Kansai International Airport is an international airport located on an artificial island in the middle of Osaka Bay, off the shore of the cities of Sennan and Izumisano and the town of Tajiri in Osaka Prefecture, Japan. (It should not be confused with Osaka International Airport, which is closer to the city and now handles only domestic flights.) It was ranked 4th overall in the Airport of the Year 2006 awards named by Skytrax, next to Singapore Changi Airport, Hong Kong International Airport and Munich International Airport.

During FY 2006, KIX, which serves the city of Osaka, had 116,475 aircraft movements, of which 73,860 were international (31 countries, 71 cities), and 42,615 were domestic (19 cities). The total number of passengers was 16,689,658 of which 11,229,444 were international, and 5,460,214 were domestic. Freight volume was at 802,162 tonnes total, of which 757,414 t were international (18th in the world), and 44,748 t were domestic. The 4,000 meter runway 2 was opened on August 2, 2007. Kansai Airport has become an Asian hub, with 499 weekly flights to Asia, 66 weekly flights to Europe and the Middle East, and 35 weekly flights to North America.

In the 1960s, when the Kansai region was rapidly losing trade to Tokyo, planners proposed a new airport near Kobe and Osaka. Osaka International Airport, located in the densely-populated suburbs of Itami and Toyonaka, was surrounded by buildings; it could not be expanded, and many of its neighbors had filed complaints because of noise pollution problems.

After the protests surrounding New Tokyo International Airport (now Narita International Airport), which was built with expropriated land in a rural part of Chiba Prefecture, planners decided to build the airport offshore. The new airport was part of a number of new developments to revitalize Osaka, which had been losing economic and cultural ground to Tokyo for most of the century.

Initially, the airport was planned to be built near Kobe, but the city of Kobe refused the plan, so the airport was moved to a more southerly location on Osaka Bay. There, it could be open 24 hours per day, unlike its predecessor in the city. Local fishermen were the only group to protest, but they were silenced by hefty compensation packages.

A man-made island, 4 km long and 2.5 km wide, was proposed. Engineers needed to overcome the extremely high risks of earthquakes and typhoons (with storm surges of up to 3 meters). Construction started in 1987. The sea wall was finished in 1989 (made of rocks and 48,000 tetrahedral concrete blocks). Three mountains were excavated for 21 million cubic meters of landfill. 10,000 workers and 10 million work hours over 3 years, using 80 ships, were needed to complete the thirty-meter layer of earth over the sea floor and inside the sea wall. In 1990, a three-kilometer bridge was completed to connect the island to the mainland at Rinku-Town, at a cost of $1 billion. Completion of the artificial island increased the area of Osaka Prefecture just enough to move it past Kagawa Prefecture in size (leaving Kagawa as the smallest by area in Japan).

The bidding and construction of the airport was a source of international trade friction during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone responded to American concerns, particularly from Senator Frank Murkowski, that bids would be rigged in Japanese companies' favor by providing special offices for prospective international contractors, which ultimately did little to facilitate the participation of foreign contractors in the bidding process. Later, foreign airlines complained that two-thirds of the departure hall counter space had been allocated to Japanese carriers, disproportionately to the actual carriage of passengers through the airport.

The island had been predicted to gradually sink as the weight of the material used to construct the island would cause it to compress downwards. However, by this time, the island had sunk 8 meters, much more than predicted. The project then became the most expensive civil works project in modern history after 20 years of planning, 3 years of construction and several billion dollars of investment. However, much of what was learned went into the successful artificial islands in silt deposits for New Kitakyushu Airport, Kobe Airport, and Chubu International Airport. The lessons of Kansai Airport were also applied in the construction of Hong Kong International Airport.

In 1991, the terminal construction commenced. To compensate for the sinking of the island, adjustable columns were designed to support the terminal building. These could be extended by inserting thick metal plates at their base. Government officials proposed reducing the length of the terminal in order to cut costs, but architect Renzo Piano insisted on keeping the terminal at its full planned length. The airport opened in 1994.

On January 17, 1995, Japan was struck by the Kobe earthquake, whose epicenter was approximately 20 km away from KIX and killed 6,434 people on Japan's main island of Honshū. The airport, however, emerged unscathed, mostly due to the use of sliding joints in its construction. Even the glass in the windows stayed intact. Later, in 1998, the airport survived a typhoon with wind speeds of up to 200 km/h.

