Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event

Cretaceous–Paleogene (K–Pg) extinction event, also known as the Cretaceous–Tertiary (K–T) extinction, was a mass extinction of some three-quarters of the plant and animal species on Earth—including all non-avian dinosaurs—that occurred over a geologically short period of time, 66 million years ago. It marked the end of the Cretaceous period and with it, the entire Mesozoic Era, opening the Cenozoic Era that continues today.

In the geologic record, the K–Pg event is marked by a thin layer of sediment called the K–Pg boundary, which can be found throughout the world in marine and terrestrial rocks. The boundary clay shows high levels of the metal iridium, which is rare in the Earth's crust but abundant in asteroids.

As originally proposed by a team of scientists led by Luis Alvarez, it is now generally believed that the K–Pg extinction was triggered by a massive comet or asteroid impact 66 million years ago and its catastrophic effects on the global environment, including a lingering impact winter that made it impossible for plants and plankton to carry out photosynthesis. The impact hypothesis was bolstered by the discovery of the 180-kilometre-wide (112 mi) Chicxulub crater in the Gulf of Mexico in the early 1990s, which provided conclusive evidence that the K–Pg boundary clay represented debris from an asteroid impact. The fact that the extinctions occurred at the same time as the impact provides strong situational evidence that the K–Pg extinction was caused by the asteroid. It was possibly accelerated by the creation of the Deccan Traps. However, some scientists maintain the extinction was caused or exacerbated by other factors, such as volcanic eruptions, climate change, or sea level change, separately or together.

Unification Church

The Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, founded as the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, and commonly called the Unification Church or Unificationism, is a new religious movement founded in South Korea in 1954 by Sun Myung Moon. Since its founding, the church has expanded throughout the world with most members living in Korea, Japan, the Philippines, and other nations in East Asia. It has sponsored other organizations and projects over the years; including businesses, news media, projects in education and the arts, and political and social activism. The church was led by Moon until his death on September 3, 2012. Since then, his widow Hak Ja Han has assumed the leadership of the church.

Unificationist beliefs are derived from the Christian Bible and are explained in the church's textbook, the Divine Principle. It teaches that God is the Creator and Heavenly Parent, whose dual nature combines both masculinity and femininity and whose center is true love. The Blessing ceremony of the Unification Church, a wedding or wedding vow renewal ceremony, is a church tradition which has attracted wide public attention. The church has engaged in interfaith activities with other religions, including mainstream Christianity and Islam, despite theological differences.

Moeraki Boulders

The Moeraki Boulders are unusually large and spherical boulders lying along a stretch of Koekohe Beach on the wave-cut Otago coast of New Zealand between Moeraki and Hampden. They occur scattered either as isolated or clusters of boulders within a stretch of beach where they have been protected in a scientific reserve. The erosion by wave action of mudstone, comprising local bedrock and landslides, frequently exposes embedded isolated boulders. These boulders are grey-colored septarian concretions, which have been exhumed from the mudstone enclosing them and concentrated on the beach by coastal erosion.

Local Māori legends explained the boulders as the remains of eel baskets, calabashes, and kumara washed ashore from the wreck of Arai-te-uru, a large sailing canoe. This legend tells of the rocky shoals that extend seaward from Shag Point as being the petrified hull of this wreck and a nearby rocky promontory as being the body of the canoe's captain. In 1848 W.B.D. Mantell sketched the beach and its boulders, more numerous than now. The picture is now in the Alexander Turnbull Library in Wellington. The boulders were described in 1850 colonial reports and numerous popular articles since that time. In more recent times they have become a popular tourist attraction, often described and pictured in web pages and tourist guides.

Earth

Earth /ˈɜːrθ/ (also the world, in Greek: Γαῖα Gaia, or in Latin: Terra) is the third planet from the Sun, the densest planet in the Solar System, the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets, and the only astronomical object known to harbor life.

According to evidence from radiometric dating and other sources, Earth was formed about 4.54 billion years ago. Earth gravitationally interacts with other objects in space, especially the Sun and the Moon. During one orbit around the Sun, Earth rotates about its own axis 366.26 times, creating 365.26 solar days or one sidereal year. Earth's axis of rotation is tilted 23.4° away from the perpendicular of its orbital plane, producing seasonal variations on the planet's surface with a period of one tropical year (365.24 solar days). The Moon is Earth's only permanent natural satellite. Its gravitational interaction with Earth causes ocean tides, stabilizes the orientation of Earth's rotational axis, and gradually slows Earth's rotational rate.

100000000 (number)

One hundred million (100,000,000) is the natural number following 99999999 and preceding 100000001.

In scientific notation, it is written as 10⁸.

East Asian languages treat 100,000,000 as a counting unit, significant as the square of a myriad, also a counting unit. In Chinese, Japanese, and Korean respectively it is yì (億) (or wànwàn 萬萬 in ancient texts), oku (億), and eok (억/億). These languages do not have single words for a thousand to the second, third, fifth power, etc.)

Selected 9-digit numbers (100,000,001–999,999,999)