Afar Triangle

Geologists have found a fault that can create world’s sixth ocean.

• East Africa is home to Africa’s longest geological feature, the Great Rift Valley.
• The northernmost part of the Great Rift Valley features a large geological depression known as the Afar Triangle, located in the Horn of Africa.
• Other names – Afar Triangle is also known as the Afar Depression, or the Danakil Depression, or the Denakil Plain.
• Danakil – The depression in northeastern Ethiopia is one of the world’s hottest places, as well as one of its lowest, at 100 metres below sea level.
• The Danakil plain was formed by the evaporation of an inland water body.
• All the water entering Danakil evaporates, and no streams flow out from its extreme environment.
• It is covered with more than 10 lakh tonnes of salt.
• Ethnic – It is named after the Afar Ethnic Group who inhabit the region, while the term triangle represents the triangular shape of the geological depression when viewed on a topographical map.
• Geologically Active – The Afar Triangle is East Africa’s most geologically active region and is made up of active volcanoes, salt lakes, and lava lakes.
• Converging Plates – The Afar Triangle is a geological depression where three tectonic plates, the Nubian, Somali, and Arabian plates, converge.
• The rifting process occurring here is a result of the tectonic plates slowly moving apart, a phenomenon that has been taking place for millions of years.
• Afar formation – In 2005, a 35-mile-long rift opened up in the Ethiopian desert, signaling the ongoing separation of the African continent.
• This rift is the surface expression of deep-seated tectonic forces at work, as the Somali plate moves away from the Nubian plate, stretching and thinning the Earth’s crust.
• Geologists predict that in 5 to 10 million years, the tectonic movement will eventually split the African continent into two, creating a new ocean basin.

• New Ocean – This new body of water would be the result of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden flooding over the Afar region and into the East African Rift Valley.
• Consequently, this part of East Africa would evolve into its own distinct continent.
• The formation of a new ocean is a complex and lengthy process that involves various stages of rifting, from continental breakup to the development of a mid-ocean ridge.
• Mantle – One of the key factors driving the rifting process is believed to be a massive plume of superheated rocks rising from the mantle beneath East Africa.
• This plume could be exerting pressure on the overlying crust, causing it to stretch and fracture.
• Magmatism – The magmatism in the region, particularly at the Erta Ale volcano, offers clues to the tectonic transition, with characteristics that mimic those of a mid-ocean ridge.
  • Magmatism is the formation and motion of magma under Earth's surface.

Vechur Cow

Dr. Sosamma Iype won the Padma Shri in 2022 for saving and resurrecting a breed of indigenous cattle, the Vechur Cow.

• The Vechur Cow is acknowledged as one of the world’s smallest cattle breeds, is indigenous to the Vechur village in Kerala.

• Characteristics – Typically, 90 cm tall and one-metre-long, Vechur cows demand very little food and no special care.
• The milk was rich in fat, and the variety was tolerant to heat and resistant to most diseases, including the foot-and-mouth disease.
• Vechur Cow can easily survive in adverse climates.

• Extinct – The milk revolution of the 1950s accompanied by a crossbreeding whip from the government, had started wiping out native cow breeds.
• In Kerala, a livestock improvement act was passed in 1961, and it declared possession of native breeds of cows as illegal.
• Across the state, Vechur cows were extensively inseminated with exotic bulls.
• The Vechur experiment prompted the conservation of 28 native breeds which were on the verge of extinction, and they include Sikkim’s small and short-legged Siri cow and the Tharparkar of Rajasthan’s Thar Desert.
• Indigenous cow breeds include Gir, Sahiwal, Rathi, Deoni, Kankrej, Tharparkar, Red Sindhi, Kangeyam, Ongole, etc and Indigenous buffalo breeds include Murrah, Jaffrabadi, Pandharpuri, Mehsana, etc.

Star Tortoise

A new study shows that wild populations of Indian star tortoises, exist as two genetically distinct populations, one in northwestern India and the other in southern India.

