Daily Quiz: UPSC Prelims Marathon (Geography) | November 13,2020

Bangladesh shares border with West Bengal, Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram.
Source: NCERT

Radcliffe Line: Border line between India and Pakistan, and India and Bangladesh. The border between India and Pakistan was decided by Sir Cyril Radcliffe in 1947.
Mc Mohan Line: Border line between India and China. This line was decided by Sir Henry Mc Mohan in 1914.
Durand Line: Border line between India and Afghanistan. This line was decided by Sir Henry Mortimer Durand in 1896.
Source: Periyar Geography

The highest mountain peak of the Himalayas is Mount Everest. It is also the highest mountain peak of the world.
The highest mountain peak in India is Mount Godwin Austin is situated in Karakoram mountain range. At present it is a part of the POK.
Source: Periyar Geography

Source: Maps of India

Mana Pass and Niti Pass– It is in Uttarakhand. The road to the kailash and the Manasarovar passes through it.
Source: NCERT

A variety of evidence was offered in support of the continental drift. Some of these are given below.
The Matching of Continents (Jig-Saw-Fit): The shorelines of Africa and South America facing each other have a remarkable and unmistakable match.
It may be noted that a map produced using a computer programme to find the best fit of the Atlantic margin was presented by Bullard in 1964.
It proved to be quite perfect. The match was tried at 1,000- fathom line instead of the present shoreline.
Tillite: It is the sedimentary rock formed out of deposits of glaciers.
The Gondawana system of sediments from India is known to have its counterparts in six different landmasses of the Southern Hemisphere.
At the base, the system has thick tillite indicating extensive and prolonged glaciation.
The glacial tillite provides unambiguous evidence of palaeo-climates and also of drifting of continents.
Placer Deposits: The occurrence of rich placer deposits of gold in the Ghana coast and the absolute absence of source rock in the region is an amazing fact.
The gold bearing veins are in Brazil and it is obvious that the gold deposits of the Ghana are derived from the Brazil plateau when the two continents lay side by side.
Source: NCERT

Some important minor plates are listed below:
Cocos plate: Between Central America and Pacific plate
Nazca plate: Between South America and Pacific plate
Arabian plate: Mostly the Saudi Arabian landmass
Philippine plate: Between the Asiatic and Pacific plate
Caroline plate: Between the Philippine and Indian plate (North of New Guinea)
Fuji plate: North-east of Australia.
Source: National Geographic Channel

The Kuroshio, also known as the Black or Japan Current or the Black Stream, is a north-flowing, warm ocean current on the west side of the North Pacific Ocean.
Source: NCERT

In a lake in Brazil, researchers have discovered a virus that they find unusual and intriguing called Yaravirus, it has a “puzzling origin and phylogeny”, they report in a study on the pre-print server bioRxiv.
The Yaravirus infects amoeba and has genes that have not been described before, something that could challenge how DNA viruses are classified.
The researchers found the Yaravirus while looking in the lake for giant viruses that infect amoeba.
Because of the Yaravirus’s small size, it was unlike other viruses that infect amoeba and they named it as a tribute to Yara, the “mother of waters” in the mythological stories of the Tupi-Guarani indigenous tribes.
Source: Indian Express

The Union Territory of Puducherry comprises of four coastal regions namely Puducherry, Karaikal, Mahe and Yanam.
Puducherry and Karaikal are situated on the East Coast of Tamil Nadu, Yanam in Andhra Pradesh and Mahe on the West Coast in Kerala.
The city of Puducherry is the Capital of this Union Territory. It lies on the east coast about 162 kms south of Chennai (Madras) located on the Coromandel Coast of the Bay of Bengal.
There are no hills or forests in this region. The major soil types found here are red ferralitic, black clay and coastal alluvial.
The main spoken language is Tamil; though Telugu, Malayalam, English and French are spoken by a considerable number of people.
Although the majority of the population is Hindu, there are quite a number of Christians and Muslims, whereas Jains, Sikhs and Buddhists are few in comparison.
It is to be noted here that all four territories coming under Puducherry Union Territory were French exclaves before Independence.
Source: Periyar Geography