NewsTracker Answers for week of Dec. 17, 2012

Q: Police warned that inaccuracies in the Apple Maps application could be "life-threatening" to motorists stranded in Australia's searing heat. Where is Australia on this map?

Circle the area on this map

Q: Police said they rescued six motorists who followed Apple's directions to reach an inland city and ended up stranded 43 miles away in a national park with no water supply where temperatures reach as high as 115 degrees Fahrenheit. What is Australia's inland area called?

A. The Outback

B. The Red Center

C. The Never-Never

D. All of the above

D. Australia's desert and semi-arid interior region makes up by far the largest portion of the nation's land. Most of the country's people live along the coasts.

Q: Australia's climate ranges from Alpine snow to tropical rainforests in the . . .

A. North

B. East

C. South

D. West

A. Northern Australia lies above the Tropic of Capricorn and has a tropical climate, varied between tropical rainforests, grasslands and desert.

Q: An Australian government report warned recently that global warming could wipe out many Outback towns as the interior grows hotter and drier. Which continent is the driest?

A. Australia

B. Antarctica

C. Asia

D. Africa

B. Antarctica is twice the size of Australia and is the world's largest desert, with an annual precipitation of about 8 inches along the coast and far less inland.

Q: Global warming also threatens to kill Australia's Great Barrier Reef, composed of over 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands stretching over 1,600 miles. The reef is in the . . .

A. Tasman Sea

B. Indian Ocean

C. Coral Sea

D. Southern Ocean

C. The Great Barrier Reef off Australia's northeastern coast is the world's largest coral reef system. It is composed of and built by billions of tiny organisms, known as coral polyps, which could be killed off by warming ocean waters.