3,546 articles
Blue Mountains (New South Wales)
Blue Mountains (New South Wales): sandstone tableland west of Sydney, home of Blue Mountains National Park (est. 1959) and the 1.03-million-hectare Greater Blue Mountains Area, World Heritage listed in 2000 for its eucalypt diversity, 91 eucalypt taxa and the Wollemi pine.
Blue Mountains (Pacific Northwest)
Blue Mountains (Pacific Northwest): range and ecoregion in northeastern Oregon, southeastern Washington, and western Idaho, spanning the Ochoco to Wallowa ranges, built on accreted terranes and Columbia River basalt, with dry-summer continental climate and active fire management.
Blue Ridge Mountains
The Blue Ridge Mountains are a physiographic province of the Appalachian Highlands in the eastern United States, stretching from southeastern New York to Alabama and rising higher than any terrain east of the Mississippi River.
Bob Island
Bob Island is a small rocky Antarctic island, 2 km long and 145 m high, in the Palmer Archipelago near Wiencke Island; surveyed by Gerlache's 1898 Belgian expedition and originally named Ile Famine.
Bob Leakey
Bob Leakey (Robert Dove Leakey, 1914–2013), British caver who discovered and mapped Mossdale Caverns solo in 1941, founded the Northern Speleological Group and Cave Preservation Society, climbed in the wartime Himalaya, and later patented fishing gear and ran for Parliament.
Bobcaygeon-Verulam Formation
Bobcaygeon Formation (with overlying Verulam Formation), Ordovician limestone unit of the Simcoe Group in southern Ontario; defined by Liberty 1969, 9–91 m thick, fossiliferous, spans Sandbian–Katian boundary.
Boca Grande
Boca Grande (Spanish, "big mouth") names several features: a tarpon-fishing village on Gasparilla Island, Florida; the Orinoco Delta's main distributary and its Venezuelan iron-ore port; a Gulf of Paria channel; and a Bay of La Paz inlet.
Bocage
Bocage (French, hedge network landscape) is a rural landscape of small fields enclosed by interconnected living hedgerows, typical of western France and the Atlantic fringe, peaking 1850-1930 and now declining, with high biodiversity and ecosystem-service value.
Bodélé Depression
Bodélé Depression: dry palaeolake basin in northern Chad, floor of Lake Megachad, Earth's largest dust source via the Bodélé low-level jet and diatomite; supplies Saharan dust, iron, and phosphorus toward the Atlantic and Amazon.
Bogda Shan
Bogda Shan is a range at the eastern end of the Tianshan in Xinjiang, China, with Bogda Peak (5,445 m) as the eastern anchor of the 2013 Xinjiang Tianshan World Heritage site, known for glacier retreat and its 1981 first ascent.
Boggy Formation
Boggy Formation: Middle Pennsylvanian (Desmoinesian) shale and sandstone unit, uppermost formation of the Krebs Group in eastern Oklahoma and Arkansas, named by Taff in 1899 from North Boggy Creek.
Bohemian Forest
Bohemian Forest (Šumava, Böhmerwald): a 120 km Hercynian mid-mountain range on the Czech-German-Austrian border, with glacial lakes, peat bogs, the 1970 Bavarian Forest and 1991 Šumava national parks, and a Cold War border-zone history.
Bohol
Bohol: island province in Central Visayas, Philippines, capital Tagbilaran City; tenth largest island, home of the Chocolate Hills and the Philippines' first UNESCO Global Geopark; tourism-driven economy.
Bolshevik Island
Bolshevik Island (остров Большевик), southernmost and second largest island of Severnaya Zemlya, Russia, between the Kara and Laptev seas; 11,296.45 km², about 30% glaciated, discovered 1913, mapped 1930–1932.
Bolshezemelskaya Tundra
Bolshezemelskaya Tundra (Большеземельская тундра), northern Pechora Lowland tundra plain in Russia's Nenets Okrug and Komi Republic; hilly moraine relief to 253 m, continuous permafrost, moss-dwarf shrub tundra, reindeer herding, and Pechora coal basin oil and gas fields.