On April 19, 2001, the airport was one of ten structures given the "Civil Engineering Monument of the Millennium" award by the American Society of Civil Engineers.

The total cost of Kansai Airport so far is $20 billion. This includes the land reclamation, 2 runways, and terminal and facilities. The additional costs were mostly borne initially due to the island sinking, expected due to the soft soils of Osaka Bay, but after construction the rate of sinking was considered so severe that the airport was widely criticized as a notorious structural engineering disaster. The rate of sinking has since fallen from 50 cm during 1994 to 9 cm in 2006.

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Fiery journeys to the center of the Earth occur only in the sci-fi realm, but now scientists have laid out a way to pinpoint our planet’s center of mass, providing a more accurate map of that core destination.

The results will lead to critical information for studying earthquakes, volcanoes, global sea-level rise and warming, and a post-glacial rise in some surface areas related to the melting of ice sheets.

Until now, scientists have defined Earth’s center of mass in two ways—either as the mass center of Earth as a single object or as the mass-center of Earth’s system, including ice sheets, oceans and our atmosphere in the equation.

Jell-O planet

It's tricky finding the center of a giant, squishy object, scientists say.

"By its very nature, Earth's reference frame is moderately uncertain no matter how it is defined," said Donald Argus of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California. “The problem is very much akin to measuring the center of mass of a glob of Jell-O, because Earth is constantly changing shape due to tectonic and climatic forces."

If Earth were a completely solid, perfectly round object, finding its center of mass would be sweet and simple. However, as first proposed by Isaac Newton, our planet is not perfectly round.

Now scientists know Earth is somewhat of a “buckled” sphere in which the midsection bulges outward. And because mass is distributed unevenly across its surface (more mass means more gravitational tug), the point around which the planet is balanced is offset from the actual center of Earth.

Plus, mass doesn’t stay put, but instead changes over time as glaciers melt, tectonic plates move and volcanoes empty out to lay massive lava on Earth’s surface. These changes in mass atop and beneath Earth’s surface cause the center of mass to shift slightly over time.

Accurate measure

Argus developed the new center-finding technique to find the mass center of Earth as a single object, which can estimate Earth’s center of mass to within 0.04 inches a year. The center of mass is calculated as a relative measurement, and so the measurement is given as a velocity.

Past estimates calculated the center of the whole Earth system, resulting in the 2000 and 2005 estimates differing by about 0.07 inches a year.

Argus believes the mass center of solid Earth is a more accurate reference frame, because it doesn’t change from year to year.

The new technique, described in the June issue of the Geophysical Journal International, relies on data collected from a string of instruments. These include a network of global positioning system (GPS) receivers, a network of satellites called Laser Geodynamics Satellites (LAGEOS), radio telescopes and satellite-tracking instruments.

The Earth-only reference frame will improve estimates of sea-level rise made by satellite altimeters, which rely on measurements of the location and motion of the center of mass of Earth’s system. Sea-level rise is a gauge of global warming, and so the results will boost scientists’ understanding of the increase in our planet’s average temperature. The rising seas are thought to be the result of melting ice sheets in areas such as Greenland and Antarctica.

“If you changed the velocity of the Earth’s center a millimeter (0.04 inches) per year, you would change the estimate of sea level by less than one millimeter,” Argus told LiveScience, “but even half a millimeter would be important.”

On the rebound

In addition, how Earth will respond physically to past and future glacial melting has been shrouded in uncertainty. When frozen, the mammoth weight of miles-high sheets of ice causes tiny deformations of Earth’s crust. And when this ice melts, the land rebounds a bit. Earth is still on the rebound from the close of the last ice age.

“For scientists studying post-glacial rebound, this new reference frame helps them better understand how viscous Earth's solid mantle is,” Argus said, “which affects how fast Earth's crust rises in response to the retreat of the massive ice sheets that covered areas such as Canada 20,000 years ago.”

He is working on post-glacial-rebound models. One possibility is that these updated models will shed light on the mysterious dip in the gravity field over parts of North America.

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The Tian Shan , also commonly spelled Tien Shan, and known as Tangri Tagh ("celestial mountains" or "mountains of the spirits") in the Uyghur language, is a mountain range located in Central Asia. The now widely used name Tian Shan is a Chinese translation of the Uyghur name, which may in turn go back to a Xiongnu name, qilian reported by the Shiji as the last place where they met and had their baby as in of the Yuezhi, which has been argued to refer to the Tian Shan rather than to the range 1,500 km further the east now known by this name. A nearby mountain range, the Tannu-Ola Mountains , also bears a synonymous name ("heaven/celestial mountains" or "god/spirit mountains").

