Extremes on Earth
This article describes extreme locations on Earth. Entries listed in bold are Earth-wide extremes.
Extreme global temperatures
Extreme elevations and air temperatures per continent
Coldest and hottest inhabited places on Earth
Extreme ground temperatures
Temperatures measured directly on the ground may exceed air temperatures by 30 to 50 °C. A ground temperature of 84 °C has been recorded in Port Sudan, Sudan. A ground temperature of 93.9 °C was recorded in Furnace Creek, Death Valley, California, United States on 15 July 1972; this may be the highest natural ground surface temperature ever recorded. The theoretical maximum possible ground surface temperature has been estimated to be between 90 and 100 °C for dry, darkish soils of low thermal conductivity.Satellite measurements of ground temperature taken between 2003 and 2009, taken with the MODIS infrared spectroradiometer on the Aqua satellite, found a maximum temperature of 70.7 °C, which was recorded in 2005 in the Lut Desert, Iran. The Lut Desert was also found to have the highest maximum temperature in 5 of the 7 years measured. These measurements reflect averages over a large region and so are lower than the maximum point surface temperature.
Satellite measurements of the surface temperature of Antarctica, taken between 1982 and 2013, found a coldest temperature of −93.2 °C on 10 August 2010, at. Although this is not comparable to an air temperature, it is believed that the air temperature at this location would have been lower than the official record lowest air temperature of −89.2 °C.
Greatest vertical drop
| Greatest purely vertical drop | Mount Thor, Auyuittuq National Park, Baffin Island, Nunavut, Canada |
| Greatest nearly vertical drop | Trango Towers, Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan |
Subterranean
| Deepest mine below ground level | Mponeng Gold Mine, Gauteng Province, South Africa |
| Deepest mine below sea level | below sea level Kidd Mine, Ontario, Canada |
| Deepest open-pit mine below ground level | Bingham Canyon Mine, Utah, United States |
| Deepest open-pit mine below sea level | below sea level Tagebau Hambach, Germany |
| Deepest cave | Veryovkina, Arabika Massif, Abkhazia, Georgia |
| Deepest pitch | Tian Xing Cave, China |
| Deepest borehole | Kola Superdeep Borehole, Russia |
Greatest oceanic depths
Deepest ice
Ice sheets on land, but having the base below sea level. Places under ice are not considered to be on land.| Bentley Subglacial Trench | Antarctica | |
| Trough beneath Jakobshavn Isbræ | Greenland, Denmark |
Northern and southernmost points of land on Earth
| Northernmost point on land | Kaffeklubben Island, east of Greenland Various shifting gravel bars lie further north, the most famous being Oodaaq |
| Southernmost point on land | The geographic South Pole |
| Southernmost continental point of land outside Antarctica | Cape Froward , Magallanes Region, Chile |
The Gould Coast is the southernmost point of ocean while the southernmost open sea is nearby Bay of Whales at 78°30'S, at the edge of Ross Ice Shelf.