• Scientific name – Geochelone elegans
• Star Tortoises have a distinct star-like markings on the shell.

Star Tortoises are one of the most trafficked species in the world.

• Habitat – It is endemic to the Indian subcontinent and inhabits two disjoined arid regions, northwestern India (including parts of Pakistan) and southern India (including parts of Sri Lanka). 
• In India, they are found in six states Gujarat, Karnataka, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and parts of Odisha.
• IUCN Status – According to the IUCN Red List, the Indian Star Tortoise is a vulnerable species.
• CITES – CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) listed it under Appendix I, the list of most endangered species.

• Currently, seized star tortoises in India are released into wildlife sanctuaries such as the Chinnar wildlife sanctuary and Sathyamangalam wildlife sanctuary.

• Threats – The species is facing twin challenges of a threat to its habitat at one level and loss of its genetic diversity at the other. 
• Rampant illegal trade has caused major losses of the Indian Star Tortoises.
• Unscientific translocations that have resulted in genetic mixing between different populations.

Euclid Satellite

Scientists are trying to de-ice Euclid satellite millions of kilometres away from Earth.

• Mission by – The Euclid Telescope was launched by European Space Agency from Cape Canaveral in Florida.
• Objective – The Euclid mission hopes to understand the evolution of the Universe by looking at the light emitted from galaxies 10 billion years ago.
• Euclid is a cosmology survey mission, optimized to determine the properties of dark energy and dark matter on universal scales.
• The telescope will also focus on gleaning more information on dark energy and dark matter and will scan more than 1/3rd of the sky.

• Named After – It is named after the Greek mathematician Euclid of Alexandria, who lived around 300 BC and founded the subject of geometry.
• Features – The Euclid spacecraft is approximately 7 m tall and 3.7 m in diameter.
• Components – It consists of two major components: the service module and the payload module.
• Orbit – Its operational orbit will be a halo around a point known as the Sun-Earth Lagrange Point 2 (L2), at an average distance of 5 million km beyond Earth’s orbit.
• Lifetime – Nominal mission lifetime is six years, with the possibility of extension (limited by the amount of cold gas used for propulsion).
• Ice on the telescope – The layers of ice covering Euclid’s optics are the same width as a strand of DNA, but it is already impacting the spacecraft’s vision.
• For most spacecraft, it would be enough to use in-built heaters to slightly raise the temperature of the entire spacecraft, which could clean the optics.
• But materials expand with heat, and they don’t always return to the exact same state after cooling.
• To limit the possibility of such thermal changes affecting its sensitivity, the Euclid team will individually heating low-risk parts of the spacecraft gradually before they get the intended results.
• Dark energy – It is the undetectable form of energy that is causing the expansion of space, about 68% of the universe is made of dark energy while dark matter makes up 27% and only 5% of the Universe is made of normal matter.

Kshipra River

A performance audit conducted by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) on the degradation of the river, covering 2016-17 to 2020-21, threw up a host of significant findings.

• The Shipra, also known as the Kshipra, is a river in the State of Madhya Pradesh.
• The river rises in the kakri bardi hills Vindhya Range north of Dhar, and flows north across the Malwa Plateau to join the Chambal River.
• The word Shipra is used as a symbol of purity (of soul, emotions, body, etc.) or chastity or clarity.
• Shipra is a perennial river and is considered as sacred as the Ganga River by the Hindus.
• The Puranas or ancient Hindu texts also put forward that the Shipra originated from the heart of Varaha, Lord Vishnu’s incarnation as a boar.

• Ujjain – The holy city of Ujjain is located on the right bank of the Shipra River.
• Kumbha Mela – The famous Kumbha Mela takes place in the Ghats of this city, once every 12 years, a yearly celebration of the river goddess Kshipra. 
• Mentioned In – The Shipra River finds mention not only in ancient Hindu texts, but also in Buddhist and Jain scriptures.
• Lok Sarita – The pious river Kshipra is often referred to as “Lok Sarita” or the river of masses since, its origin is directly out of the womb of the earth.