Asnito
Blood Rival to a Briere Simp
- Mar 2, 2017
- 6,965
- 15,604
I'm glad you're ok and hope you get things sorted out quickly
NHL Mega-Mock Draft Reboot - Discussion / Draft Thread – HISTORIC PHASE TWENTY!
- Thread starter Captain Dave Poulin
- Start date
mja
Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt
Striiker
Former Flyers Fan
NopeYou haven't seen Fast Times at Ridgemont High????
If I had a dollar for every movie Striiker and BigToe haven't seen, I would have (one dollar) x (all the movies ever made). You do the Math.
We start the day with @Rebels57 on the clock with two picks, @Beef Invictus on deck, @CanadianFlyer88 on the lido deck, and DancingPanther on the lido afterdeck. I speak for us all when I say I am glad to hear that Chuck is OK, and I hope his electricity and internet return tout de suite.
I am supposed to be finishing the last ~20 episodes of "Fairy Tail" and moving on to "Bleach," but yesterday there was a new introduction screen on my anime site which showed some new series, and one caught my eye. It is called "Harem in the Labyrinth of Another World." It's exactly what it sounds like. It rules. It's pure ecchi hentai 80s Nude Scene kind of goodness. I was only going to look for a minute and then watch other stuff, but ... you know. There are only 12 episodes, so it's not like I am down the rabbit hole or anything. I probably didn't need to share this. Oh well, f*** it. This is something Chuck can watch when his internet returns.
Ironically, I wore pants today for the first time since spring. It's cold, man. Fall rules. Fall is the 80s Nude Scene of seasons.
We start the day with @Rebels57 on the clock with two picks, @Beef Invictus on deck, @CanadianFlyer88 on the lido deck, and DancingPanther on the lido afterdeck. I speak for us all when I say I am glad to hear that Chuck is OK, and I hope his electricity and internet return tout de suite.
I am supposed to be finishing the last ~20 episodes of "Fairy Tail" and moving on to "Bleach," but yesterday there was a new introduction screen on my anime site which showed some new series, and one caught my eye. It is called "Harem in the Labyrinth of Another World." It's exactly what it sounds like. It rules. It's pure ecchi hentai 80s Nude Scene kind of goodness. I was only going to look for a minute and then watch other stuff, but ... you know. There are only 12 episodes, so it's not like I am down the rabbit hole or anything. I probably didn't need to share this. Oh well, f*** it. This is something Chuck can watch when his internet returns.
Ironically, I wore pants today for the first time since spring. It's cold, man. Fall rules. Fall is the 80s Nude Scene of seasons.
Striiker
Former Flyers Fan
This is why you were de-ranked to Lieutenant.
BiggE
SELL THE DAMN TEAM
All good here, thanks! Our area didn’t get a direct hit.
Glad you are ok.
- Sep 28, 2014
- 78,072
- 125,472
I don't believe in glorifying real life serial killers, so i'm going the fictional route and selecting the TRINITY KILLER as see in Season 4 of Dexter. John Lithgow gives a career best performance as Arthur Mitchell aka Trinity Killer. This is where the show absolutely peaked. It was f***ing riveting, with one of the best finales in television history. I'll never forget sitting on the couch with my wife (then girlfriend) for at least 20 minutes straight without talking in total disbelief at what we just witnesed.
- Sep 28, 2014
- 78,072
- 125,472
FOG 80's Nude Scene
Jamie Lee Curtis in Trading Places
If you know, you know
@Beef Invictus , back to you Sumptuous Meat Lord
Jamie Lee Curtis in Trading Places
If you know, you know
@Beef Invictus , back to you Sumptuous Meat Lord
I never really looked at JLC as a babe, but then I saw her in Trading Places.
Lord Defect
Secretary of Blowtorching
- Nov 13, 2013
- 18,802
- 34,853
To think, that finale was a fluke and only possible because the person wanted off the show to star in a shitty network television super hero show.
I just hope that by the end of this phase the two of you see nudity for the first time.
Hollywood Cannon
I'm Away From My Desk
Beef Invictus
Revolutionary Positivity
Oh it me. Relieved Rebels! Careless Rebels! Lamentable Rebels!
With the pick I pick, I pick
THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA
The Med was called "Mare Nostrum," or "Our Sea" when it was a Roman lake. The Med is the cradle of numerous major civilizations and empires. Like the Minoans, or the Seleucids, both of whom some of you have heard of maybe. This is where some of the best history is. Please, allow me to educate you a bit on the Med:
The Mediterranean Basin covers portions of three continents: Europe, Africa, and Asia. It is distinct from the drainage basin, which extends much further south and north due to major rivers ending in the Mediterranean Sea, such as the Nile and Rhône. Conversely, the Mediterranean Basin includes regions not in the drainage basin.[1]
It has a varied and contrasting topography. The Mediterranean Region offers an ever-changing landscape of high mountains, rocky shores, impenetrable scrub, semi-arid steppes, coastal wetlands, sandy beaches and a myriad islands of various shapes and sizes dotted amidst the clear blue sea. Contrary to the classic sandy beach images portrayed in most tourist brochures, the Mediterranean is surprisingly hilly. Mountains can be seen from almost anywhere.[2]
By definition, the Mediterranean Basin extends from Macaronesia in the west, to the Levant in the east, although some places may or may not be included depending on the view, as is the case with Macaronesia: some definitions only include Madeira and the Canary Islands[3] while others include the whole Macaronesia (with the Azores and Cape Verde).[4]
In Western Asia, it covers the western and southern portions of the peninsula of Anatolia, as far as Iraq,[5] but excluding the temperate-climate mountains of central Turkey. It includes the Mediterranean Levant at the eastern end of the Mediterranean, bounded on the east and south by the Syrian and Negev deserts.
The northern portion of the Maghreb region of northwestern Africa has a Mediterranean climate, separated from the Sahara Desert, which extends across North Africa, by the Atlas Mountains. In the eastern Mediterranean the Sahara extends to the southern shore of the Mediterranean, with the exception of the northern fringe of the peninsula of Cyrenaica in Libya, which has a dry Mediterranean climate.
Europe lies to the north of the Mediterranean. The European portion of the Mediterranean Basin loosely corresponds to Southern Europe. The three large Southern European peninsulas, the Iberian Peninsula, Italian Peninsula, and the Balkan Peninsula, extend into and comprise much of the Mediterranean-climate zone. A system of folded mountains, including the Pyrenees dividing Spain from France, the Alps dividing Italy from Central Europe, the Dinaric Alps along the eastern Adriatic, and the Balkan and Rila-Rhodope mountains of the Balkan Peninsula divide the Mediterranean from the temperate climate regions of Western, Northwestern or Northern Europe, Central Europe, and Eastern Europe.
About 6 mya during the late Miocene, the Mediterranean was closed at its western end by drifting Africa, which caused the entire sea to evaporate. There followed several (debated) episodes of sea drawdown and re-flooding known as the Messinian Salinity Crisis, which ended when the Atlantic last re-flooded the basin at the end of the Miocene.[6] Recent research has suggested that a desiccation-flooding cycle may have repeated several times [7][8] during the last 630,000 years of the Miocene epoch, which could explain several events of large amounts of salt deposition. Recent studies, however, show that repeated desiccation and re-flooding is unlikely from a geodynamic point of view.[9][10]
The end of the Miocene also marked a change in the Mediterranean Basin's climate. Fossil evidence shows that the Mediterranean Basin had a relatively humid subtropical climate with summer rainfall during the Miocene, which supported laurel forests. The shift to a Mediterranean climate occurred within the last 3.2–2.8 million years, during the Pliocene epoch, as summer rainfall decreased. The subtropical laurel forests retreated, although they persisted on the islands of Macaronesia off the Atlantic coast of Iberia and North Africa, and the present Mediterranean vegetation evolved, dominated by coniferous trees and sclerophyllous trees and shrubs, with small, hard, waxy leaves that prevent moisture loss in the dry summers. Much of these forests and shrublands have been altered beyond recognition by thousands of years of human habitation. There are now very few relatively intact natural areas in what was once a heavily wooded region.
Phytogeographically, the Mediterranean Basin together with the nearby Atlantic coast, the Mediterranean woodlands and forests and Mediterranean dry woodlands and steppe of North Africa, the Black Sea coast of northeastern Anatolia, the southern coast of Crimea between Sevastopol and Feodosiya and the Black Sea coast between Anapa and Tuapse in Russia forms the Mediterranean Floristic Region, which belongs to the Tethyan Subkingdom of the Boreal Kingdom and is enclosed between the Circumboreal, Irano-Turanian, Saharo-Arabian and Macaronesian floristic regions.
The Mediterranean Region was first proposed by German botanist August Grisebach in the late 19th century.
The monotypic Drosophyllaceae, recently segregated from Droseraceae, is the only plant family endemic to the region. Among the endemic plant genera are:[dubious – discuss]
The Mediterranean Basin is the largest of the world's five Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub regions. It is home to a number of plant communities, which vary with rainfall, elevation, latitude, and soils.
