2009 Geography Monstrosity
Packet by Halford Mackinder’s Eagle-Owl (Jeff Hoppes and Ray Luo)
Edited by George Stevens
1. Erosion of the Melinau Limestone has formed the karst of this region's Mount Mulu National Park, where the 1981 Lyon expedition found a record-setting chamber in Good Luck Cave. One ethnic group of this region celebrates the deity Singalang the Bird in their festival Gawai Burong, and in 1941, Kiyotake Kawaguchi led an invasion of this region which captured the oil-rich land around Miri. A commission to extirpate this region's pirates between the Samarahan River and Tanjung Datu led to the arrival of James Brooke, who began a dynasty of "white rajahs," founded its capital at ► Kuching, and secured its independence from nearby Brunei. For 10 points, what region home to the Iban people, the southwestern neighbor of Sabah, forms the other part of Malaysian Borneo?
ANSWER: Sarawak [or Bumi Kenyalang; accept Borneo or Malaysia before “region”]
2. One of this city's museums acquired a set of Romanesque frescoes for its central section later found to be forgeries, and later purchased Don Pedro de Berberana y Aparregui for a record price for a Velazquez painting. Its sights include Philip Johnson's water gardens, some log cabins inhabited by Tarrant villagers, and the Sid Richardson collection located near Sundance square. In addition to the aforementioned Louis Kahn-designed Kimbell art museum, it is home to one of the biggest collections of works by Charles Russell and Frederic Remington in the US at the Amon Carter museum. Lying southwest of Haltom City, it sits at the clear fork of the ► Trinity River, and contains the National Cowgirl museum and the Will Rogers coliseum. Home to the stockyards district on the Chisholm Trail, for 10 points, name this city closest to TCU that forms a metroplex with Arlington and Dallas.
ANSWER: Fort Worth
3. Gerrit de Veer was the first person to describe this archipelago’s namesake effect, which is a mirage that makes it seem like the sun is rising before it should. The northernmost point of this was shelled during Operation Wunderland, and Rogachevo airbase is located on this island group where Nenets reindeer herders were settled during the 1870s. Its peninsula of Sukhoy Nos was replaced by the narrow strait of Matochkin Shar, which separates its northern and southern islands, as the last site used for Soviet nuclear tests that probably ceased in 1990. Along with Vaygach Island to the south, it forms a northern extension of the ► Ural Mountains. For 10 points, what Russian Arctic archipelago separates the Kara Sea from a sea named for the Dutch explorer who sailed there, Willem Barents?
ANSWER: Novaya Zemlya [or New Land; accept Barents before “archipelago’s namesake”, I guess]
4. This body of water contains the Querimba Islands, which were ruled by a renegade Dominican from the Meneses family during the 18th century. The port of Angoche near its narrowest point was a focus for the amber trade and an early center of Arabic learning among the Makua chieftaincies. The Geyser Reef in this body of water is the source of a three-party international dispute, and with the exception of Tromelin, all of France’s Scattered Islands lie in it. Its southern section is marked by the atoll of Bassas da India and Europa Island, while its northern section contains the ► Comoros. For 10 points, name this body of water which receives the Limpopo and Zambezi rivers and separates Madagascar from a former Portuguese colony on the African mainland with capital at Maputo.
ANSWER: Mozambique Channel [prompt on Indian Ocean before "narrowest"]
5. Warren Dean's With Broadax and Firebrand is a history of this habitat, whose southern section is dominated by Araucaria angustifolia and whose coastal fringes are known as the restinga. The Poco das Antas biological reserve maintains part of it as a refuge for the maned sloth and the golden lion tamarin. The campo rupestre, a montane savannah, replaces it near the peaks of the Serra do Mar, while it’s western reaches slowly decline into the cerrado. For 20 points, the Tupi people once lived in what threatened ecosystem, which covered the eastern coast of South America?
