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GeoCurrents

GeoCurrents
Floristic Kingdoms and the Architecture of Continents The two previous GeoCurrents posts examined the biological significance of continents by looking at...
a week ago
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a week ago
The two previous GeoCurrents posts examined the biological significance of continents by looking at the distribution of animals. It is time now to turn out attention to plants. One of the most influential divisions of the world into “floristic kingdoms” is that of botanist Ronald...
GeoCurrents
How Does an Updated Map of Zoogeographic Regions Mesh with the Architecture of Continents? An important 2013 article in published in Science, “An Update of Wallace’s Zoogeographic Regions of...
a week ago
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a week ago
An important 2013 article in published in Science, “An Update of Wallace’s Zoogeographic Regions of the World,” redivides the world’s faunal regions. The study is based on a sophisticated statistical and phylogenetic analysis of 21,037 species of amphibians, non-pelagic birds and...
GeoCurrents
Zoogeographical Regions & the Architecture of Continents: The Legacy of Alfred Russel Wallace If the division of the terrestrial world into continents is partially but misleadingly rooted in...
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a week ago
If the division of the terrestrial world into continents is partially but misleadingly rooted in geology, as recent GeoCurrents posts have argued, we must also ask whether it reflects the distribution of animal and plant life. Are continents, in other words, entities of...
GeoCurrents
The Biological Significance of Micro-Continents: The Fascinating Caecilians of Seychelles (and Other... On the surface, there is little to distinguish small islands on continental fragments from oceanic...
2 weeks ago
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2 weeks ago
On the surface, there is little to distinguish small islands on continental fragments from oceanic islands that have no continental connections. Careful observation, however, can reveal some interesting differences. The Seychelles microcontinent in the Indian Ocean is an...
GeoCurrents
GeoCurrents Listed as One of the 100 Best GIS Blogs and Websites in 2025 I am pleased to report that GeoCurrents has been selected by FeedSpot as one of the “100 Best GIS...
2 weeks ago
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2 weeks ago
I am pleased to report that GeoCurrents has been selected by FeedSpot as one of the “100 Best GIS Blogs” for 2025. It is an honor to receive this recognition and I give my sincere thanks to FeedSpot for the acknowledgement, although I do have to say that GeoCurrents is more a...
GeoCurrents
Mapping Continents Based on Continental Crust As the previous GeoCurrents post argued, the division of the terrestrial world into a handful of...
2 weeks ago
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2 weeks ago
As the previous GeoCurrents post argued, the division of the terrestrial world into a handful of continents derives in part from the division of the Earth’s crust into tectonic plates. But there is another geological factor equally pertinent to the concept of “continent.” It...
GeoCurrents
Map Art or Scientific Cartography? Many maps, in my view, are also work of art, regardless of their creators’ intentions. Some maps,...
3 weeks ago
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3 weeks ago
Many maps, in my view, are also work of art, regardless of their creators’ intentions. Some maps, however, are explicitly made as art, and as such are not designed to convey spatial information beyond that found in the mere geographical shapes that they contain. Increasingly, it...
GeoCurrents
Are Continents Rooted in Plate Tectonics? Tectonic plates are the basic building blocks of the Earth’s lithosphere, its outermost rocky layer....
3 weeks ago
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3 weeks ago
Tectonic plates are the basic building blocks of the Earth’s lithosphere, its outermost rocky layer. As these large segments of crust slowly move, landmasses and sea expanses are gradually rearranged. The current configuration of tectonic plates shows a tight connection with the...
GeoCurrents
Revisiting The Myth of Continents As it has been 28 years since the publication of The Myth of Continents, a book that I jointly wrote...
3 weeks ago
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3 weeks ago
As it has been 28 years since the publication of The Myth of Continents, a book that I jointly wrote with my wife, Karen Wigen, it is time for a reconsideration of the work. The main thesis of the book is that although most continents are rooted in physical geography, the larger...
GeoCurrents
Lecture Series on Global Demography Concluded The final two video lectures on global demography have been posted on the GeoCurrents YouTube...
a month ago
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a month ago
The final two video lectures on global demography have been posted on the GeoCurrents YouTube channel. They can be found here and here. I would like to end this exploration of global demography by posting two paired maps, which show the global Total Fertility Rates (TFR) in 1950...