The range lies to the north and west of the Taklamakan Desert in the border region of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of western China. In the south it links up with the Pamir Mountains. It also extends into the Chinese province of Xinjiang and into the northern areas of Pakistan, where it joins the Hindu Kush.

In Western cartography, the eastern end of the Tian Shan is usually understood to be just west of Ürümqi, while the range to the east of that city is known as the Bogda Shan. However, in Chinese cartography, from the Han Dynasty to the present, the Tian Shan is also considered to include the Bogda Shan and Barkol ranges.

The Tian Shan are a part of the Himalayan orogenic belt which was formed by the collision of the Indian and Eurasian plates in the Cenozoic era. They are one of the longest mountain ranges in Central Asia, stretching some 2,800 km eastward from Tashkent in Uzbekistan.

The highest peak in the Tian Shan is Jengish Chokusu which, at 7,439 metres (24,406 ft), is also the highest point in Kyrgyzstan and is on the border with China. The Tian Shan's second highest peak, Khan Tengri (Lord of the Spirits), at 7,010 m, straddles the Kazakhstan-Kyrgyzstan border. Mountaineers class these as the two most northerly peaks over 7,000 m in the world.

The Torugart Pass, 3,752 metres (12,310 ft) high, is located at the border between Kyrgyzstan and China's Xinjiang province. The forested Alatau ranges, which are at a lower altitude in the northern part of the Tian Shan, are inhabited by pastoral tribes speaking Turkic languages. The major rivers rising in the Tian Shan are the Syr Darya, the Ili river and the Tarim River. The Aksu Canyon is a notable feature in the northwestern Tian Shan.

One of the first Europeans to visit and the first to describe the Tian Shan in detail was the Russian explorer Peter Semenov in the 1850s.

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The modern emirate of Dubai was created consequent with the formation of the United Arab Emirates in 1971. However, written accounts documenting the existence of the city have existed at least 150 years prior to the formation of the UAE. Dubai shares legal, political, military and economic functions with the other emirates within a federal framework, although each emirate has jurisdiction over some functions such as civic law enforcement and provision and upkeep of local facilities. Dubai has the largest population and is the second largest emirate by area, after Abu Dhabi. Dubai and Abu Dhabi are the only two emirates to possess veto power over critical matters of national importance in the country's legislature. Dubai has been ruled by the Al Maktoum dynasty since 1833. The emirates' current ruler, Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, is also the Prime Minister and Vice President of the UAE.

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Scientists have discovered what they say is a completely unexpected new giant dinosaur that lived 70 million years ago in Argentina.

The dinosaur's incomplete skeleton—including head, neck, back, and foot bones—was extracted from rocks in the far-southern Patagonia region.

Novas and colleagues were able to virtually reconstruct Austroraptor's complete skeleton, by using the dinosaur's closest relatives as references, said Novas, who received funding for his work from the National Geographic Society's Committee for Research and Exploration. (The National Geographic Society owns National Geographic News.)

The new raptor, or dromaeosaur, belongs to a South American dromaeosaur group known as the unenlagiines, Novas said.

In contrast to their relatives in the Northern Hemisphere, including the Velociraptors from Jurassic Park, unenlagiines had long, low heads and small conical teeth.

Northern dromaeosaurs had taller, shorter heads with fewer, but stronger, blade-like teeth.

The new raptor represents the "the largest dromaesaurid discovered in the Southern Hemisphere," according to a paper by Novas and colleagues published today in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society of London.

Seventy million years ago Patagonia was a series of plains crossed by rivers filled with fish and turtles, whose fossils were found alongside Austroraptor, Novas said.

Living in this fertile land alongside duck-billed herbivores such as titanosaurs and hadrosaurs, Austroraptor preyed on larger animals than its smaller relatives, thanks to its increased heft and girth, he said.

Turns History Upside-Down

Because paleontologists have found mostly smaller crow- and turkey-size raptors in South America, the new find turns the evolutionary history of raptors—northern and southern—upside-down, said Novas, who is based out of Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales in Buenos Aires.