Bolshoy Begichev Island
Ostrov Bol'shoy Begichev (Большой Бегичев), a 1,764 km² uninhabited island in the Khatanga Gulf, Laptev Sea, Sakha Republic, Russia; proved an island by Nikifor Begichev in 1908, formerly mapped as a peninsula named Sizoy.
Bolshoy Lyakhovsky Island
Bolshoy Lyakhovsky Island (Большой Ляховский остров), southernmost and largest of the Lyakhovsky Islands, New Siberian Archipelago, in the Dmitry Laptev Strait; famed for 200,000-year Yedoma Ice Complex permafrost exposures and an ophiolite-blueschist geology.
Bon Irau
Bon Irau (Gunung Irau, Mount Irau), 2,501 m, is the highest peak of the Tamrau Mountains in Tambrauw Regency, Southwest Papua, Indonesia, an ultra-prominent summit with 1,900 m prominence, distinct from Malaysia's Mount Irau.
Bonaire
Bonaire (Boneiru), a Caribbean special municipality of the Netherlands since 2010 in the Caribbean Netherlands, capital Kralendijk; Dutch- and Papiamentu-speaking, US-dollar island famed for its 1979 marine park, shore diving, and tourism-based economy.
Bonaparte Archipelago
Bonaparte Archipelago: island group on the northwest Kimberley coast of Western Australia, named by Baudin's 1801 French expedition after Napoleon Bonaparte; known for 225 intertidal coral species, 8 m tides, and reefs that survived the 2016 bleaching event.
Bonin Islands
Bonin Islands (Ogasawara Islands, 小笠原諸島): chain of over 30 subtropical volcanic islands about 1,000 km south of Tokyo, uninhabited until 1830, with extreme endemism and UNESCO World Heritage status since 2011.
Bonneville
Bonneville names the largest closed basin of the Great Basin, Pleistocene Lake Bonneville (20,000 sq mi, over 1,000 ft deep), its catastrophic flood, and namesakes including Bonneville cutthroat trout and the Bonneville Power Administration.
Booth Island
Booth Island (Booth-Insel, Île Wandel) is a Y-shaped Antarctic island, 5 nmi long and 980 m high, in the Wilhelm Archipelago, separated from Graham Coast by Lemaire Channel; discovered by Dallmann 1874, wintered by Charcot in 1904.
Bora Bora
Bora Bora, an almost-atoll in the Leeward Islands of French Polynesia's Society archipelago about 250 km from Tahiti, features a 727 m volcanic peak, a 78 km² lagoon, motu ring, WWII-era airport, and a luxury tourism economy.
Boracay
Boracay is a 10.32 sq km resort island in Malay, Aklan, Philippines, off Panay, famed for White Beach. Over 2 million tourists in 2017; closed six months in 2018 by Duterte as a 'cesspool' for sewage rehabilitation; reopened with carrying-capacity limits.
Borah Peak (mountain, United States)
Borah Peak (Mount Borah), Idaho's highest mountain at 12,662 ft in the Lost River Range, an ultra-prominent Class 3 scramble via Chicken Out Ridge and site of Idaho's largest recorded earthquake, the 1983 magnitude 6.9 event.
Borborema Plateau
Borborema Plateau (Planalto da Borborema, Serra da Borborema), a plateau in northeastern Brazil across Pernambuco, Paraíba, and Rio Grande do Norte, part of the Borborema Province shield, averaging ~1,000 m elevation with peaks near 1,200 m and debated Cenozoic uplift mechanisms.
Borden Island
Borden Island, an uninhabited 2,794 km2 island of the Queen Elizabeth Islands in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago; discovered by Vilhjalmur Stefansson in 1915 as First Land, named for Prime Minister Robert Borden, split between Northwest Territories and Nunavut.
Borgora
Borgora, alternate name of Borohoro Shan (博罗科努山), a 5,248 m ultra-prominent peak (2,576 m prominence) in the Borohoro Mountains of the Tian Shan, Xinjiang, China; elevation from Soviet military maps.
Borgu
Borgu is a historical region of West Africa west of the Niger River, divided between Nigeria and Benin and known for kingdoms that resisted the Sokoto Caliphate.