3,546 articles
Polar ice cap
Polar ice cap: high-latitude ice-covered region on Earth (Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, Arctic and Antarctic sea ice) and on Mars; not a true ice cap per NSIDC; IMBIE records 12.5 trillion tons lost since the 1970s.
Polje
Polje (Slavic for "field"): a large flat-floored closed depression in karst, drained underground via ponors, prone to months-long intermittent lakes; term from the Dinaric karst.
Pollepel Island
Pollepel Island (Bannerman Island) is a 6.5-acre Hudson River island in Fishkill, NY, holding the ruins of Bannerman Castle, an arsenal warehouse built 1901–1918 by Francis Bannerman VI, damaged by a 1920 explosion and 1969 fire, now toured via the Bannerman Castle Trust.
Pomerania
Pomerania (Polish: Pomorze, German: Pommern) is a historical region on the southern Baltic coast, from Stralsund to the Vistula River, today mostly in northwest Poland.
Ponor
Ponor (swallow hole, swallet, stream sink): a karst opening in the bottom or side of a closed depression where a surface stream sinks underground; Slavic-origin term central to karst hydrogeology and polje flooding.
Pontic Mountains
The Pontic Mountains, known in Turkish as the Karadeniz Dağları, form a broken east–west chain along Türkiye's Black Sea coast, dividing the humid coast from Central Anatolia and culminating in Kaçkar Dağı at 3,932 m.
Pontic–Caspian steppe
Pontic–Caspian steppe (Western Steppe): grassland belt from the northern Black Sea shores to the Caspian Sea, spanning Ukraine, southern Russia, and Kazakhstan; chernozem soils, Yamnaya pastoralist homeland, Pontocaspian endemic biota.
Popocatépetl
Popocatépetl, also known as El Popo or Don Goyo, is an active stratovolcano southeast of Mexico City, the second highest in North America and in eruption since 1994.
Porak
Porak (Bamni; Azeri Akharbakhar) is a 3,029 m volcanic field on the Vardenis highland straddling the Armenia-Azerbaijan border, with Holocene eruptions dated about 4510 BCE and 778 BCE.
Porcher Island
Porcher Island, a 531 sq km island in Hecate Strait off the Skeena River mouth southwest of Prince Rupert, British Columbia; Gitxaala (Kitkatla) territory with communities Oona River, Hunts Inlet, and Humpback Bay, historic gold mines, and the Gitxaala Nii Luutiksm/Kitkatla Conservancy.
Porto Santo Island
Porto Santo Island (Ilha do Porto Santo), Portuguese Atlantic island of the Madeira archipelago, 42.48 km², 9 km golden beach, Pico do Facho 517 m, discovered 1418, linked to Columbus.
Postojna Cave
Located in southwestern Slovenia, Postojna Cave (Postojnska jama) is a 24-kilometer karst cave system formed by the sinking Pivka River and recognized as a hotspot of subterranean biodiversity.
Pottsville Formation
Pottsville Formation: Early Pennsylvanian coal-bearing sandstone, conglomerate, shale, and coal unit named from Pottsville, Pennsylvania; extends from the Appalachian basin to the Black Warrior basin of Alabama, hosting coal and coalbed methane.
Pourquoi Pas Island
Pourquoi Pas Island, an uninhabited mountainous Antarctic island in Marguerite Bay, Graham Land, between Bigourdan and Bourgeois Fjords; discovered by Charcot 1908-10, named by Rymill's BGLE for Charcot's ship Pourquoi-Pas?; highest peak Mount Verne 1,633 m.
Poveglia
Poveglia is a small fan-shaped island in the Venetian Lagoon off Malamocco, the Lazzaretto Nuovissimo of Venice's plague-quarantine system, used unofficially for ship quarantine until 1814, later abandoned and famed as a haunted island.
Prairie Chapel Ranch
Prairie Chapel Ranch, also called the Bush Ranch, is George W. Bush's roughly 1,600-acre Crawford, Texas property bought in 1999 for $1.3 million; it served as the 'Western White House' hosting 17 foreign leaders.
Preikestolen
Preikestolen (Pulpit Rock) is a 604-meter flat granite plateau over Lysefjorden in Strand, Rogaland, Norway. Known locally as Hyvlatonnå, it draws about 350,000 hikers yearly and became a national tourist trail in 2020.
Prescott Island
Prescott Island: name of two official Canadian islands, one between Porcher and Stephens Islands, British Columbia, and one uninhabited Arctic island in Peel Sound, Nunavut; also a Minnesota river islet.
Prime Head
Prime Head is the snow-covered northernmost headland of Trinity Peninsula and the Antarctic Peninsula at 63°13'S 57°17'W, named by the UK-APC in 1963; Argentina and Chile call it Cabo Siffrey.
Prince Albert Mountains
Prince Albert Mountains, a major mountain group over 200 mi long in Victoria Land, Antarctica, part of the Transantarctic Mountains between the Priestley and Ferrar glaciers; discovered by James Clark Ross in 1841 and named for Prince Albert, Queen Victoria's consort.
Prince Charles Island
Prince Charles Island is a large semicircular island in Foxe Basin, Nunavut, Canada (122 x 95 km, up to 76 m elevation), officially named in 1949, with major shorebird breeding grounds and polar bears.
Prince Charles Mountains
Prince Charles Mountains: major mountain group in Mac.Robertson Land, East Antarctica, extending about 380 km south of Mawson, flanking the Lambert Glacier, exposing Precambrian rocks over 3.4 billion years old and the only identified Archaean cratonic block in Antarctica.
Prince Creek Formation
Prince Creek Formation: Late Cretaceous to Paleocene nonmarine sandstone, conglomerate, and coal-bearing unit on Alaska's North Slope, named in 1951, famed for the world's densest high-latitude dinosaur bonebeds.
Prince Edward Islands
The Prince Edward Islands (Marion and Prince Edward islands) are South Africa's subantarctic volcanic territory, annexed 1947–48, about 1,920 km from Cape Town, with a Marion Island research station, Special Nature Reserve status, and a mouse eradication plan.
Prince Harald Coast
Prince Harald Coast (Prins Harald Kyst), part of Queen Maud Land, Antarctica, along Lützow-Holm Bay between 34°E and 40°E; discovered by air in 1937 by the Lars Christensen Expedition and named for the infant Norwegian prince.
Prince of Wales Icefield
Prince of Wales Icefield, a 19,325 km² ice field on central Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Canada; second largest ice mass in the Canadian High Arctic, with negative mass balance driven by calving from Trinity and Wykeham glaciers.
Prince of Wales Island (Alaska)
Prince of Wales Island is the largest island of Alaska's Alexander Archipelago and third largest in the U.S., 2,577 sq mi with about 6,000 residents, Tongass forest roads, and Hollis-Ketchikan ferry access.
Prince of Wales Island (island, Canada)
Prince of Wales Island: uninhabited 33,339 km2 Arctic island in Nunavut, Canada, in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago between Victoria and Somerset islands, south of Viscount Melville Sound, at 72.67N 99W.
Prince Olav Coast
Prince Olav Coast (Kronprins Olav Kyst), coast of Queen Maud Land, East Antarctica, between Lützow-Holm Bay (40°E) and Shinnan Glacier (44°38'E); discovered by Riiser-Larsen in 1930 and named for the later King Olav V of Norway.
Prince Patrick Island
Prince Patrick Island is an uninhabited island in the Northwest Territories, Canada, at the western edge of the Queen Elizabeth Islands in the Arctic Archipelago.