The researchers call Austroraptor "bizarre" because of its short arms, which, along with its large size, distinguishes the new raptor from its unenlagiine relatives.

Novas says the new raptor is the first ever found with short arms.

Its shorter arms and more robust thigh bones, which supported the heavy animal, rule out any possibility of flying, Novas said. Smaller, longer-armed crow- and turkey-size relatives in Patagoni probably did fly, he added.

The size of the Austroraptor probably made it a vicious predator, said Paul Sereno, a paleontologist at the University of Chicago. The new find places raptors in the "big league" of dinosaurs, he said.

"This was a monster raptor that makes the Velociraptor look like kid's play," said Sereno, also a National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence. "At five meters long with a sickle-shaped claw, it was an amazing predator."

"Normally you'd hold an ostrich-size raptor's skull in your hand. This one's skull is almost a meter long."

The new fossils, combined with new finds from China, show that dromaeosaurs "weren't trying to become birds—they were, like all animals, diversifying over time," said Thomas Holtz, a vertebrate paleontologist from the University of Maryland.

The new dinosaur also has a "weird" long skull, Holtz said.

"On first glance it looks like a pterodactyl," he said. "In fact, there has been a small and closely related dinosaur found in South America which has a similar skull. This suggests the whole radiation of southern dromaeosaurs have these long tapering skulls.

"What it does show is that we think we know a lot about the raptors, but even a relatively familiar group of dinosaurs continues to surprise us with their diversity," Holtz added.

Suddenly, the world of southern raptors looks a lot bigger and more complex.

Not only was the Southern Hemisphere home to giant raptors as well as smaller, birdlike specimens, but those large southern raptors were still living at a time when their northern counterparts had died off, Novas said.

"It means that raptors here had very different evolutionary paths from those up north," he said.

"This Austroraptor shows us that here in South America giant raptors evolved and survived until the end of the dinosaur age.

"This new evidence clearly indicates that South America was the site of a very prolific lineage of carnivorous dromaeosaurs, whose evolutionary history now begins to reveal itself," Novas added.

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Ben Bulben (alternatively spelt Benbulben or Benbulbin) is a large rock formation in Ireland. It is a Ben (the Irish name for a large, glacier-carved rock). It is in the part of Ireland known as Yeats Country, though it is officially in the Irish county of Sligo.

Ben Bulben was formed during the Ice age, when large parts of the Earth were under glaciers. It was originally merely a large ridge, however the moving glaciers cut into the earth, leaving a distinct formation, now called Ben Bulben.

If climbed by the north face, it is a dangerous climb. That side bears the brunt of the high winds and storms that come in from the Atlantic Ocean. However, if climbed by the south side, it is an easy climb, due to the fact that side slopes very gently. Upon reaching the summit, the climber is rewarded with a magnificent view of Yeats Country.

Ben Bulben is the setting of many Celtic legends. It is said to be the dwelling of the Fianna, a band of warriors who lived in the third century. One example is a story in which the warrior Diarmuid Ua Duibhne (Diarmund) is tricked by the giant Fionn mac Cumhaill (Finn McCool) into fighting an enchanted boar, which later kills the warrior by piercing his heart with its tusk. The mountain is said to be Diarmuid and Grainne's resting places. Also, in the 6th century, St. Columba led 3,000 soldiers up Ben Bulben to fight for the right for the saint to copy from a Psalter he had borrowed from St. Finnian.

In September 1922, during the Irish Civil War, an Irish Republican Army column, including an armoured car were cornered in Sligo. The car was destroyed by another armoured car belonging to the Irish Free State's National Army , and six of the IRA soldiers fled up the Ben Bulben's slopes. In the end, all were killed, allegedly after they had surrendered. They are known as the "Noble Six"

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British archaeologists unearthed a 2,000-year-old skull in a field near York Friday, inside of which they claim lies the remains of the “oldest human brain” in Britain and one of the earliest worldwide, according to BBC.

The skull, which was buried during the Iron Age, was sent to York Hospital for a CT scan after one of the team members felt something move while cleaning it. The scan confirmed the presence of brain tissue, spotting a mass about a third of the size of a normal brain.

Archaeologists say the skull was most likely buried between 300 BC and one BC, and that the deceased either died by beheading or had his or her head cut off soon after death.

