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map projection
map projection transfer of the features of the surface of the earth or another spherical body onto a flat sheet of paper. Only a globe can represent accurately the shape, orientation, and relative area of the earth's surface features; any projection produces distortion with regard to some of these ...
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map
map conventionalized representation of spatial phenomena on a plane surface. Unlike photographs, maps are selective and may be prepared to show various quantitative and qualitative facts, including boundaries, physical features, patterns, and distribution. Each point on such a map corresponds to a ...
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Mercator projection
Mercator projection a projection of a map of the world on to a cylinder in such a way that all the parallels of latitude have the same length as the equator, invented by the Flemish geographer and cartographer Gerardus Mercator (1512–94). It was first published in 1569 and used especially ...
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Human Genome Project
Human Genome Project international scientific effort to map all of the genes on the 23 pairs of human chromosomes and, to sequence the 3.1 billion DNA base pairs that make up the chromosomes (see nucleic acid ). Begun in 1990 with the goal of enabling scientists to understand the basis of gene...
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Gerardus Mercator
Gerardus Mercator , Latin form of Gerhard Kremer , 1512-94, Flemish geographer, mathematician, and cartographer. He studied in Louvain , where he had a geographical establishment (1534). From 1537 to 1540 he surveyed and mapped Flanders . In 1538 he produced his first map of the world (based on...
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maelstrom
maelstrom, a term commonly accepted as meaning a whirlpool, or a great storm. In fact, it is a strong current which rips past the southern end of Moskenaes Island in the Lofoten group off the west coast of Norway. Also known as the Maskenstrom, it is marked on a map of the area which appears in the...
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chart
chart term referring to maps prepared for marine navigation and for air navigation. All charts show, in some convenient scale , geographic features useful to the navigator, as well as indications of direction, e.g., true north (the direction of the geographic North Pole), magnetic north (the dir...
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happening
happening an artistic event of a theatrical nature, but usually improvised spontaneously without the framework of a plot. The term originated with the creation and performance in 1959 of Allan Kaprow's "18 Happenings in 6 Parts." This work emphasized various sorts of performances and experience...
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Robert Duane Ballard
Robert Duane Ballard , 1942-, American marine geologist, b. Wichita, Kans.; Ph.D. Univ. of Rhode Island, 1974. In 1969, he began an association with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, where he eventually became the head of the Deep Submergence Laboratory. He combined interests in plate tectonics an...
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geodesy
geodesy or geodetic surveying, theory and practice of determining the position of points on the earth's surface and the dimensions of areas so large that the curvature of the earth must be taken into account. It is distinguished from plane surveying , the operations of which are executed witho...
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