About 200 million years from now, Asia and North America may collide and form a supercontinent centered around the north pole. In fact, the Pacific Plate is already subducting under Eurasia and North America, a process which if continued will eventually cause the Pacific Ocean to close.

Scientists know from the fossil record that there have been five major mass extinctions, as well as numerous smaller ones. Today, many scientists believe we are on track for a sixth mass extinction caused by human activity.

The Earth is an oblate spheroid or squashed sphere--slightly flatter at the poles and bulging at the Equator.

Impactites are considered metamorphic rock even though they don't form over the millions of years usually required for metamorphic rocks, because their source materials were modified by the heat and pressure of the impact.

At 8,850 meters (29,035 feet) above sea level, Mt. Everest undeniably claims the point of highest altitude in the world, but the title of "tallest mountain" as measured from base to peak belongs to Mauna Kea, a dormant volcano on the island of Hawaii which has an altitude of only 4,205 meters (13,796 feet) above sea level, but a base about 19,700 feet below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, making Mauna Kea over 10,000 meters tall.

Australia is one of the oldest continents, and because of the effects of 250 million years of erosion it has become the flattest land mass on earth.

In 2017, researchers at UCLA and the University of Wisconsin-Madison confirmed that microscopic fossils discovered in a nearly 3.5 billion-year-old piece of rock in Western Australia are the oldest fossils ever found and the earliest direct evidence of life on Earth.

The Mercalli scale is the lesser known of the two scales to measure earthquakes -- it measures the effects of an earthquake and is distinct from the Richter scale which measures the energy released.

Blue diamonds are caused by Boron, a rare element in the Earth's crust. Many are modified with a grey secondary tone, or an uneven saturation with areas of colourless windowing, making natural blue diamonds with exceptional saturation and brilliance extremely rare.

Mount Tambora's 1815 eruption was the largest in recorded human history. The explosion was heard on Sumatra island, more than 2,000 kilometres (1,200 miles) away, and the maximum elevation of Tambora was reduced from about 4,300 metres (14,100 ft) to 2,850 metres (9,350 feet). Heavy volcanic ash rains were observed as far away as Borneo, Sulawesi, Java and Maluku islands, and the eruption contributed to global climate anomalies in the following years, with 1816 becoming known as the "year without a summer" due to the impact on North American and European weather.