Endangered mammals of the Mediterranean Basin include the Mediterranean monk seal, the Barbary macaque, and the Iberian lynx.
Map of the Mediterranean Basin's ecoregions. 1201: Aegean and Western Turkey sclerophyllous and mixed forests. 1202: Anatolian conifer and deciduous mixed forests. 1203: Canary Islands dry woodlands and forests. 1204: Corsican montane broadleaf and mixed forests. 1205: Crete Mediterranean forests. 1206: Cyprus Mediterranean forests. 1207: Eastern Mediterranean conifer-sclerophyllous-broadleaf forests. 1208: Iberian conifer forests. 1209: Iberian sclerophyllous and semi-deciduous forests. 1210: Illyrian deciduous forests. 1211: Italian sclerophyllous and semi-deciduous forests. 1212: Mediterranean acacia-argania dry woodlands and succulent thickets. 1213: Mediterranean dry woodlands and steppe. 1214: Mediterranean woodlands and forests. 1215: Northeastern Spain and Southern France Mediterranean forests. 1216: Northwest Iberian montane forests. 1217: Pindus Mountains mixed forests. 1218: South Apeninne mixed montane forests. 1219: Southeastern Iberian shrubs and woodlands. 1220: Southern Anatolian montane conifer and deciduous forests. 1221: Southwest Iberian Mediterranean sclerophyllous and mixed forests. 1222: Tyrrhenian-Adriatic sclerophyllous and mixed forests
.
Neanderthals inhabited western Asia and the non-glaciated portions of Europe starting about 230,000 years ago. Modern humans moved into western Asia from Africa less than 100,000 years ago. Modern humans, known as Cro-Magnons, moved into Europe approximately 50–40,000 years ago.
The most recent glacial period, the Wisconsin glaciation, reached its maximum extent approximately 21,000 years ago, and ended approximately 12,000 years ago. A warm period, known as the Holocene climatic optimum, followed the ice age.
Food crops, including wheat, chickpeas, and olives, along with sheep and goats, were domesticated in the eastern Mediterranean in the 9th millennium BCE, which allowed for the establishment of agricultural settlements. Near Eastern crops spread to southeastern Europe in the 7th millennium BCE. Poppy and oats were domesticated in Europe from the 6th to the 3rd millennium BCE. Agricultural settlements spread around the Mediterranean Basin. Megaliths were constructed in Europe from 4500 – 1500 BCE.
A strengthening of the summer monsoon 9000–7000 years ago increased rainfall across the Sahara, which became a grassland, with lakes, rivers, and wetlands. After a period of climatic instability, the Sahara settled into a desert state by the 4th millennium BCE.
Wheat is the dominant grain grown around the Mediterranean Basin. Pulses and vegetables are also grown. The characteristic tree crop is the olive. Figs are another important fruit tree, and citrus, especially lemons, are grown where irrigation is present. Grapes are an important vine crop, grown for fruit and to make wine. Rice and summer vegetables are grown in irrigated areas.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Mediterranean.
With the pick I pick, I pick
THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA
The Med was called "Mare Nostrum," or "Our Sea" when it was a Roman lake. The Med is the cradle of numerous major civilizations and empires. Like the Minoans, or the Seleucids, both of whom some of you have heard of maybe. This is where some of the best history is. Please, allow me to educate you a bit on the Med:
The Mediterranean Basin covers portions of three continents: Europe, Africa, and Asia. It is distinct from the drainage basin, which extends much further south and north due to major rivers ending in the Mediterranean Sea, such as the Nile and Rhône. Conversely, the Mediterranean Basin includes regions not in the drainage basin.[1]
It has a varied and contrasting topography. The Mediterranean Region offers an ever-changing landscape of high mountains, rocky shores, impenetrable scrub, semi-arid steppes, coastal wetlands, sandy beaches and a myriad islands of various shapes and sizes dotted amidst the clear blue sea. Contrary to the classic sandy beach images portrayed in most tourist brochures, the Mediterranean is surprisingly hilly. Mountains can be seen from almost anywhere.[2]
By definition, the Mediterranean Basin extends from Macaronesia in the west, to the Levant in the east, although some places may or may not be included depending on the view, as is the case with Macaronesia: some definitions only include Madeira and the Canary Islands[3] while others include the whole Macaronesia (with the Azores and Cape Verde).[4]
In Western Asia, it covers the western and southern portions of the peninsula of Anatolia, as far as Iraq,[5] but excluding the temperate-climate mountains of central Turkey. It includes the Mediterranean Levant at the eastern end of the Mediterranean, bounded on the east and south by the Syrian and Negev deserts.
The northern portion of the Maghreb region of northwestern Africa has a Mediterranean climate, separated from the Sahara Desert, which extends across North Africa, by the Atlas Mountains. In the eastern Mediterranean the Sahara extends to the southern shore of the Mediterranean, with the exception of the northern fringe of the peninsula of Cyrenaica in Libya, which has a dry Mediterranean climate.
Europe lies to the north of the Mediterranean. The European portion of the Mediterranean Basin loosely corresponds to Southern Europe. The three large Southern European peninsulas, the Iberian Peninsula, Italian Peninsula, and the Balkan Peninsula, extend into and comprise much of the Mediterranean-climate zone. A system of folded mountains, including the Pyrenees dividing Spain from France, the Alps dividing Italy from Central Europe, the Dinaric Alps along the eastern Adriatic, and the Balkan and Rila-Rhodope mountains of the Balkan Peninsula divide the Mediterranean from the temperate climate regions of Western, Northwestern or Northern Europe, Central Europe, and Eastern Europe.
Geology and paleoclimatology[edit]
The Mediterranean Basin was shaped by the ancient collision of the northward-moving African–Arabian continent with the stable Eurasian continent. As Africa–Arabia moved north, it closed the former Tethys Sea, which formerly separated Eurasia from the ancient super continent of Gondwana, of which Africa was part. At about the same time, 170 mya in the Jurassic period, a small Neotethys ocean basin formed shortly before the Tethys Sea was closed at the eastern end. The collision pushed up a vast system of mountains, extending from the Pyrenees in Spain to the Zagros Mountains in Iran. This episode of mountain building, known as the Alpine orogeny, occurred mostly during the Oligocene (34 to 23 million years ago (mya)) and Miocene (23 to 5.3 mya) epochs. The Neotethys became larger during these collisions and associated folding and subduction.About 6 mya during the late Miocene, the Mediterranean was closed at its western end by drifting Africa, which caused the entire sea to evaporate. There followed several (debated) episodes of sea drawdown and re-flooding known as the Messinian Salinity Crisis, which ended when the Atlantic last re-flooded the basin at the end of the Miocene.[6] Recent research has suggested that a desiccation-flooding cycle may have repeated several times [7][8] during the last 630,000 years of the Miocene epoch, which could explain several events of large amounts of salt deposition. Recent studies, however, show that repeated desiccation and re-flooding is unlikely from a geodynamic point of view.[9][10]
The end of the Miocene also marked a change in the Mediterranean Basin's climate. Fossil evidence shows that the Mediterranean Basin had a relatively humid subtropical climate with summer rainfall during the Miocene, which supported laurel forests. The shift to a Mediterranean climate occurred within the last 3.2–2.8 million years, during the Pliocene epoch, as summer rainfall decreased. The subtropical laurel forests retreated, although they persisted on the islands of Macaronesia off the Atlantic coast of Iberia and North Africa, and the present Mediterranean vegetation evolved, dominated by coniferous trees and sclerophyllous trees and shrubs, with small, hard, waxy leaves that prevent moisture loss in the dry summers. Much of these forests and shrublands have been altered beyond recognition by thousands of years of human habitation. There are now very few relatively intact natural areas in what was once a heavily wooded region.
Flora and fauna[edit]
See also: Category:Environment of the MediterraneanPhytogeographically, the Mediterranean Basin together with the nearby Atlantic coast, the Mediterranean woodlands and forests and Mediterranean dry woodlands and steppe of North Africa, the Black Sea coast of northeastern Anatolia, the southern coast of Crimea between Sevastopol and Feodosiya and the Black Sea coast between Anapa and Tuapse in Russia forms the Mediterranean Floristic Region, which belongs to the Tethyan Subkingdom of the Boreal Kingdom and is enclosed between the Circumboreal, Irano-Turanian, Saharo-Arabian and Macaronesian floristic regions.
The Mediterranean Region was first proposed by German botanist August Grisebach in the late 19th century.
