspective and solace, if only for relief, to fantasy literature as … Continue reading →

5 months ago 71 votes

More in cartography

Find Your Birthday Tree
5 days ago 5 votes
The Problem of Mapping Transcontinental Countries

As noted in the previous post, most maps of continents found in online images searches divide several countries, particularly Russia and Turkey, along conventional continental lines yet avoid dividing Indonesia in the same manner. Evidently, in the popular cartographic imagination, geopolitical factors override geophysical factors in the delineation of continents in some instances but not […] The post The Problem of Mapping Transcontinental Countries appeared first on GeoCurrents.

6 days ago 9 votes
Letts’s Bird’s Eye View of the Approaches to India

Is this a map, a landscape painting or a beautiful piece of propaganda? This panoramic map was produced at the beginning of the 1900’s in London by W. H. Payne for Letts, Son & Co., a British stationary and map seller. The perspective is from a hilltop in British India, now Pakistan, overlooking Afghanistan. Two British soldiers in the foreground are looking out over Kandahar and other lands yet to conquer. In the far distance, along the Amu Darya (once known as Oxus River) lies the boundary of Russian territory. The Great Game was an 18th Century rivalry between the British and Russian Empires. This map was produced in that milieu with both sides vying for control over central Asia. The British aimed to create a protectorate in Afghanistan to prevent Russia from having access to the Persian Gulf or the Arabian Sea. Eventually borders were agreed upon but not entirely as seen below. The line along the western frontier is boundary of Persia, now Iran. The dominant mountain in the far distance looks a bit fanciful but may be inspired some of the peaks around Azhdar National Park. After failing to conquer these lands the British eventually settled for Afghanistan as an independent buffer state between the empires.

6 days ago 11 votes
Snakes on a Plane(t)
6 days ago 5 votes
The Conceptual Incoherence of the Standard Continental Model

The division of the terrestrial world into seven continents is seemingly the simplest topic in geography, yet it is actually one of the most complex – which is precisely why I find it so fascinating. Unfortunately, the educational establishment grasps only its superficial simplicity, ignoring the more important and interesting issues involved. The result, to […] The post The Conceptual Incoherence of the Standard Continental Model appeared first on GeoCurrents.

a week ago 8 votes