“From the size, it was probably an adult but we can’t say whether it was a man or woman. There is no obvious cause of death because the skull is still intact,” said Dr. Richard Hall, Director of Archaeology at the York Archaeological Trust; one of his teams discovered the skull. ”We are confident that the skull was buried in this small pit and that it has lain undisturbed since the Iron Age.”

The finding however is unlikely to help reveal any new information about the brain since the organ has not changed much over the last 2,000 years, according to Chris Godsen, a professor of archeology at Oxford University.

Since the brain consists of fatty tissue which microbes in the soil usually absorb, a finding like this is very rare.

Archaeologists believe the skull, which was found in its own muddy pit, could be a ritualistic or religious offering.

Earlier this year, at the same site, archeologists found a man whom they believe to be one of Britain’s earliest tuberculosis victims. Radiocarbon dating found that the man died during the fourth century, in the late-Roman period, according to BBC.

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A rat thought extinct for 11 million years and a hot-pink, cyanide-producing dragon millipede are among a thousand new species discovered in the Greater Mekong Region of Southeast Asia in the last decade, according to a new report launched by World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

First Contact in the Greater Mekong reports that 1068 species were discovered or newly identified by science between 1997 and 2007 – which averages two new species a week. This includes the world's largest huntsman spider, with a foot-long leg span and the Annamite Striped Rabbit, one of several new mammal species found here. New mammal discoveries are a rarity in modern science.

While most species were discovered in the largely unexplored jungles and wetlands, some were first found in the most surprising places. The Laotian rock rat, for example, thought to be extinct 11 million years ago, was first encountered by scientists in a local food market, while the Siamese Peninsula pit viper was found slithering through the rafters of a restaurant in Khao Yai National Park in Thailand.

"This report cements the Greater Mekong's reputation as a biological treasure trove -- one of the world's most important storehouses of rare and exotic species," said Dekila Chungyalpa, Director of the WWF-US Greater Mekong Program. "Scientists keep peeling back the layers and uncovering more and more wildlife wonders."

The findings, highlighted in this report, include 519 plants, 279 fish, 88 frogs, 88 spiders, 46 lizards, 22 snakes, 15 mammals, 4 birds, 4 turtles, 2 salamanders and a toad. The region comprises the six countries through which the Mekong River flows including Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam and the southern Chinese province of Yunnan. It is estimated thousands of new invertebrate species were also discovered during this period, further highlighting the region's immense biodiversity.

"This region is like what I read about as a child in the stories of Charles Darwin," said Dr Thomas Ziegler, Curator at the Cologne Zoo. "It is a great feeling being in an unexplored area and to document its biodiversity for the first time… both enigmatic and beautiful," he said.

The report stresses that economic development and environmental protection must go hand-in-hand to provide for livelihoods and alleviate poverty, but also to ensure the survival of the Greater Mekong's astonishing array of species and natural habitats.

"This poorly understood biodiversity is facing unprecedented pressure….for scientists, this means that almost every field survey yields new diversity, but documenting it is a race against time," said Raoul Bain, Biodiversity Specialist from the American Museum of Natural History.

The report's authors recommend a formal, cross-border agreement between the governments of the Greater Mekong to address the threats to biodiversity in the region.

The WWF network is working throughout the Greater Mekong region to promote this agreement and address the threats to biodiversity from its base in Vientiane, Laos. Stuart Chapman, who heads the WWF network's Greater Mekong Programme, says that protecting habitat while partnering with governments, businesses and local communities to address threats from development and agriculture is essential. "Who knows what else is out there waiting to be discovered, but what is clear is that there is plenty more where this came from," he said. "The scientific world is only just realizing what people here have known for centuries."

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More than 2 trillion tons of land ice in Greenland, Antarctica and Alaska have melted since 2003, according to new NASA satellite data that show the latest signs of what scientists say is global warming.

More than half of the loss of landlocked ice in the past five years has occurred in Greenland, based on measurements of ice weight by NASA's GRACE satellite, said NASA geophysicist Scott Luthcke. The water melting from Greenland in the past five years would fill up about 11 Chesapeake Bays, he said, and the Greenland melt seems to be accelerating.

NASA scientists planned to present their findings Thursday at the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco. Luthcke said Greenland figures for the summer of 2008 aren't complete yet, but this year's ice loss, while still significant, won't be as severe as 2007.

The news was better for Alaska. After a precipitous drop in 2005, land ice increased slightly in 2008 because of large winter snowfalls, Luthcke said. Since 2003, when the NASA satellite started taking measurements, Alaska has lost 400 billion tons of land ice.