The monotypic Drosophyllaceae, recently segregated from Droseraceae, is the only plant family endemic to the region. Among the endemic plant genera are:[dubious – discuss]
- Anagyris
- Andryala
- Aphyllanthes
- Argania
- Argantoniella
- Bellardia
- Biserrula
- Bivonaea
- Bolanthus
- Boleum
- Callicotome
- Ceratocapnos
- Ceratonia
- Chamaerops
- Chronanthus
- Cladanthus
- Coridothymus
- Didesmus
- Dorystoechas
- Drosophyllum
- Euzomodendron
- Fedia
- Guiraoa
- Gyrocarion
- Helicodiceros
- Hermodactylus
- Hutera
- Hymenocarpus
- Ionopsidium
- Lafuentea
- Lagoecia
- Leuzea
- Lycocarpus
- Malope
- Morisia
- Ortegia
- Petagnia
- Petromarula
- Phillyrea
- Preslia
- Putoria
- Rothmaleria
- Rosmarinus
- Rupicapnos
- Santolina
- Staehelina
- Soleirolia
- Spartium
- Tetraclinis
- Trachelium
- Tremastelma
- Triplachne
- Vella
The Mediterranean Basin is the largest of the world's five Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub regions. It is home to a number of plant communities, which vary with rainfall, elevation, latitude, and soils.
- Scrublands occur in the driest areas, especially areas near the seacoast where wind and salt spray are frequent. Low, soft-leaved scrublands around the Mediterranean are known as garrigar in Catalan, garrigue in French, phrygana in Greek, tomillares in Spanish, and batha in Hebrew.
- Shrublands are dense thickets of evergreen sclerophyll shrubs and small trees, and are the most common plant community around the Mediterranean. Mediterranean shrublands are known as màquia in Catalan, macchia in Italian, maquis in French, and "matorral" in Spanish. In some places shrublands are the mature vegetation type, and in other places the result of degradation of former forest or woodland by logging or overgrazing, or disturbance by major fires.
- Savannas and grasslands occur around the Mediterranean, usually dominated by annual grasses.
- Woodlands are usually dominated by oak and pine, mixed with other sclerophyll and coniferous trees.
- Forests are distinct from woodlands in having a closed canopy, and occur in the areas of highest rainfall and in riparian zones along rivers and streams where they receive summer water. Mediterranean forests are generally composed of evergreen trees, predominantly oak and pine. At higher elevations Mediterranean forests transition to mixed broadleaf and tall conifer forests similar to temperate zone forests.
Endangered mammals of the Mediterranean Basin include the Mediterranean monk seal, the Barbary macaque, and the Iberian lynx.
Ecoregions[edit]
The WWF identifies 22 Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub ecoregions in the Mediterranean Basin, most of which featuring sclerophyll plant species:- Aegean and Western Turkey sclerophyllous and mixed forests (Greece, Turkey, North Macedonia, Bulgaria)
- Anatolian conifer and deciduous mixed forests (Turkey)
- Canary Islands dry woodlands and forests (Spain)
- Corsican montane broadleaf and mixed forests (France)
- Crete Mediterranean forests (Greece)
- Cyprus Mediterranean forests (Cyprus)
- Eastern Mediterranean conifer–sclerophyllous–broadleaf forests (Lebanon, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Palestine, Syria, Turkey)
- Iberian conifer forests (Spain)
- Iberian sclerophyllous and semi-deciduous forests (Portugal, Spain)
- Illyrian deciduous forests (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Greece, Italy, Montenegro, Slovenia)
- Italian sclerophyllous and semi-deciduous forests (France, Italy, San Marino)
- Mediterranean acacia–argania dry woodlands (Western Sahara, Morocco, Canary Islands (Spain))
- Mediterranean dry woodlands and steppe (Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia)
- Mediterranean woodlands and forests (Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia)
- Northeastern Spain and Southern France Mediterranean forests (France, Monaco, Spain)
- Northwest Iberian montane forests (Portugal, Spain)
- Pindus Mountains mixed forests (Albania, Greece, North Macedonia)
- South Apennine mixed montane forests (Italy)
- Southeastern Iberian shrubs and woodlands (Spain)
- Southern Anatolian montane conifer and deciduous forests (Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, Syria, Turkey)
- Southwest Iberian Mediterranean sclerophyllous and mixed forests (Portugal, Spain)
- Tyrrhenian–Adriatic sclerophyllous and mixed forests (Croatia, France, Italy, Malta)
.svg)
Map of the Mediterranean Basin's ecoregions. 1201: Aegean and Western Turkey sclerophyllous and mixed forests. 1202: Anatolian conifer and deciduous mixed forests. 1203: Canary Islands dry woodlands and forests. 1204: Corsican montane broadleaf and mixed forests. 1205: Crete Mediterranean forests. 1206: Cyprus Mediterranean forests. 1207: Eastern Mediterranean conifer-sclerophyllous-broadleaf forests. 1208: Iberian conifer forests. 1209: Iberian sclerophyllous and semi-deciduous forests. 1210: Illyrian deciduous forests. 1211: Italian sclerophyllous and semi-deciduous forests. 1212: Mediterranean acacia-argania dry woodlands and succulent thickets. 1213: Mediterranean dry woodlands and steppe. 1214: Mediterranean woodlands and forests. 1215: Northeastern Spain and Southern France Mediterranean forests. 1216: Northwest Iberian montane forests. 1217: Pindus Mountains mixed forests. 1218: South Apeninne mixed montane forests. 1219: Southeastern Iberian shrubs and woodlands. 1220: Southern Anatolian montane conifer and deciduous forests. 1221: Southwest Iberian Mediterranean sclerophyllous and mixed forests. 1222: Tyrrhenian-Adriatic sclerophyllous and mixed forests
.
History[edit]
Main article: History of the Mediterranean regionNeanderthals inhabited western Asia and the non-glaciated portions of Europe starting about 230,000 years ago. Modern humans moved into western Asia from Africa less than 100,000 years ago. Modern humans, known as Cro-Magnons, moved into Europe approximately 50–40,000 years ago.
The most recent glacial period, the Wisconsin glaciation, reached its maximum extent approximately 21,000 years ago, and ended approximately 12,000 years ago. A warm period, known as the Holocene climatic optimum, followed the ice age.
Food crops, including wheat, chickpeas, and olives, along with sheep and goats, were domesticated in the eastern Mediterranean in the 9th millennium BCE, which allowed for the establishment of agricultural settlements. Near Eastern crops spread to southeastern Europe in the 7th millennium BCE. Poppy and oats were domesticated in Europe from the 6th to the 3rd millennium BCE. Agricultural settlements spread around the Mediterranean Basin. Megaliths were constructed in Europe from 4500 – 1500 BCE.
A strengthening of the summer monsoon 9000–7000 years ago increased rainfall across the Sahara, which became a grassland, with lakes, rivers, and wetlands. After a period of climatic instability, the Sahara settled into a desert state by the 4th millennium BCE.
Agriculture[edit]
Further information: Mediterranean cuisineWheat is the dominant grain grown around the Mediterranean Basin. Pulses and vegetables are also grown. The characteristic tree crop is the olive. Figs are another important fruit tree, and citrus, especially lemons, are grown where irrigation is present. Grapes are an important vine crop, grown for fruit and to make wine. Rice and summer vegetables are grown in irrigated areas.
See also[edit]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Mediterranean.
- Ancient Egypt
- Ancient Greece
- Life zones of the Mediterranean region
- Mediterranean wine climate
- MISTRALS
- Ottoman Empire
- Phoenicia
- Roman Empire
- Zanclean flood
Hollywood Cannon
I'm Away From My Desk
Oh it me. Relieved Rebels! Careless Rebels! Lamentable Rebels!
With the pick I pick, I pick
THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA
The Med was called "Mare Nostrum," or "Our Sea" when it was a Roman lake. The Med is the cradle of numerous major civilizations and empires. Like the Minoans, or the Seleucids, both of whom some of you have heard of maybe. This is where some of the best history is. Please, allow me to educate you a bit on the Med:
The Mediterranean Basin covers portions of three continents: Europe, Africa, and Asia. It is distinct from the drainage basin, which extends much further south and north due to major rivers ending in the Mediterranean Sea, such as the Nile and Rhône. Conversely, the Mediterranean Basin includes regions not in the drainage basin.[1]
It has a varied and contrasting topography. The Mediterranean Region offers an ever-changing landscape of high mountains, rocky shores, impenetrable scrub, semi-arid steppes, coastal wetlands, sandy beaches and a myriad islands of various shapes and sizes dotted amidst the clear blue sea. Contrary to the classic sandy beach images portrayed in most tourist brochures, the Mediterranean is surprisingly hilly. Mountains can be seen from almost anywhere.[2]
By definition, the Mediterranean Basin extends from Macaronesia in the west, to the Levant in the east, although some places may or may not be included depending on the view, as is the case with Macaronesia: some definitions only include Madeira and the Canary Islands[3] while others include the whole Macaronesia (with the Azores and Cape Verde).[4]
In Western Asia, it covers the western and southern portions of the peninsula of Anatolia, as far as Iraq,[5] but excluding the temperate-climate mountains of central Turkey. It includes the Mediterranean Levant at the eastern end of the Mediterranean, bounded on the east and south by the Syrian and Negev deserts.
