- Mecca (/ˈmɛkə/; officially Makkah al-Mukarramah, commonly shortened to Makkah) is the capital of Mecca Province in the Hejaz region of western Saudi Arabia and the holiest city according to Islam. It is 70 km (43 mi) inland from Jeddah on the Red Sea, in a narrow valley 277 m (909 ft) above sea level. Its last recorded population was 2,385,509 in 2022. Its metropolitan population in 2022 was 2.4 million, making it the third-most populated city in Saudi Arabia after Riyadh and Jeddah. Around 44.5% of the population are Saudi citizens and around 55.5% are foreigners from other Muslim countries. Pilgrims more than triple the population number every year during the Ḥajj pilgrimage, observed in the twelfth Hijri month of Dhūl-Ḥijjah. With over 10.8 million international visitors in 2023, Mecca was one of the ten most visited cities in the world.
- Deception Pass (gravelbeach.blogspot.com)
Much of Puget Sound is nothing but Pleistocene - with Vashon glacial deposits on the surface and older glacial and interglacial sediments peaking out from the lower portions of some of the bluffs. But at Rocky Point, on the west side of Whidbey Island, and in Skagit Bay, the Mesozoic re-emerges from the basement to form rocky islands and headlands.