Tropic of Capricorn years. In South America, whilst in the continental cratons soils are almost as old as in Australia and Southern Africa, the presence of the geologically young and evolving Andes means that this region is on the western side of the subtropical anticyclones and thus receives warm and humid air from the Atlantic Ocean. As a result, areas in Brazil adjacent to the Tropic are extremely important agricultural regions, producing large quantities of crops such as sugarcane, and the natural rainforest vegetation has been almost entirely cleared, except for a few remaining patches of Atlantic Forest. Further south in Argentina, the
Equator is derived from medieval Latin word "aequator", in the phrase "circulus aequator diei et noctis," meaning ‘circle equalizing day and night’, from the Latin word "aequare" meaning ‘make equal’. The latitude of the Earth's equator is, by definition, 0° (zero degrees) of arc. The Equator is one of the five notable circles of latitude on Earth; the other four are both polar circles (the Arctic Circle and the Antarctic Circle) and both tropical circles (the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn). The Equator is the only line of latitude which is also a great circle — that is,