3,546 articles
Southern Highlands (New South Wales)
Southern Highlands, New South Wales: highlands region south-west of Sydney, mainly in Wingecarribee Shire; Southern Highlands and Shoalhaven SA4 had 161,006 people (2021), median age 48, 88.3% separate houses.
Southern Kalahari
Southern Kalahari: arid southern Kalahari Desert across Northern Cape (South Africa), southern Botswana, and Namibia; freshwater ecoregion 571 with fossil Nossob, Auob, and Molopo rivers, endorheic pans, and Endangered conservation status.
Southern Madagascar
Southern Madagascar is the arid extreme south of Madagascar, defined as the Southern Basins freshwater ecoregion and known for its spiny desert, seasonal rivers, and drought since 2017.
Southern Patagonian Ice Field
The Southern Patagonian Ice Field (Spanish: Hielo Patagónico Sur) is a continental ice mass straddling the Andes on the Chile–Argentina border, the largest temperate ice mass outside Antarctica.
Southern Temperate Highveld
Southern Temperate Highveld: FEOW freshwater ecoregion 575 on the South African highveld plateau (900–1,900 m), Temperate upland rivers type, covering Vaal and Orange headwaters, with mixed tropical-temperate fish fauna and endangered conservation status.
Southwestern Australia
Southwestern Australia, the Southwest Australia Ecoregion or Floristic Region, is a Mediterranean-climate biodiversity hotspot in Western Australia with over 8,000 plant species, over 4,000 endemic, and highly endemic freshwater fish threatened by salinisation and declining rainfall.
Sovereign Mtn.
Sovereign Mountain (K'dalkitnu Dghelaya, Mount Sentry) is the 8,849-foot high point of the Talkeetna Mountains in Matanuska-Susitna Borough, South-Central Alaska, with 5,849 feet of prominence and 43.9 miles of isolation.
Spaatz Island
Spaatz Island, also rendered Спаатс (Russian) and Spaatzøya (Norwegian), is an ice-covered Antarctic island at 73°12'S 75°00'W on the English Coast, named for General Carl Spaatz and forming the eastern boundary of Stange Ice Shelf.
Spadina Avenue
Spadina Avenue, a major downtown Toronto north-south avenue laid out by William Warren Baldwin in 1820 as a boulevard to his Spadina estate; later the Garment District, now Chinatown's spine with the 510 streetcar right-of-way.
Spathi / Lasithiotika
Spathi (Σπαθί), also recorded as Lasithiotika, is a 2,148-meter peak in the Dikti range of eastern Crete, Greece, generally regarded as the range's highest summit.
Speleogenesis
Speleogenesis is the origin and development of caves by dissolution of soluble rock. Two modes: epigenic (surface carbonic acid, e.g., Mammoth Cave) and hypogenic (deep fluids, e.g., sulfuric acid caves like Carlsbad Cavern and Lechuguilla).
Speleology
Speleology is the scientific study of caves, covering their formation, geology, hydrology, biology, and the exploration techniques, with roots dating to late 19th-century cave surveying.
Speleothem
Speleothem: secondary mineral deposits formed in caves, chiefly calcite stalactites, stalagmites, flowstone, and columns. Distinguished by morphology rather than composition; key climate archives dated by U-Th and U-Pb methods.
Speleothems as paleoclimate archives
Speleothems, cave formations such as stalagmites, preserve dated records of past rainfall, temperature, and vegetation, and are among the most precisely dated terrestrial climate archives available.
Spinalonga (Σπιναλόγκα)
Spinalonga (Σπιναλόγκα), also Kalydon or "spina lunga", is a fortified islet in Elounda harbour, Crete: Venetian bastion fortress 1579-1715, Ottoman town to 1897, Greek leper colony 1903-1957, now an archaeological site.
Spit (landform)
Spit (landform): a sand or gravel ridge attached to the mainland at one end, built by longshore drift; also called barrier spit. Distinguished from tombolos and barrier islands by its free distal end, recurved hooks, and river-mouth breaching cycles.
Spitsbergen
Spitsbergen, also called West Spitsbergen before 1969, is the largest island of Norway's Svalbard archipelago at 37,673 km², named by Willem Barentsz in 1596, home to Longyearbyen, and governed under the 1920 Svalbard Treaty.
Spokoiny
Spokoiny, also known as Kutina, is a dacitic stratovolcano in the northern Sredinny Range of central Kamchatka, Russia, rising 2,171 m and dormant since 3450 BCE.
Spratly Islands (南沙群岛)
Spratly Islands (南沙群岛, Nansha Qundao; Truong Sa): coral reef archipelago in the southern South China Sea claimed by China, Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Brunei; a 2016 UNCLOS tribunal ruled no feature generates an EEZ.
Spurr
Mount Spurr is a 3,374 m glaciated stratovolcano 126 km northwest of Anchorage, Alaska, whose Crater Peak vent erupted explosively in 1953 and three times in 1992; unrest in 2024-2025 ended without eruption.
Sredinny Range
Sredinny Range (Sredinnyi, Middle Range), the metamorphic backbone of Kamchatka, Russia: high-grade gneiss and migmatite, Eocene (52 Ma) arc-continent collision granites, and a nearly extinct, back-arc Holocene volcanic belt.
Sri Lanka Dry Zone
Sri Lanka Dry Zone: the lowland climatic region covering about 65% of the island, home to the ancient tank (wewa) cascade irrigation civilization, over 10,000 reservoirs, dry evergreen forests, and over 70% of national paddy production.
St Michael's Mount
St Michael's Mount (Karrek Loos yn Koos) is a Cornish tidal island off Marazion with a medieval castle and former Benedictine priory of Mont-Saint-Michel, now a National Trust site and St Aubyn family home reached by causeway or boat.
St. George Island (Florida)
St. George Island is a roughly 20-mile barrier island in Franklin County on Florida's Panhandle, fronting Apalachicola Bay, reached by the 1965 Bryant G. Patton Bridge, with Dr. Julian G. Bruce St. George Island State Park on its eastern nine miles.
St. Lawrence Island
St. Lawrence Island is an island in the northern Bering Sea, closer to Russia than mainland Alaska, home to about 1,700 Yupik people in Gambell and Savoonga.
St. Matthew Island
Saint Matthew Island is an uninhabited volcanic island in the north-central Bering Sea, part of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge with Hall and Pinnacle islands. Known for McKay's bunting, million-plus seabirds, the 1944 reindeer introduction that peaked near 6,000 before collapsing, and a peat-core record of Bering Sea sea ice.
St. Simons, Georgia
St. Simons Island, Georgia: the largest and most populated of the Golden Isles barrier islands in Glynn County, never privately owned, with about 16,800 residents, a historic 1810 lighthouse, and an armored, eroding oceanfront.
Stalagmite
Stalagmite: upward-growing cave floor deposit, usually calcite, built by mineral-rich drip water that degasses CO2 on impact; counterpart of the stalactite, joinable into columns, datable by uranium-thorium methods and used as a paleoclimate archive.
Staniel Cay
Staniel Cay is a small Exuma Cays island in the Bahamas, about 75 miles south of Nassau, home to Staniel Cay Yacht Club (founded 1956), Thunderball Grotto, and the nearby Big Major Cay swimming pigs.
Stanley Island
Stanley Island (Antarctica): an island off Heros Peninsula on the Foyn Coast, western Cabinet Inlet, Antarctic Peninsula; 3.2 km long, 520 m high, at 66°31′54″S 63°40′24″W, distinct from Stanley Islands in Australia, Canada, and Chile.