The northern portion of the Maghreb region of northwestern Africa has a Mediterranean climate, separated from the Sahara Desert, which extends across North Africa, by the Atlas Mountains. In the eastern Mediterranean the Sahara extends to the southern shore of the Mediterranean, with the exception of the northern fringe of the peninsula of Cyrenaica in Libya, which has a dry Mediterranean climate.
Europe lies to the north of the Mediterranean. The European portion of the Mediterranean Basin loosely corresponds to Southern Europe. The three large Southern European peninsulas, the Iberian Peninsula, Italian Peninsula, and the Balkan Peninsula, extend into and comprise much of the Mediterranean-climate zone. A system of folded mountains, including the Pyrenees dividing Spain from France, the Alps dividing Italy from Central Europe, the Dinaric Alps along the eastern Adriatic, and the Balkan and Rila-Rhodope mountains of the Balkan Peninsula divide the Mediterranean from the temperate climate regions of Western, Northwestern or Northern Europe, Central Europe, and Eastern Europe.
Geology and paleoclimatology[edit]
The Mediterranean Basin was shaped by the ancient collision of the northward-moving African–Arabian continent with the stable Eurasian continent. As Africa–Arabia moved north, it closed the former Tethys Sea, which formerly separated Eurasia from the ancient super continent of Gondwana, of which Africa was part. At about the same time, 170 mya in the Jurassic period, a small Neotethys ocean basin formed shortly before the Tethys Sea was closed at the eastern end. The collision pushed up a vast system of mountains, extending from the Pyrenees in Spain to the Zagros Mountains in Iran. This episode of mountain building, known as the Alpine orogeny, occurred mostly during the Oligocene (34 to 23 million years ago (mya)) and Miocene (23 to 5.3 mya) epochs. The Neotethys became larger during these collisions and associated folding and subduction.
About 6 mya during the late Miocene, the Mediterranean was closed at its western end by drifting Africa, which caused the entire sea to evaporate. There followed several (debated) episodes of sea drawdown and re-flooding known as the Messinian Salinity Crisis, which ended when the Atlantic last re-flooded the basin at the end of the Miocene.[6] Recent research has suggested that a desiccation-flooding cycle may have repeated several times [7][8] during the last 630,000 years of the Miocene epoch, which could explain several events of large amounts of salt deposition. Recent studies, however, show that repeated desiccation and re-flooding is unlikely from a geodynamic point of view.[9][10]
The end of the Miocene also marked a change in the Mediterranean Basin's climate. Fossil evidence shows that the Mediterranean Basin had a relatively humid subtropical climate with summer rainfall during the Miocene, which supported laurel forests. The shift to a Mediterranean climate occurred within the last 3.2–2.8 million years, during the Pliocene epoch, as summer rainfall decreased. The subtropical laurel forests retreated, although they persisted on the islands of Macaronesia off the Atlantic coast of Iberia and North Africa, and the present Mediterranean vegetation evolved, dominated by coniferous trees and sclerophyllous trees and shrubs, with small, hard, waxy leaves that prevent moisture loss in the dry summers. Much of these forests and shrublands have been altered beyond recognition by thousands of years of human habitation. There are now very few relatively intact natural areas in what was once a heavily wooded region.
Flora and fauna[edit]
See also: Category:Environment of the Mediterranean
Phytogeographically, the Mediterranean Basin together with the nearby Atlantic coast, the Mediterranean woodlands and forests and Mediterranean dry woodlands and steppe of North Africa, the Black Sea coast of northeastern Anatolia, the southern coast of Crimea between Sevastopol and Feodosiya and the Black Sea coast between Anapa and Tuapse in Russia forms the Mediterranean Floristic Region, which belongs to the Tethyan Subkingdom of the Boreal Kingdom and is enclosed between the Circumboreal, Irano-Turanian, Saharo-Arabian and Macaronesian floristic regions.
The Mediterranean Region was first proposed by German botanist August Grisebach in the late 19th century.
The monotypic Drosophyllaceae, recently segregated from Droseraceae, is the only plant family endemic to the region. Among the endemic plant genera are:[dubious – discuss]
The genera Aubrieta, Sesamoides, Cynara, Dracunculus, Arisarum and Biarum are nearly endemic. Among the endemic species prominent in the Mediterranean vegetation are the Aleppo pine, stone pine, Mediterranean cypress, bay laurel, Oriental sweetgum, holm oak, kermes oak, strawberry tree, Greek strawberry tree, mastic, terebinth, common myrtle, oleander, Acanthus mollis and Vitex agnus-castus. Moreover, many plant taxa are shared with one of the four neighboring floristic regions only. According to different versions of Armen Takhtajan's delineation, the Mediterranean Region is further subdivided into seven to nine floristic provinces: Southwestern Mediterranean (or Southern Moroccan and Southwestern Mediterranean), Ibero-Balearian (or Iberian and Balearian), Liguro-Tyrrhenian, Adriatic, East Mediterranean, South Mediterranean and Crimeo-Novorossiysk.[11]
- Anagyris
- Andryala
- Aphyllanthes
- Argania
- Argantoniella
- Bellardia
- Biserrula
- Bivonaea
- Bolanthus
- Boleum
- Callicotome
- Ceratocapnos
- Ceratonia
- Chamaerops
- Chronanthus
- Cladanthus
- Coridothymus
- Didesmus
- Dorystoechas
- Drosophyllum
- Euzomodendron
- Fedia
- Guiraoa
- Gyrocarion
- Helicodiceros
- Hermodactylus
- Hutera
- Hymenocarpus
- Ionopsidium
- Lafuentea
- Lagoecia
- Leuzea
- Lycocarpus
- Malope
- Morisia
- Ortegia
- Petagnia
- Petromarula
- Phillyrea
- Preslia
- Putoria
- Rothmaleria
- Rosmarinus
- Rupicapnos
- Santolina
- Staehelina
- Soleirolia
- Spartium
- Tetraclinis
- Trachelium
- Tremastelma
- Triplachne
- Vella
The Mediterranean Basin is the largest of the world's five Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub regions. It is home to a number of plant communities, which vary with rainfall, elevation, latitude, and soils.
The Mediterranean Basin is home to considerable biodiversity, including 22,500 endemic vascular plant species. Conservation International designates the region as a biodiversity hotspot, because of its rich biodiversity and its threatened status. The Mediterranean Basin has an area of 2,085,292 km2, of which only 98,009 km2 remains undisturbed.
- Scrublands occur in the driest areas, especially areas near the seacoast where wind and salt spray are frequent. Low, soft-leaved scrublands around the Mediterranean are known as garrigar in Catalan, garrigue in French, phrygana in Greek, tomillares in Spanish, and batha in Hebrew.
- Shrublands are dense thickets of evergreen sclerophyll shrubs and small trees, and are the most common plant community around the Mediterranean. Mediterranean shrublands are known as màquia in Catalan, macchia in Italian, maquis in French, and "matorral" in Spanish. In some places shrublands are the mature vegetation type, and in other places the result of degradation of former forest or woodland by logging or overgrazing, or disturbance by major fires.
- Savannas and grasslands occur around the Mediterranean, usually dominated by annual grasses.
- Woodlands are usually dominated by oak and pine, mixed with other sclerophyll and coniferous trees.
- Forests are distinct from woodlands in having a closed canopy, and occur in the areas of highest rainfall and in riparian zones along rivers and streams where they receive summer water. Mediterranean forests are generally composed of evergreen trees, predominantly oak and pine. At higher elevations Mediterranean forests transition to mixed broadleaf and tall conifer forests similar to temperate zone forests.
Endangered mammals of the Mediterranean Basin include the Mediterranean monk seal, the Barbary macaque, and the Iberian lynx.
