Geography
Around the IJsselmeer is an arc of boulder clay high areas of land, which formed during the Ice Age glaciations of the Pleistocene epoch: Texel, Wieringen, Urk, de Voorst, and Gaasterland. To south of that arc, as a result of meltwater, a lake formed, which became known as Almere. North of the boulder clay highland of Urk, the Vecht river flowed into the Almere, while the river IJssel with tributaries flowed in to the south of Urk. As the climate became warmer during the Middle Ages, the sea level rose; and since the Ice Age ended the Netherlands and around have been slowly steadily sinking because of forebulge effect. During the 13th century (and especially after a large storm in 1282) the Zuiderzee formed, and the water round Urk suddenly became tidal sea. Because there was no sea defence, in the course of time large pieces of the island were eroded away. The southwest side of Urk, which rose perpendicularly out of the sea, was called het Hoge Klif ("the High Cliff"). Around 1700 the municipality of Amsterdam gave sea defences to Urk.
Read more about this topic: Urk
Famous quotes containing the word geography:
“The California fever is not likely to take us off.... There is neither romance nor glory in digging for gold after the manner of the pictures in the geography of diamond washing in Brazil.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“The totality of our so-called knowledge or beliefs, from the most casual matters of geography and history to the profoundest laws of atomic physics or even of pure mathematics and logic, is a man-made fabric which impinges on experience only along the edges. Or, to change the figure, total science is like a field of force whose boundary conditions are experience.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)
“At present cats have more purchasing power and influence than the poor of this planet. Accidents of geography and colonial history should no longer determine who gets the fish.”
—Derek Wall (b. 1965)