ANSWER: Brazilian Atlantic forest
6. One inhabitant of this city was painted standing next to a blue chair holding her gloves while outside the colonnades, a sculpture in a garden imitates her pose. A landmark in this city houses a pirate galleon used in a Roman Polansky film, and features a set of six tall cranes radiating about a center in the Porto Antico. That inhabitant was Geronima Spinola, subject of an Anthony Van Dyck portrait, while that landmark was designed by Renzo Piano, and is the biggest aquarium in Europe. Its people can go southeast past Santa Margherita to stroll the Lovers' Lane at the Cinque Terre national park, and this city lies west of La Spezia and the Levante, and south of Piedmont and Lombardy. Its Palazzo Doria-Tursi displays the violins of Niccolo Paganini, while a monument calls "la patria" its native son ► Christopher Columbus. For 10 points, name this Ligurian seaport that used to compete with Venice.
ANSWER: Genoa [or Genova]
7. Schrenk’s Spruce is native to this mountain chain and one of its peaks contains the Muzart glacier. The Flaming Mountains are an extension of this, and rivers which originate from it include the Naryn in the west and the Kaidu in the east. This mountain range separates the Junggar plateau to the north from the Tarim basin to the south, and sits next to the Turpan depression. Supplying water to the Alakol via the Chu, Lake Balkhash via the Ili, and the Aral Sea via the Syr Darya, this mountain chain contains the high-elevation Lake Issyk Kul. This range contains Hantengri and Pobedy peaks, the latter also called ► Victory Peak by Red Army explorers, and lies east of the Altai Mountains. For 10 points, name this mountain range in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and the Xinjiang region of China, whose name means “sky mountain.”
ANSWER: Tian Shan [or Tengri Tagh]
8. Philanthropist Joseph Sturge encouraged the production of lime juice by buying most of this island, which was a place of refuge for Catholics persecuted by Thomas Warner. The Silver Hills contain most of the forest remaining on this island, which was named for a Benedictine abbey north of Barcelona. This island controls Statue Rock, and a 1798 uprising here was led by Irish slaves. Brades is now the largest city of this island, and Chances Peak used to be its highest point before the beginning of ► volcanic activity in the Soufriere Hills. For 10 points, the burial of Plymouth in ash and resulting emigration to Antigua has devastated what British possession in the Lesser Antilles?
ANSWER: Montserrat
9. This thinker cited the southwestern Jordaan districts of Amsterdam, with their narrow canals and population of Huguenot refugees, as one example of an "unbalanced world" created by early capitalism. He described "the half-wild mountains, where man has taken root like a hardy plant" and identified the Crau and the Bardenas Reales as regions of transhumance in his best-known work, which uses geography "to discover the ► almost imperceptible movement of history." For 10 points, name this Annales School historian, whose masterpiece described the age of Philip II around the Mediterranean.
ANSWER: Fernand Braudel
10. The Yilgarn block is a craton underlying this state, whose other features include the King Leopold Range and Karijini National Park, the latter of which is located in its Hamersley Range. Wooramel Seagrass Bank, the world’s largest, lies in this state’s Shark Bay, and its Pilbara region is a major source of stromatolites. The wreck of the Rockingham threatened the early survival of colonists here, who settled under James Stirling along the Swan River. The Esperance region includes this state's gold fields around Kalgoorlie, while its diamond mines are located in the ► Kimberley region of the far north. For 10 points, name this Australian state whose other cities include the port of Fremantle and the capital, Perth.
ANSWER: Western Australia [accept Australia before "this state"]
11. Most blue pike once lived in this lake, the site of Big Chicken, Little Chicken, and Johnson's Islands, the last a prison camp that housed James J. Archer. This lake’s Point Pelee National Park is a hotspot for watching Blackpoll Warblers during their migration, and a geological precursor to it was the Great Black Swamp. The Westo are believed to be a group of its namesake people who were forced to leave their homeland during the Beaver Wars. Gravelly Bay, later renamed to Port Colborne, serves as the southern terminus of the Welland Canal on this lake, and it receives the Sandusky, Maumee and ► Cuyahoga rivers. Its South Bass Island contains Put-in Bay, which was the base for Oliver Hazard Perry's squadron during an 1813 battle. The cities of Toledo, Buffalo and Cleveland lie on, for 10 points, which fourth largest of the Great Lakes that discharges through the Niagara River into nearby Lake Ontario?