Ecoregions[edit]
The WWF identifies 22 Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub ecoregions in the Mediterranean Basin, most of which featuring sclerophyll plant species:
- Aegean and Western Turkey sclerophyllous and mixed forests (Greece, Turkey, North Macedonia, Bulgaria)
- Anatolian conifer and deciduous mixed forests (Turkey)
- Canary Islands dry woodlands and forests (Spain)
- Corsican montane broadleaf and mixed forests (France)
- Crete Mediterranean forests (Greece)
- Cyprus Mediterranean forests (Cyprus)
- Eastern Mediterranean conifer–sclerophyllous–broadleaf forests (Lebanon, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Palestine, Syria, Turkey)
- Iberian conifer forests (Spain)
- Iberian sclerophyllous and semi-deciduous forests (Portugal, Spain)
- Illyrian deciduous forests (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Greece, Italy, Montenegro, Slovenia)
- Italian sclerophyllous and semi-deciduous forests (France, Italy, San Marino)
- Mediterranean acacia–argania dry woodlands (Western Sahara, Morocco, Canary Islands (Spain))
- Mediterranean dry woodlands and steppe (Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia)
- Mediterranean woodlands and forests (Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia)
- Northeastern Spain and Southern France Mediterranean forests (France, Monaco, Spain)
- Northwest Iberian montane forests (Portugal, Spain)
- Pindus Mountains mixed forests (Albania, Greece, North Macedonia)
- South Apennine mixed montane forests (Italy)
- Southeastern Iberian shrubs and woodlands (Spain)
- Southern Anatolian montane conifer and deciduous forests (Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, Syria, Turkey)
- Southwest Iberian Mediterranean sclerophyllous and mixed forests (Portugal, Spain)
- Tyrrhenian–Adriatic sclerophyllous and mixed forests (Croatia, France, Italy, Malta)
Map of the Mediterranean Basin's ecoregions. 1201: Aegean and Western Turkey sclerophyllous and mixed forests. 1202: Anatolian conifer and deciduous mixed forests. 1203: Canary Islands dry woodlands and forests. 1204: Corsican montane broadleaf and mixed forests. 1205: Crete Mediterranean forests. 1206: Cyprus Mediterranean forests. 1207: Eastern Mediterranean conifer-sclerophyllous-broadleaf forests. 1208: Iberian conifer forests. 1209: Iberian sclerophyllous and semi-deciduous forests. 1210: Illyrian deciduous forests. 1211: Italian sclerophyllous and semi-deciduous forests. 1212: Mediterranean acacia-argania dry woodlands and succulent thickets. 1213: Mediterranean dry woodlands and steppe. 1214: Mediterranean woodlands and forests. 1215: Northeastern Spain and Southern France Mediterranean forests. 1216: Northwest Iberian montane forests. 1217: Pindus Mountains mixed forests. 1218: South Apeninne mixed montane forests. 1219: Southeastern Iberian shrubs and woodlands. 1220: Southern Anatolian montane conifer and deciduous forests. 1221: Southwest Iberian Mediterranean sclerophyllous and mixed forests. 1222: Tyrrhenian-Adriatic sclerophyllous and mixed forests
.
History[edit]
Main article: History of the Mediterranean region
Neanderthals inhabited western Asia and the non-glaciated portions of Europe starting about 230,000 years ago. Modern humans moved into western Asia from Africa less than 100,000 years ago. Modern humans, known as Cro-Magnons, moved into Europe approximately 50–40,000 years ago.
The most recent glacial period, the Wisconsin glaciation, reached its maximum extent approximately 21,000 years ago, and ended approximately 12,000 years ago. A warm period, known as the Holocene climatic optimum, followed the ice age.
Food crops, including wheat, chickpeas, and olives, along with sheep and goats, were domesticated in the eastern Mediterranean in the 9th millennium BCE, which allowed for the establishment of agricultural settlements. Near Eastern crops spread to southeastern Europe in the 7th millennium BCE. Poppy and oats were domesticated in Europe from the 6th to the 3rd millennium BCE. Agricultural settlements spread around the Mediterranean Basin. Megaliths were constructed in Europe from 4500 – 1500 BCE.
A strengthening of the summer monsoon 9000–7000 years ago increased rainfall across the Sahara, which became a grassland, with lakes, rivers, and wetlands. After a period of climatic instability, the Sahara settled into a desert state by the 4th millennium BCE.
Agriculture[edit]
Further information: Mediterranean cuisine
Wheat is the dominant grain grown around the Mediterranean Basin. Pulses and vegetables are also grown. The characteristic tree crop is the olive. Figs are another important fruit tree, and citrus, especially lemons, are grown where irrigation is present. Grapes are an important vine crop, grown for fruit and to make wine. Rice and summer vegetables are grown in irrigated areas.
See also[edit]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Mediterranean.
Lonely @CanadianFlyer88 ! Vulgar CF88! Brave CF88!
- Ancient Egypt
- Ancient Greece
- Life zones of the Mediterranean region
- Mediterranean wine climate
- MISTRALS
- Ottoman Empire
- Phoenicia
- Roman Empire
- Zanclean flood
Magua
Entirely Palatable Product
No disrespect to the goddess Phoebe (duh), but I like-don't love Fast Times. Don't get me wrong, it's funny, I just find it messy and the characters mostly not that likable, through no fault of the amazing cast. Say Anything is a better overall 80s teen Cameron Crowe movie, and I'll die on that hill.
CanadianFlyer88
Knublin' PPs
I had a college course in mind, but went down a rabbit hole that led me to something completely different.
I'm a bit of a math geek, but rarely ever use math on my own these days. Both personally and professionally, the current extent of my "math" is analyzing someone else's calculations.
This course is offered by MIT (lolz) and appears to be taught by the absolute unit in the video below:
The Seattle Sockeyes are amused to select, the unbelievably real college course, Street Fighting Math.
@DancingPanther, don't mess with Sanjoy Mahajan.
I'm a bit of a math geek, but rarely ever use math on my own these days. Both personally and professionally, the current extent of my "math" is analyzing someone else's calculations.
This course is offered by MIT (lolz) and appears to be taught by the absolute unit in the video below:
The Seattle Sockeyes are amused to select, the unbelievably real college course, Street Fighting Math.
@DancingPanther, don't mess with Sanjoy Mahajan.
DancingPanther
Foundational Titan
- Jun 19, 2018
- 33,798
- 72,055
NiceOh it me. Relieved Rebels! Careless Rebels! Lamentable Rebels!
With the pick I pick, I pick
THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA
The Med was called "Mare Nostrum," or "Our Sea" when it was a Roman lake. The Med is the cradle of numerous major civilizations and empires. Like the Minoans, or the Seleucids, both of whom some of you have heard of maybe. This is where some of the best history is. Please, allow me to educate you a bit on the Med:
The Mediterranean Basin covers portions of three continents: Europe, Africa, and Asia. It is distinct from the drainage basin, which extends much further south and north due to major rivers ending in the Mediterranean Sea, such as the Nile and Rhône. Conversely, the Mediterranean Basin includes regions not in the drainage basin.[1]
It has a varied and contrasting topography. The Mediterranean Region offers an ever-changing landscape of high mountains, rocky shores, impenetrable scrub, semi-arid steppes, coastal wetlands, sandy beaches and a myriad islands of various shapes and sizes dotted amidst the clear blue sea. Contrary to the classic sandy beach images portrayed in most tourist brochures, the Mediterranean is surprisingly hilly. Mountains can be seen from almost anywhere.[2]
By definition, the Mediterranean Basin extends from Macaronesia in the west, to the Levant in the east, although some places may or may not be included depending on the view, as is the case with Macaronesia: some definitions only include Madeira and the Canary Islands[3] while others include the whole Macaronesia (with the Azores and Cape Verde).[4]
In Western Asia, it covers the western and southern portions of the peninsula of Anatolia, as far as Iraq,[5] but excluding the temperate-climate mountains of central Turkey. It includes the Mediterranean Levant at the eastern end of the Mediterranean, bounded on the east and south by the Syrian and Negev deserts.
The northern portion of the Maghreb region of northwestern Africa has a Mediterranean climate, separated from the Sahara Desert, which extends across North Africa, by the Atlas Mountains. In the eastern Mediterranean the Sahara extends to the southern shore of the Mediterranean, with the exception of the northern fringe of the peninsula of Cyrenaica in Libya, which has a dry Mediterranean climate.
Europe lies to the north of the Mediterranean. The European portion of the Mediterranean Basin loosely corresponds to Southern Europe. The three large Southern European peninsulas, the Iberian Peninsula, Italian Peninsula, and the Balkan Peninsula, extend into and comprise much of the Mediterranean-climate zone. A system of folded mountains, including the Pyrenees dividing Spain from France, the Alps dividing Italy from Central Europe, the Dinaric Alps along the eastern Adriatic, and the Balkan and Rila-Rhodope mountains of the Balkan Peninsula divide the Mediterranean from the temperate climate regions of Western, Northwestern or Northern Europe, Central Europe, and Eastern Europe.
Geology and paleoclimatology[edit]
The Mediterranean Basin was shaped by the ancient collision of the northward-moving African–Arabian continent with the stable Eurasian continent. As Africa–Arabia moved north, it closed the former Tethys Sea, which formerly separated Eurasia from the ancient super continent of Gondwana, of which Africa was part. At about the same time, 170 mya in the Jurassic period, a small Neotethys ocean basin formed shortly before the Tethys Sea was closed at the eastern end. The collision pushed up a vast system of mountains, extending from the Pyrenees in Spain to the Zagros Mountains in Iran. This episode of mountain building, known as the Alpine orogeny, occurred mostly during the Oligocene (34 to 23 million years ago (mya)) and Miocene (23 to 5.3 mya) epochs. The Neotethys became larger during these collisions and associated folding and subduction.
