20130102

The Biggest Bridges in the World !


(Depressions Of The Earth)

1. Dead Sea - Jordan-Israel


The Dead Sea also called the Salt Sea, is a salt lake bordering Israel to the west, and Jordan to the east. Its surface and shores are 422 metres (1,385 ft) below sea level, the lowest elevation on the Earth's surface on dry land. The Dead Sea is 378 m (1,240 ft) deep, the deepest hypersaline lake in the world. It is also one of the world's saltiest bodies of water, with 33.7% salinity, though Lake Assal (Djibouti), Garabogazköl and some hypersaline lakes of the McMurdo Dry Valleys in Antarctica (such as Don Juan Pond) have reported higher salinities. It is 8.6 times more salty than the ocean. This salinity makes for a harsh environment where animals cannot flourish, hence its name. The Dead Sea is 67 kilometres (42 mi) long and 18 kilometres (11 mi) wide at its widest point. It lies in the Jordan Rift Valley, and its main tributary is the Jordan River.


2. Lake Assal - Djibouti


Lake Assal is a crater lake in central Djibouti, located at the southern border of Tadjoura Region, touching Dikhil Region, some 120 km (75 mi) west of Djibouti city. It lies 155 m (509 ft) below sea level in the Afar Depression and its shores comprise the lowest point on land in Africa and the second lowest land depression on Earth after the Dead Sea. It measures 19 by 7 km (4.3 mi) and has an area of 54 km2 (21 sq mi). The maximum depth is 40 m (130 ft), whereas the mean depth is 7.4 m (24 ft), which makes for a water volume of 400 million cubic metres (320,000 acre·ft). The catchment area measures 900 km2 (350 sq mi), and there is just a residual runoff of fresh water into the lake.


The Turpan Depression or Turfan Depression is a fault-bounded trough located around and south of the city-oasis of Turpan, in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region in far western China, about 150 km southeast of the provincial capital Ürümqi. It includes the third lowest exposed point on the Earth's surface (dry Lake Ayding, -154m), after the Dead Sea and Lake Assal (Djibouti). It is entirely below sea level. By some measures, it is also the hottest and driest area in China.

4. Qattara Depression - Egypt


The Qattara Depression is a desert basin within the Libyan Desert of northwestern Egypt in the Matruh Governorate. The Depression, at 133 m below sea level, contains the second lowest point in Africa (The lowest being Lake Assal in Djibouti). The Depression covers about 19,500 km² (7,000 square miles), a size comparable to Lake Erie, and at its maximum is 220 km in length and 120 km in width. The bottom of the depression consists of a salt pan.

5. Karagiye - Kazahstan


Karagiye is the lowest point in Kazakhstan. Also called the "Karagiye Depression", it lies at approximately 132 meters (about 433 feet) below sea level, and is the lowest point in the former USSR.



1-   What driver doesn't have a license?
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2-   Why do statues and paintings of George Washington always show him standing?
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3-   What has a neck, but no head?
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4-   What has one foot on each side and one in the middle?
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5-   What did the guitar say to the rock star?
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6-   What do you call a cat that likes to dig in the beach?
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7-   What kind of can never need a can opener?
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8-   Here on earth it is true, yesterday is always before today; but there is a place where yesterday always follows today. Where?
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9-   How do you avoid falling hair?
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10-   Why did the doctor switch jobs?
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11-   What has 10 legs and drools?
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12-   Where do old bowling balls end up?
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13-   What did one scale say to the other scale?
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14-   Did you ever see the salad dressing?
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15-   What did the mayonnaise say to the mustard?
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16-   Why did the clock get sick?
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17-   Why did the tree see the dentist?
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18-   How do prevent a summer cold?
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19-   What do mechanics charge to fix tires?
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20-   Why did you get rid of your watchdog?
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21-   Why did Johnny toss a glass of water out the window?
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22-   What paper makes you itch?
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23-   What never gets any wetter no matter how hard it rains?
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24-   What person is always in a hurry?
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25-   What did one wall say to the other?
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26-   Who always goes to bed with shoes on?
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27-   What is the first thing you do every morning?
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28-   If a child is spanked by his mother and by his father, who hurts the most?
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29-   What do people make that nobody can ever see?
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30-   What kind of table has no legs?
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The Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate, the opening of the San Francisco Bay onto the Pacific Ocean. As part of both U.S. Route 101 and State Route 1, it connects the city of San Francisco on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula to Marin County. The Golden Gate Bridge had the longest suspension bridge span in the world when it was completed in 1937, and has become an internationally recognized symbol of San Francisco and California. Since its completion, the span length has been surpassed by eight other bridges. It still has the second longest suspension bridge main span in the United States, after the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge in New York City. In 2007, it was ranked fifth on the List of America’s Favorite Architecture by the American Institute of Architects. A bridge is a structure built to span agorge, valley, road, railroad track, river, body of water, or any other physical obstacle, for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle. Designs of bridges will vary depending on the function of the bridge and the nature of the terrain where the bridge is to be constructed.
golden gate bridge at night The biggest bridges

