Earth’s Atmosphere

Let’s face it, without it we wouldn’t even be here, so it takes pride of place at number one in my list.  Such an incredibly thin but essential and protective envelope around us.  A by-product of the chemical processes on our planet that allows us to live and breathe.

Evolution

Not animals and plants adapting to their environment through necessity, as the less learned may think, but actually a mutation that just so happens to work well following a change in environment, and so flourishes, while those without that mutation do not.  Survival of the fittest.  If you haven’t read about it yet, I’d recommend you do.  Apart from it being a fascinating subject, you probably have misconceptions about it just as a good portion of the population do.  Some will pooh pooh it.  Not me, I’m a firm believer that this process got me to where I am today.  Let the debate commence…

Volcanoes

Incredible power, bringing fertility to our land.  In a way, they’re our planet’s ultimate recycling plants.  Volcanoes are a wonder that stick with many of us through our childhood and beyond.  Awesome, unimaginable pressures that cause molten rock to force it’s way through miles of solid rock above, pulverising everything in its path, to finally and spectacularly erupt from the earth.  Volcanoes never cease to fascinate me.

Conception, Pregnancy and Childbirth

I don’t think I need say any more.

Butterflies

A personal favourite of mine.  After mating, a butterfly lays eggs which hatch as caterpillars.  These caterpillars, if they don’t fall prey to their many predators, gorge themselves on the vegetation that their parents so carefully chose for their birth place.  They eat until they have stored enough food/energy to allow them to pupate.  If their very life were not wonder enough, now comes a truly incredible transformation.  Within their pupa, they entirely restructure or metamorphosise right down to cellular level, to emerge as a newly created butterfly, thus to begin the process all over again.  How, oh how, do you rival that?

Aurora Borealis – The Northern Lights

Who would have thought that a phenomenon sounding so incredibly complicated; the collision of charged particles from solar winds with mainly electrons but also protons in the magnetic field of the Earths Ionosphere as viewed when looking toward the North Magnetic Pole (boy I hope I got that right, phew!), could result in such simply wonderful sights as these.  I was lucky enough to see them in the early 90’s when they were very, very unusually visible in Southern England.   A truly incredible sight.

Rainbows

Rainbows still amaze me, even today.  I am filled with wonder and feel happy each and every time I see one.  My favourite time to see one is when a rain shower has not quite finished where you’re standing but the rainbow has already formed with the clear, rain free, sunny sky beyond, where everything looks fresh and glowing and alive.  A truly wonderful yet simple trick of light.

The Deep Ocean

This sits at the end of my list because it’s the one with the most questions remaining about it.  With so little of it truly mapped, and even less of it actually explored, what wonders still await us there….