ANSWER: Lake Erie
12. The Almindigen forest on this island is notable for its glacial erratics. It also contains the waterfall Dondalen in a northern rift valley, and an outcrop of the Jydegaard formation that yielded a namesake species of dromaeosaur. Gerhard von Kamptz’s refusal to surrender this island resulted in its bombing by Soviets in 1945, and a 1658 uprising here led to Villum Clausen shooting the island's governor, Johan Printzenskold, to protest its cession under the Treaty of Roskilde. It was once dominated by Hammershus Castle, built by the bishops of Lund, but is presently governed from Ronne. For 20 points, name this island in the Baltic Sea, the easternmost major island of Denmark.
ANSWER: Bornholm
13. Dalla Hill overlooks the major city of this ethnic group and their chiefdoms were brought together under the sarauta system. The chief legendary figure of these people slew Sarki, a serpent which was guarding a well, and in return was allowed to marry Queen Daurama. That figure, Bayajidda, had only one child with his wife, Bawo, who supposedly founded the seven kingdoms of these people, known as bakwai. The Jukun, who founded a state at Kororofa, were one of the seven satellite kingdoms of these people, whose main kingdoms were located north of the ► Benue River and included Zazzau, Katsina and Kano. Usman dan Fodio's jihad in the 19th century resulted in the conquest by the neighboring Fulani of, for 10 points, which Islamic ethnic group of northern Nigeria?
ANSWER: Hausa [accept Kano before "ethnic group"]
14. One town this river flows through is the site of a dangerous descent to Sadeng. Originating near Nagqu, it flows east then south past Gaoligong Shan, emptying near a city in Tenasserim that has a characteristic Shampoo island. Another town which this river flows through gained prominence after the defeat of Bandula at Ava, leading to the signing of the Treaty of Yandabo. Passing by Bir as well as the city that served as the setting for ► George Orwell's Shooting an Elephant, it saw the Hatgyi Dam project on it abandoned after an insurrection of the Karen people. Emptying into the Gulf of Martaban at Moulmein, for 10 points, name this river which forms part of the border between Myanmar and Thailand, and with the Mekong and Yangtze rivers is one of China’s Three Parallel Rivers.
ANSWER: Salween [or Nu Jiang; or Thanlivin]
15. One town in this state produces a polished black pottery burnished with quartz invented by Rosa Real Mateo called barro negro. One city in this state is home to "El Diablo Enchilado," a brazier made in the form of a red face with a grimace, and is found northwest of Atzompa as well as the settlement that supplanted it historically. In addition to a strip surrounding San Agustinillo, San Bartolo Coyotepec, and San Jose El Migote, this state has a capital that houses the Iglesia de Santo Domingo, as well as a town displaying the angelic figures of painter Rodolfo Morales, Ocotlan. One of its sites in the Valles Centrales contains the Danzantes carvings and statues of the rain god Cosijo. Found west of the ► Isthmus of Tehuantepec below Veracruz, for 10 points, name this state containing the ruins of Yagul, Mitla, and Monte Alban, the home of Benito Juarez and the Zapotecs.
ANSWER: Free and Sovereign State of Oaxaca
16. Blue Robin Canyon is located on this island, which was also the site of the only North American records of Spoon-billed Sandpiper and Great Spotted Woodpecker. Its native inhabitants were exiled to an internment camp at Otaru during the military occupation of such sites as Clevesy Pass and Black Mountain. The 7th Infantry Division landed at Massacre Valley and survived an ambush at Jarmin Pass, clearing this island of Japanese forces, who also evacuated nearby Kiska. For 15 points, name this island settled by 18th-century Russian fur traders, the westernmost of the Aleutians.
ANSWER: Attu
17. Spurn Point is the southeastern tip of this county's Holderness peninsula, which once contained the medieval borough of Ravenser, now lost to coastal erosion. The site of John Vanbrugh's Castle Howard, it was also the object of a parliamentary struggle between John Savile and Thomas Wentworth. The Viking Kingdom of Jorvik roughly corresponded to this entity, and before that, it was home to the Brigantes. Until the 1974 reorganization of local government, it was divided into three ► ridings, North, East, and West, the last of which contained most of its textile industry around Bradford. The Pennines formed the western boundary of, for 10 points, what historic county of northern England, whose largest city is Leeds, and is symbolized by a white rose?