About 6 mya during the late Miocene, the Mediterranean was closed at its western end by drifting Africa, which caused the entire sea to evaporate. There followed several (debated) episodes of sea drawdown and re-flooding known as the Messinian Salinity Crisis, which ended when the Atlantic last re-flooded the basin at the end of the Miocene.[6] Recent research has suggested that a desiccation-flooding cycle may have repeated several times [7][8] during the last 630,000 years of the Miocene epoch, which could explain several events of large amounts of salt deposition. Recent studies, however, show that repeated desiccation and re-flooding is unlikely from a geodynamic point of view.[9][10]
The end of the Miocene also marked a change in the Mediterranean Basin's climate. Fossil evidence shows that the Mediterranean Basin had a relatively humid subtropical climate with summer rainfall during the Miocene, which supported laurel forests. The shift to a Mediterranean climate occurred within the last 3.2–2.8 million years, during the Pliocene epoch, as summer rainfall decreased. The subtropical laurel forests retreated, although they persisted on the islands of Macaronesia off the Atlantic coast of Iberia and North Africa, and the present Mediterranean vegetation evolved, dominated by coniferous trees and sclerophyllous trees and shrubs, with small, hard, waxy leaves that prevent moisture loss in the dry summers. Much of these forests and shrublands have been altered beyond recognition by thousands of years of human habitation. There are now very few relatively intact natural areas in what was once a heavily wooded region.
Flora and fauna[edit]
See also: Category:Environment of the Mediterranean
Phytogeographically, the Mediterranean Basin together with the nearby Atlantic coast, the Mediterranean woodlands and forests and Mediterranean dry woodlands and steppe of North Africa, the Black Sea coast of northeastern Anatolia, the southern coast of Crimea between Sevastopol and Feodosiya and the Black Sea coast between Anapa and Tuapse in Russia forms the Mediterranean Floristic Region, which belongs to the Tethyan Subkingdom of the Boreal Kingdom and is enclosed between the Circumboreal, Irano-Turanian, Saharo-Arabian and Macaronesian floristic regions.
The Mediterranean Region was first proposed by German botanist August Grisebach in the late 19th century.
The monotypic Drosophyllaceae, recently segregated from Droseraceae, is the only plant family endemic to the region. Among the endemic plant genera are:[dubious – discuss]
The genera Aubrieta, Sesamoides, Cynara, Dracunculus, Arisarum and Biarum are nearly endemic. Among the endemic species prominent in the Mediterranean vegetation are the Aleppo pine, stone pine, Mediterranean cypress, bay laurel, Oriental sweetgum, holm oak, kermes oak, strawberry tree, Greek strawberry tree, mastic, terebinth, common myrtle, oleander, Acanthus mollis and Vitex agnus-castus. Moreover, many plant taxa are shared with one of the four neighboring floristic regions only. According to different versions of Armen Takhtajan's delineation, the Mediterranean Region is further subdivided into seven to nine floristic provinces: Southwestern Mediterranean (or Southern Moroccan and Southwestern Mediterranean), Ibero-Balearian (or Iberian and Balearian), Liguro-Tyrrhenian, Adriatic, East Mediterranean, South Mediterranean and Crimeo-Novorossiysk.[11]
- Anagyris
- Andryala
- Aphyllanthes
- Argania
- Argantoniella
- Bellardia
- Biserrula
- Bivonaea
- Bolanthus
- Boleum
- Callicotome
- Ceratocapnos
- Ceratonia
- Chamaerops
- Chronanthus
- Cladanthus
- Coridothymus
- Didesmus
- Dorystoechas
- Drosophyllum
- Euzomodendron
- Fedia
- Guiraoa
- Gyrocarion
- Helicodiceros
- Hermodactylus
- Hutera
- Hymenocarpus
- Ionopsidium
- Lafuentea
- Lagoecia
- Leuzea
- Lycocarpus
- Malope
- Morisia
- Ortegia
- Petagnia
- Petromarula
- Phillyrea
- Preslia
- Putoria
- Rothmaleria
- Rosmarinus
- Rupicapnos
- Santolina
- Staehelina
- Soleirolia
- Spartium
- Tetraclinis
- Trachelium
- Tremastelma
- Triplachne
- Vella
The Mediterranean Basin is the largest of the world's five Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub regions. It is home to a number of plant communities, which vary with rainfall, elevation, latitude, and soils.
The Mediterranean Basin is home to considerable biodiversity, including 22,500 endemic vascular plant species. Conservation International designates the region as a biodiversity hotspot, because of its rich biodiversity and its threatened status. The Mediterranean Basin has an area of 2,085,292 km2, of which only 98,009 km2 remains undisturbed.
- Scrublands occur in the driest areas, especially areas near the seacoast where wind and salt spray are frequent. Low, soft-leaved scrublands around the Mediterranean are known as garrigar in Catalan, garrigue in French, phrygana in Greek, tomillares in Spanish, and batha in Hebrew.
- Shrublands are dense thickets of evergreen sclerophyll shrubs and small trees, and are the most common plant community around the Mediterranean. Mediterranean shrublands are known as màquia in Catalan, macchia in Italian, maquis in French, and "matorral" in Spanish. In some places shrublands are the mature vegetation type, and in other places the result of degradation of former forest or woodland by logging or overgrazing, or disturbance by major fires.
- Savannas and grasslands occur around the Mediterranean, usually dominated by annual grasses.
- Woodlands are usually dominated by oak and pine, mixed with other sclerophyll and coniferous trees.
- Forests are distinct from woodlands in having a closed canopy, and occur in the areas of highest rainfall and in riparian zones along rivers and streams where they receive summer water. Mediterranean forests are generally composed of evergreen trees, predominantly oak and pine. At higher elevations Mediterranean forests transition to mixed broadleaf and tall conifer forests similar to temperate zone forests.
Endangered mammals of the Mediterranean Basin include the Mediterranean monk seal, the Barbary macaque, and the Iberian lynx.
Ecoregions[edit]
The WWF identifies 22 Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub ecoregions in the Mediterranean Basin, most of which featuring sclerophyll plant species:
- Aegean and Western Turkey sclerophyllous and mixed forests (Greece, Turkey, North Macedonia, Bulgaria)
- Anatolian conifer and deciduous mixed forests (Turkey)
- Canary Islands dry woodlands and forests (Spain)
- Corsican montane broadleaf and mixed forests (France)
- Crete Mediterranean forests (Greece)
- Cyprus Mediterranean forests (Cyprus)
- Eastern Mediterranean conifer–sclerophyllous–broadleaf forests (Lebanon, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Palestine, Syria, Turkey)
- Iberian conifer forests (Spain)
- Iberian sclerophyllous and semi-deciduous forests (Portugal, Spain)
- Illyrian deciduous forests (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Greece, Italy, Montenegro, Slovenia)
- Italian sclerophyllous and semi-deciduous forests (France, Italy, San Marino)
- Mediterranean acacia–argania dry woodlands (Western Sahara, Morocco, Canary Islands (Spain))
- Mediterranean dry woodlands and steppe (Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia)
- Mediterranean woodlands and forests (Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia)
- Northeastern Spain and Southern France Mediterranean forests (France, Monaco, Spain)
- Northwest Iberian montane forests (Portugal, Spain)
- Pindus Mountains mixed forests (Albania, Greece, North Macedonia)
- South Apennine mixed montane forests (Italy)
- Southeastern Iberian shrubs and woodlands (Spain)
- Southern Anatolian montane conifer and deciduous forests (Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, Syria, Turkey)
- Southwest Iberian Mediterranean sclerophyllous and mixed forests (Portugal, Spain)
- Tyrrhenian–Adriatic sclerophyllous and mixed forests (Croatia, France, Italy, Malta)
Map of the Mediterranean Basin's ecoregions. 1201: Aegean and Western Turkey sclerophyllous and mixed forests. 1202: Anatolian conifer and deciduous mixed forests. 1203: Canary Islands dry woodlands and forests. 1204: Corsican montane broadleaf and mixed forests. 1205: Crete Mediterranean forests. 1206: Cyprus Mediterranean forests. 1207: Eastern Mediterranean conifer-sclerophyllous-broadleaf forests. 1208: Iberian conifer forests. 1209: Iberian sclerophyllous and semi-deciduous forests. 1210: Illyrian deciduous forests. 1211: Italian sclerophyllous and semi-deciduous forests. 1212: Mediterranean acacia-argania dry woodlands and succulent thickets. 1213: Mediterranean dry woodlands and steppe. 1214: Mediterranean woodlands and forests. 1215: Northeastern Spain and Southern France Mediterranean forests. 1216: Northwest Iberian montane forests. 1217: Pindus Mountains mixed forests. 1218: South Apeninne mixed montane forests. 1219: Southeastern Iberian shrubs and woodlands. 1220: Southern Anatolian montane conifer and deciduous forests. 1221: Southwest Iberian Mediterranean sclerophyllous and mixed forests. 1222: Tyrrhenian-Adriatic sclerophyllous and mixed forests
.
History[edit]
Main article: History of the Mediterranean region
Neanderthals inhabited western Asia and the non-glaciated portions of Europe starting about 230,000 years ago. Modern humans moved into western Asia from Africa less than 100,000 years ago. Modern humans, known as Cro-Magnons, moved into Europe approximately 50–40,000 years ago.