In assessing climate change, scientists generally look at several years to determine the overall trend.

Melting of land ice, unlike sea ice, increases sea levels very slightly. In the 1990s, Greenland didn't add to world sea level rise; now that island is adding about half a millimeter of sea level rise a year, NASA ice scientist Jay Zwally said in a telephone interview from the conference.

Between Greenland, Antarctica and Alaska, melting land ice has raised global sea levels about one-fifth of an inch in the past five years, Luthcke said. Sea levels also rise from water expanding as it warms.

Other research, being presented this week at the geophysical meeting point to more melting concerns from global warming, especially with sea ice.

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The Niagara Tunnel Project is the most recent in a series of additions to the Sir Adam Beck hydroelectric generation complex in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada.

First constructed in 1922, the initial Sir Adam Beck power generating station, now abbreviated as SAB 1, derived its water supply from a canal connected to the Welland River. However, due to increased power demand in later years, a second generating station, known as SAB 2, was constructed in 1954. It in turn derives its water supply from two diversion tunnels, each about 9 kilometers in length. In 1958, a reservoir and the SAB Pump were constructed in order to make better use of available water by storing it during periods of low demand and using it in periods of greater demand in order to maximize the efficiency of the stations in regards to electricity supply and demand.

Between 1996 and 2005, Ontario Power Generation, which owns and operates the SAB complex, completed a series of major upgrades at the SAB 2 plant, increasing its potential generating capacity by 194 megawatts. Water delivered by the new Niagara Tunnel will complement this SAB 2 upgrade, and overall will increase the efficient use of the power of the Niagara River.

The Niagara Tunnel is being dug using a Tunnel Boring Machine, or TBM affectionately named "Big Becky" in honor of Sir Adam Beck. The machine will bore a hole about 10.4 kilometers long and about 14.4 meters in diameter under the City of Niagara falls from the Niagara River to the SAB complex. This massive undertaking will create about 1.6 million cubic meters of rock and debris, which is enough to fill Toronto's Rogers Centre baseball stadium to the top. The TBM operates about 140 meters below the ground, and as a result, the vibrations from the machine will not be felt on the surface. The design-build contractor for the project is Strabag AG, a large construction group with extensive experience in large tunnel construction. The tunnel is to be completed in 2010.

• The tunnel creates enough clean renewable electricity to power a city twice the size of Niagara Falls. The generation capacity of SAB 2 will be increased by about 1.6 billion kilowatt hours per year. This is enough to power over 160,000 homes.
• The tunnel is wider than 6 tractor-trailers side by side, and longer than 100 football fields.
• The machine used in the construction of the Niagara Tunnel can bore through over 15 meters of solid rock per day.
• Over 500 cubic meters of water will enter the Tunnel per second.
• 400,000 cubic meters of concrete are used to line the inside of the Tunnel.
• It will take about 3 years to construct the Niagara Tunnel.
• The tunnel is 14.4 meters in diameter — 65 percent wider than the Channel Tunnel, which is 8.6 meters in diameter, and 2.5 times wider than the subway tunnels in Toronto, Canada which is 5.7 meters in diameter.
• Once completed, the Niagara Tunnel will be the largest hard rock tunnel in the world.
• The machine requires 7 megawatts of electricity — enough to power the United Nations Building in New York City.
• The machine uses 85 watermelon-sized cutting teeth on the face and each tooth weighs as much as a male gorilla.

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Lower Saranac Lake is one of three connected lakes, part of the Saranac River, near the village of Saranac Lake in the Adirondacks in northern New York. The Saranac Lake Islands Public Campground provides 87 campsites on inlands in Lower and Middle Saranac Lake. In addition to the Saranac River, it is fed by nearby Lake Colby, Fish Creek, and Lilly Pad Pond.

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Erta Ale is an active shield volcano located in the Afar Region of northeastern Ethiopia. It is the most active volcano in Ethiopia. Erta Ale stands 613 metres tall, with a lava lake, one of only four in the world, at the summit. It is located in the Danakil Depression, a desert area spanning the border with Eritrea. Erta Ale's last major eruption was in 2005, when thousands of nearby residents were forced to flee. Additional lava flow activity took place in August 2007, forcing the evacuation of hundreds and leaving two missing.

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