India produced 1547 thousand tons of phosphorite/rock phosphate in 2009-10. Entire Rock Phosphate production was from Public Sector. Jhamarkotra mine of Rajasthan State Mines & Minerals Limited (RSMML) accounted for 88% of the total production in India and the entire production of Rajasthan during 2009-10. Madhya Pradesh contributed the remaining 12% of the production. Please also note that Rajasthan is the sole producer of jasper, lead & zinc concentrate and wollastonite. Rajasthan was the sole producer of garnet (gem) till 2004-05. Almost entire production of calcite and natural gypsum in the country comes from Rajasthan. State is a major producer of  asbestos, copper concentrate, ochre, phosphorite/rock phosphate, silver, steatite, ball clay, fluorite and felspar. The State is also an important producer of marble having various shades. Makrana area is world famous centre for marble mining.

The Atacama desert is  blocked from moisture on both sides by the Andes mountains and by the Chilean Coast Range. A coastal inversion layer created by the cold Humboldt Current and the anticyclone of the Pacific is essential to keeping the climate of the Atacama dry. Some parts of this desert  have never received any rain.

As per Ministry of Mines Data, production of iron ore at about 218.64 million tonnes in 2009-10 registered an increase of 2.67% over the previous year. About 27% of the total production was shared by Public Sector Companies like SAIL (including IISCO), NMDC, etc. The share of Private Sector was 63% which includes Tata Steel (formerly TISCO) (8%). Almost the entire production of iron ore (96%) accrued from Orissa, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Goa and Jharkhand during the year. The remaining 4% production was reported from Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Rajasthan.

"The geological survey of India has identified over 300 hot spring locations and estimates of the energy potential are around 10600 MW. Some of the locations identified by GSI are
1. The Purga valley in Jammu & Kashmir,
2. Tata Pani in Chhattisgarh
3. Godavari basin,
4. Manikaran (Himachal Pradesh),
5. Bakreshwar (West Bengal),
6. Tuwa (Gujarat),
7. Unai (Gujarat)
8. Jalgaon (Maharstar)."

Eratosthenes was the first person to calculate the size of the earth.

He was also the first person to use the word “Geography”. He also is known to have realized that Earth could be located with a basic grid of lines called Longitude and latitude.

Eratosthenes was the first scientific Geographer who ascertained the length of equator on sound principles. By measuring the lengths of shadows in the Egyptian cities Alexandria and Aswan , together with applying some simple mathematical calculations, Eratosthenes was able as early as 3rd century B.C. to determine the circumference of the earth as 252,000 stadia, which comes to be anywhere between 24,660 and 28,965 miles, roughly equivalent to 39,690 and 46,620 km. These values are based upon some assumptions as the correct length of stadion is not known. By modern calculations, Earth's circumference is 40,075 km, and thus the calculations made 2000 years back, are worth commendable.