The most recent glacial period, the Wisconsin glaciation, reached its maximum extent approximately 21,000 years ago, and ended approximately 12,000 years ago. A warm period, known as the Holocene climatic optimum, followed the ice age.
Food crops, including wheat, chickpeas, and olives, along with sheep and goats, were domesticated in the eastern Mediterranean in the 9th millennium BCE, which allowed for the establishment of agricultural settlements. Near Eastern crops spread to southeastern Europe in the 7th millennium BCE. Poppy and oats were domesticated in Europe from the 6th to the 3rd millennium BCE. Agricultural settlements spread around the Mediterranean Basin. Megaliths were constructed in Europe from 4500 – 1500 BCE.
A strengthening of the summer monsoon 9000–7000 years ago increased rainfall across the Sahara, which became a grassland, with lakes, rivers, and wetlands. After a period of climatic instability, the Sahara settled into a desert state by the 4th millennium BCE.
Agriculture[edit]
Further information: Mediterranean cuisine
Wheat is the dominant grain grown around the Mediterranean Basin. Pulses and vegetables are also grown. The characteristic tree crop is the olive. Figs are another important fruit tree, and citrus, especially lemons, are grown where irrigation is present. Grapes are an important vine crop, grown for fruit and to make wine. Rice and summer vegetables are grown in irrigated areas.
See also[edit]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Mediterranean.
Lonely @CanadianFlyer88 ! Vulgar CF88! Brave CF88!
- Ancient Egypt
- Ancient Greece
- Life zones of the Mediterranean region
- Mediterranean wine climate
- MISTRALS
- Ottoman Empire
- Phoenicia
- Roman Empire
- Zanclean flood
I'm making dinner. Will pick later
BernieParent
In misery of redwings of suckage for a long time
Oh it me. Relieved Rebels! Careless Rebels! Lamentable Rebels!
With the pick I pick, I pick
THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA
The Med was called "Mare Nostrum," or "Our Sea" when it was a Roman lake. The Med is the cradle of numerous major civilizations and empires. Like the Minoans, or the Seleucids, both of whom some of you have heard of maybe. This is where some of the best history is. Please, allow me to educate you a bit on the Med:
The Mediterranean Basin covers portions of three continents: Europe, Africa, and Asia. It is distinct from the drainage basin, which extends much further south and north due to major rivers ending in the Mediterranean Sea, such as the Nile and Rhône. Conversely, the Mediterranean Basin includes regions not in the drainage basin.[1]
It has a varied and contrasting topography. The Mediterranean Region offers an ever-changing landscape of high mountains, rocky shores, impenetrable scrub, semi-arid steppes, coastal wetlands, sandy beaches and a myriad islands of various shapes and sizes dotted amidst the clear blue sea. Contrary to the classic sandy beach images portrayed in most tourist brochures, the Mediterranean is surprisingly hilly. Mountains can be seen from almost anywhere.[2]
By definition, the Mediterranean Basin extends from Macaronesia in the west, to the Levant in the east, although some places may or may not be included depending on the view, as is the case with Macaronesia: some definitions only include Madeira and the Canary Islands[3] while others include the whole Macaronesia (with the Azores and Cape Verde).[4]
In Western Asia, it covers the western and southern portions of the peninsula of Anatolia, as far as Iraq,[5] but excluding the temperate-climate mountains of central Turkey. It includes the Mediterranean Levant at the eastern end of the Mediterranean, bounded on the east and south by the Syrian and Negev deserts.
The northern portion of the Maghreb region of northwestern Africa has a Mediterranean climate, separated from the Sahara Desert, which extends across North Africa, by the Atlas Mountains. In the eastern Mediterranean the Sahara extends to the southern shore of the Mediterranean, with the exception of the northern fringe of the peninsula of Cyrenaica in Libya, which has a dry Mediterranean climate.
Europe lies to the north of the Mediterranean. The European portion of the Mediterranean Basin loosely corresponds to Southern Europe. The three large Southern European peninsulas, the Iberian Peninsula, Italian Peninsula, and the Balkan Peninsula, extend into and comprise much of the Mediterranean-climate zone. A system of folded mountains, including the Pyrenees dividing Spain from France, the Alps dividing Italy from Central Europe, the Dinaric Alps along the eastern Adriatic, and the Balkan and Rila-Rhodope mountains of the Balkan Peninsula divide the Mediterranean from the temperate climate regions of Western, Northwestern or Northern Europe, Central Europe, and Eastern Europe.
Geology and paleoclimatology[edit]
The Mediterranean Basin was shaped by the ancient collision of the northward-moving African–Arabian continent with the stable Eurasian continent. As Africa–Arabia moved north, it closed the former Tethys Sea, which formerly separated Eurasia from the ancient super continent of Gondwana, of which Africa was part. At about the same time, 170 mya in the Jurassic period, a small Neotethys ocean basin formed shortly before the Tethys Sea was closed at the eastern end. The collision pushed up a vast system of mountains, extending from the Pyrenees in Spain to the Zagros Mountains in Iran. This episode of mountain building, known as the Alpine orogeny, occurred mostly during the Oligocene (34 to 23 million years ago (mya)) and Miocene (23 to 5.3 mya) epochs. The Neotethys became larger during these collisions and associated folding and subduction.
About 6 mya during the late Miocene, the Mediterranean was closed at its western end by drifting Africa, which caused the entire sea to evaporate. There followed several (debated) episodes of sea drawdown and re-flooding known as the Messinian Salinity Crisis, which ended when the Atlantic last re-flooded the basin at the end of the Miocene.[6] Recent research has suggested that a desiccation-flooding cycle may have repeated several times [7][8] during the last 630,000 years of the Miocene epoch, which could explain several events of large amounts of salt deposition. Recent studies, however, show that repeated desiccation and re-flooding is unlikely from a geodynamic point of view.[9][10]
The end of the Miocene also marked a change in the Mediterranean Basin's climate. Fossil evidence shows that the Mediterranean Basin had a relatively humid subtropical climate with summer rainfall during the Miocene, which supported laurel forests. The shift to a Mediterranean climate occurred within the last 3.2–2.8 million years, during the Pliocene epoch, as summer rainfall decreased. The subtropical laurel forests retreated, although they persisted on the islands of Macaronesia off the Atlantic coast of Iberia and North Africa, and the present Mediterranean vegetation evolved, dominated by coniferous trees and sclerophyllous trees and shrubs, with small, hard, waxy leaves that prevent moisture loss in the dry summers. Much of these forests and shrublands have been altered beyond recognition by thousands of years of human habitation. There are now very few relatively intact natural areas in what was once a heavily wooded region.
Flora and fauna[edit]
See also: Category:Environment of the Mediterranean
Phytogeographically, the Mediterranean Basin together with the nearby Atlantic coast, the Mediterranean woodlands and forests and Mediterranean dry woodlands and steppe of North Africa, the Black Sea coast of northeastern Anatolia, the southern coast of Crimea between Sevastopol and Feodosiya and the Black Sea coast between Anapa and Tuapse in Russia forms the Mediterranean Floristic Region, which belongs to the Tethyan Subkingdom of the Boreal Kingdom and is enclosed between the Circumboreal, Irano-Turanian, Saharo-Arabian and Macaronesian floristic regions.
The Mediterranean Region was first proposed by German botanist August Grisebach in the late 19th century.
The monotypic Drosophyllaceae, recently segregated from Droseraceae, is the only plant family endemic to the region. Among the endemic plant genera are:[dubious – discuss]
The genera Aubrieta, Sesamoides, Cynara, Dracunculus, Arisarum and Biarum are nearly endemic. Among the endemic species prominent in the Mediterranean vegetation are the Aleppo pine, stone pine, Mediterranean cypress, bay laurel, Oriental sweetgum, holm oak, kermes oak, strawberry tree, Greek strawberry tree, mastic, terebinth, common myrtle, oleander, Acanthus mollis and Vitex agnus-castus. Moreover, many plant taxa are shared with one of the four neighboring floristic regions only. According to different versions of Armen Takhtajan's delineation, the Mediterranean Region is further subdivided into seven to nine floristic provinces: Southwestern Mediterranean (or Southern Moroccan and Southwestern Mediterranean), Ibero-Balearian (or Iberian and Balearian), Liguro-Tyrrhenian, Adriatic, East Mediterranean, South Mediterranean and Crimeo-Novorossiysk.[11]
- Anagyris
- Andryala
- Aphyllanthes
- Argania
- Argantoniella
- Bellardia
- Biserrula
- Bivonaea
- Bolanthus
- Boleum
- Callicotome
- Ceratocapnos
- Ceratonia
- Chamaerops
- Chronanthus
- Cladanthus
- Coridothymus
- Didesmus
- Dorystoechas
- Drosophyllum
- Euzomodendron
- Fedia
- Guiraoa
- Gyrocarion
- Helicodiceros
- Hermodactylus
- Hutera
- Hymenocarpus
- Ionopsidium
- Lafuentea
- Lagoecia
- Leuzea
- Lycocarpus
- Malope
- Morisia
- Ortegia
- Petagnia
- Petromarula
- Phillyrea
- Preslia
- Putoria
- Rothmaleria
- Rosmarinus
- Rupicapnos
- Santolina
- Staehelina
- Soleirolia
- Spartium
- Tetraclinis
- Trachelium
- Tremastelma
- Triplachne
- Vella
The Mediterranean Basin is the largest of the world's five Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub regions. It is home to a number of plant communities, which vary with rainfall, elevation, latitude, and soils.
