Geography
The Dead Sea shore is the lowest land on Earth
At about 430 metres below sea level, its shoreline is the lowest exposed land anywhere — and it keeps dropping as the lake shrinks.
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Angel Falls is so tall the water never lands
Venezuela's Angel Falls drops 979 metres — so far that much of the water turns to mist before it reaches the bottom, especially in the dry season.
Mount Everest grows a few millimetres every year
The Indian plate keeps pushing into Asia, lifting the Himalayas roughly 4 mm a year — faster than erosion can wear them down.
One lake holds a fifth of Earth's fresh surface water
Siberia's Lake Baikal is over 1,600 m deep and contains about 20% of all unfrozen freshwater on the planet.
Everest would still be underwater in the Mariana Trench
The Challenger Deep reaches nearly 11 km down — over 2 km deeper than Everest is tall.
Iceland is being torn in two
The island straddles the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, so North America and Eurasia pull apart beneath it by about 2 cm every year.
Canada has more lakes than the rest of the world combined
With roughly 62% of the planet's lakes inside its borders, Canada holds more standing fresh water than any other country.