History

Before the bridge was built, the only practical short route between San Francisco and what is now Marin Countywas by boat across a section of San Francisco Bay. Ferry service began as early as 1820, with regularly scheduled service beginning in the 1840s for purposes of transporting water to San Francisco. The Sausalito Land and Ferry Company service launched in 1868, which eventually became the Golden Gate Ferry Company, a Southern Pacific Railroad subsidiary, the largest ferry operation in the world by the late 1920s. Once for railroad passengers and customers only, Southern Pacific’s automobile ferries became very profitable and important to the regional economy. The ferry crossing between the Hyde Street Pier in San Francisco andSausalito in Marin County took approximately 20 minutes and cost US$1.00 per vehicle, a price later reduced to compete with the new bridge. The trip from the Ferry Building took 27 minutes.
Bay Bridge San Francisco California The biggest bridges
Many wanted to build a bridge to connect San Francisco to Marin County. San Francisco was the largest American city still served primarily by ferry boats. Because it did not have a permanent link with communities around the bay, the city’s growth rate was below the national average. Many experts said that a bridge couldn’t be built across the 6,700 ft (2,042 m) strait. It had strong, swirling tides and currents, with water 335 ft (102 m) in depth at the center of the channel, and almost constant winds of 60 mph (97 km/h). Experts said that ferocious winds and blinding fogs would prevent construction and operation.
san francisco golden gate bridge 2 The biggest bridges

Construction

Construction began on 5 January 1933. The project cost more than $35 million. Strauss remained head of the project, overseeing day-to-day construction and making some groundbreaking contributions. A graduate of the University of Cincinnati, he had placed a brick from his alma mater’s demolished McMicken Hall in the south anchorage before the concrete was poured. He innovated the use of movable safety netting beneath the construction site, which saved the lives of many otherwise-unprotected steelworkers. Of eleven men killed from falls during construction, ten were killed (when the bridge was near completion) when the net failed under the stress of a scaffold that had fallen. Nineteen others who were saved by the net over the course of construction became proud members of the (informal) Halfway to Hell Club. The project was finished by April 1937.

Opening festivities

The bridge opening celebration began on 27 May 1937 and lasted for one week. The day before vehicle traffic was allowed, 200,000 people crossed by foot and roller skate. On opening day, Mayor Angelo Rossi and other officials rode the ferry to Marin, then crossed the bridge in a motorcade past three ceremonial “barriers”, the last a blockade of beauty queens who required Joseph Strauss to present the bridge to the Highway District before allowing him to pass. An official song, “There’s a Silver Moon on the Golden Gate”, was chosen to commemorate the event. Strauss wrote a poem that is now on the Golden Gate Bridge entitled “The Mighty Task is Done”. The next day, President Roosevelt pushed a button in Washington, DC signaling the official start of vehicle traffic over the Bridge at noon. When the celebration got out of hand, the SFPD had a small riot in the uptown Polk Gulch area. Weeks of civil and cultural activities called “the Fiesta” followed. A statue of Strauss was moved in 1955 to a site near the bridge.

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