The Mediterranean Basin is home to considerable biodiversity, including 22,500 endemic vascular plant species. Conservation International designates the region as a biodiversity hotspot, because of its rich biodiversity and its threatened status. The Mediterranean Basin has an area of 2,085,292 km2, of which only 98,009 km2 remains undisturbed.
- Scrublands occur in the driest areas, especially areas near the seacoast where wind and salt spray are frequent. Low, soft-leaved scrublands around the Mediterranean are known as garrigar in Catalan, garrigue in French, phrygana in Greek, tomillares in Spanish, and batha in Hebrew.
- Shrublands are dense thickets of evergreen sclerophyll shrubs and small trees, and are the most common plant community around the Mediterranean. Mediterranean shrublands are known as màquia in Catalan, macchia in Italian, maquis in French, and "matorral" in Spanish. In some places shrublands are the mature vegetation type, and in other places the result of degradation of former forest or woodland by logging or overgrazing, or disturbance by major fires.
- Savannas and grasslands occur around the Mediterranean, usually dominated by annual grasses.
- Woodlands are usually dominated by oak and pine, mixed with other sclerophyll and coniferous trees.
- Forests are distinct from woodlands in having a closed canopy, and occur in the areas of highest rainfall and in riparian zones along rivers and streams where they receive summer water. Mediterranean forests are generally composed of evergreen trees, predominantly oak and pine. At higher elevations Mediterranean forests transition to mixed broadleaf and tall conifer forests similar to temperate zone forests.
Endangered mammals of the Mediterranean Basin include the Mediterranean monk seal, the Barbary macaque, and the Iberian lynx.
Ecoregions[edit]
The WWF identifies 22 Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub ecoregions in the Mediterranean Basin, most of which featuring sclerophyll plant species:
- Aegean and Western Turkey sclerophyllous and mixed forests (Greece, Turkey, North Macedonia, Bulgaria)
- Anatolian conifer and deciduous mixed forests (Turkey)
- Canary Islands dry woodlands and forests (Spain)
- Corsican montane broadleaf and mixed forests (France)
- Crete Mediterranean forests (Greece)
- Cyprus Mediterranean forests (Cyprus)
- Eastern Mediterranean conifer–sclerophyllous–broadleaf forests (Lebanon, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Palestine, Syria, Turkey)
- Iberian conifer forests (Spain)
- Iberian sclerophyllous and semi-deciduous forests (Portugal, Spain)
- Illyrian deciduous forests (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Greece, Italy, Montenegro, Slovenia)
- Italian sclerophyllous and semi-deciduous forests (France, Italy, San Marino)
- Mediterranean acacia–argania dry woodlands (Western Sahara, Morocco, Canary Islands (Spain))
- Mediterranean dry woodlands and steppe (Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia)
- Mediterranean woodlands and forests (Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia)
- Northeastern Spain and Southern France Mediterranean forests (France, Monaco, Spain)
- Northwest Iberian montane forests (Portugal, Spain)
- Pindus Mountains mixed forests (Albania, Greece, North Macedonia)
- South Apennine mixed montane forests (Italy)
- Southeastern Iberian shrubs and woodlands (Spain)
- Southern Anatolian montane conifer and deciduous forests (Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, Syria, Turkey)
- Southwest Iberian Mediterranean sclerophyllous and mixed forests (Portugal, Spain)
- Tyrrhenian–Adriatic sclerophyllous and mixed forests (Croatia, France, Italy, Malta)
Map of the Mediterranean Basin's ecoregions. 1201: Aegean and Western Turkey sclerophyllous and mixed forests. 1202: Anatolian conifer and deciduous mixed forests. 1203: Canary Islands dry woodlands and forests. 1204: Corsican montane broadleaf and mixed forests. 1205: Crete Mediterranean forests. 1206: Cyprus Mediterranean forests. 1207: Eastern Mediterranean conifer-sclerophyllous-broadleaf forests. 1208: Iberian conifer forests. 1209: Iberian sclerophyllous and semi-deciduous forests. 1210: Illyrian deciduous forests. 1211: Italian sclerophyllous and semi-deciduous forests. 1212: Mediterranean acacia-argania dry woodlands and succulent thickets. 1213: Mediterranean dry woodlands and steppe. 1214: Mediterranean woodlands and forests. 1215: Northeastern Spain and Southern France Mediterranean forests. 1216: Northwest Iberian montane forests. 1217: Pindus Mountains mixed forests. 1218: South Apeninne mixed montane forests. 1219: Southeastern Iberian shrubs and woodlands. 1220: Southern Anatolian montane conifer and deciduous forests. 1221: Southwest Iberian Mediterranean sclerophyllous and mixed forests. 1222: Tyrrhenian-Adriatic sclerophyllous and mixed forests
.
History[edit]
Main article: History of the Mediterranean region
Neanderthals inhabited western Asia and the non-glaciated portions of Europe starting about 230,000 years ago. Modern humans moved into western Asia from Africa less than 100,000 years ago. Modern humans, known as Cro-Magnons, moved into Europe approximately 50–40,000 years ago.
The most recent glacial period, the Wisconsin glaciation, reached its maximum extent approximately 21,000 years ago, and ended approximately 12,000 years ago. A warm period, known as the Holocene climatic optimum, followed the ice age.
Food crops, including wheat, chickpeas, and olives, along with sheep and goats, were domesticated in the eastern Mediterranean in the 9th millennium BCE, which allowed for the establishment of agricultural settlements. Near Eastern crops spread to southeastern Europe in the 7th millennium BCE. Poppy and oats were domesticated in Europe from the 6th to the 3rd millennium BCE. Agricultural settlements spread around the Mediterranean Basin. Megaliths were constructed in Europe from 4500 – 1500 BCE.
A strengthening of the summer monsoon 9000–7000 years ago increased rainfall across the Sahara, which became a grassland, with lakes, rivers, and wetlands. After a period of climatic instability, the Sahara settled into a desert state by the 4th millennium BCE.
Agriculture[edit]
Further information: Mediterranean cuisine
Wheat is the dominant grain grown around the Mediterranean Basin. Pulses and vegetables are also grown. The characteristic tree crop is the olive. Figs are another important fruit tree, and citrus, especially lemons, are grown where irrigation is present. Grapes are an important vine crop, grown for fruit and to make wine. Rice and summer vegetables are grown in irrigated areas.
See also[edit]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Mediterranean.
Lonely @CanadianFlyer88 ! Vulgar CF88! Brave CF88!
- Ancient Egypt
- Ancient Greece
- Life zones of the Mediterranean region
- Mediterranean wine climate
- MISTRALS
- Ottoman Empire
- Phoenicia
- Roman Empire
- Zanclean flood
I propose the following as an Official Flyers Board acronym: tl;bi
DancingPanther
Foundational Titan
- Jun 19, 2018
- 33,798
- 72,055
For our body of water we pick the biggest, most incredible body of water in the universe
A mass of water 140 trillion times the amount of all Earth's water surrounds a quasar 12 billion light years away. The 100s of light-years large water vapor cloud is heated by the energy emitted from the quasar to a chilly but surprisingly earthly -64°F, making it 100s of times warmer than most space gas. Behold, an artist's representation:
@JojoTheWhale you're up my good friend
NASA - Astronomers Find Largest, Most Distant Reservoir of Water
Astronomers, including a team led by Matt Bradford of JPL, found a feeding black hole soaking in water vapor.
www.nasa.gov
A mass of water 140 trillion times the amount of all Earth's water surrounds a quasar 12 billion light years away. The 100s of light-years large water vapor cloud is heated by the energy emitted from the quasar to a chilly but surprisingly earthly -64°F, making it 100s of times warmer than most space gas. Behold, an artist's representation:
@JojoTheWhale you're up my good friend
Asnito
Blood Rival to a Briere Simp
- Mar 2, 2017
- 6,965
- 15,604
I'm with you, I looked up the top 100 movies of the 80's and I saw like a dozen of them.
JojoTheWhale
"You should keep it." -- Striiker
- May 22, 2008
- 35,596
- 110,293
I'm on a 28 hour trek across the continent, so @GKJ can go and I will get to it very late tomorrow night or Sunday morning.
