Why Is Ireland's Giant's Causeway Shaped Like That? How Do Death Valley’s “Sailing Stones” Move Themselves Across the Desert? | Travel. Start at the Furnace Creek visitor center in Death Valley National Park. Drive 50 miles north on pavement, then head west for another 30 miles on bone-rattling gravel roads. During the drive—which will take you four hours if you make good time—you’ll pass sand dunes, a meteor crater, narrow canyons, solitary Joshua trees and virtually no evidence of human existence whatsoever. But soon after cresting the Cottonwood Mountains, you’ll come upon a landscape so out of place even in this geologically bizarre park that it almost seems artificial. Racetrack Playa is a dried-up lakebed, ringed by mountains, about 3 miles long and flat as a tabletop. During summer, the cracked floor looks prehistoric under the desert sun; during winter, it’s intermittently covered by sheets of ice and dustings of snow.
But the dozens of stones scattered across the playa floor are the most puzzling part of the view. But if they’re not magic, what really does cause the stones to sail? The Door to Hell. Real Places On Earth So Surreal, They Look Like Alien Landscapes. Golden rain : chemicalreactiongifs. Wierdest Chemical Reaction I have Ever Freaking Seen!! St. Elmo's fire. St. Elmo's fire on a ship at sea St. Elmo's fire is named after St. Erasmus of Formia (also called St. Elmo, one of the two Italian names for St. Characteristics[edit] In 1751, Benjamin Franklin hypothesized that a pointed iron rod would light up at the tip during a lightning storm, similar in appearance to St.
Cause[edit] Conditions that can generate St.Elmo's fire are present during thunderstorms, when high voltage differentials are present between clouds and the ground underneath. The nitrogen and oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere cause St. Notable observations[edit] Welsh mariners knew it as canwyll yr ysbryd ("spirit-candles") or canwyll yr ysbryd glân ("candles of the Holy Ghost"), or the "candles of St. References to St. In 15th-century Ming China, Admiral Zheng He and his associates composed the Liujiagang and Changle inscriptions, the two epitaphs of the treasure voyages where they made a reference to St.
Charles Darwin noted the effect while aboard the Beagle. St. St. But now St. Why, Exactly, Does The Sun Turn Green? This Gemstone Is Two Different Colors At Once. Listen to the Strange Phenomenon of "Singing Stones" There is a Hand to turn the time,Though thy Glass today be run,Till the Light that hath brought the Towers lowFind the last poor Pret'rite one ...Till the Riders sleep by ev'ry road,All through our crippl'd Zone,With a face on ev'ry mountainside,and a Soul in ev'ry stone ... Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow (last page). We can sing along to the songs of the stones. Cave of Crystal Giants. In a nearly empty cantina in a dark desert town, the short, drunk man makes his pitch. Beside him on the billiards table sits a chunk of rock the size of home plate. Dozens of purple and white crystals push up from it like shards of glass. "Yours for $300," he says. "No? One hundred. A steal! " The three or four other patrons glance past their beers, thinking it over: Should they offer their crystals too?
This remote part of northern Mexico, an hour or so south of Chihuahua, is famous for crystals, and paychecks at the local lead and silver mine, where almost everyone works, are meager enough to inspire a black market. Nothing compares with the giants found in Cueva de los Cristales, or Cave of Crystals. It takes 20 minutes to get to the cave entrance by van through a winding mine shaft. Nature be doing crazy shit again. Hard rime. Rime on a tree (close-up) Hard rime formations are difficult to shake off; they have a comb-like appearance, unlike soft rime, which looks feathery or spiky, or clear ice, which looks homogeneous and transparent. Rime ice can accumulate on the leading edges and control surfaces of aircraft operating in certain meteorological conditions. Meteorologists distinguish between three basic types of ice forming on vertical and horizontal surfaces by deposition of supercooled water droplets.
Of course there are also intermediate formations. Soft rime is less dense than hard rime and is milky and crystalline, like sugar. Both rime types are less dense than clear ice and cling less tenaciously, therefore damage due to rime is generally minor compared to clear ice. These three types occur also when ice forms on the surface of an aircraft when it flies through a cloud made of supercooled water liquid droplets.
Formation on snow crystals[edit] Rime ice on both ends of a "capped column" snowflake. Mystery of Death Valley's Moving Rocks Solved. The first witnesses to an enduring natural mystery are an engineer, a biologist and a planetary scientist who met thanks to a remote weather station. This odd group has captured the first video footage of Death Valley's sailing stones creeping across Racetrack Playa. For a century, these eerie rocks and their long, graceful trails have stumped visitors and scientists. The boulders of black dolomite appear to move on their own, sliding uphill across the playa's flat lakebed.
The trails are the only evidence the rocks move. No one has ever seen them set sail. [Video: Sailing Stones of Death Valley Seen in Action] Lacking direct evidence, explanations for this geologic puzzle ran the gamut, from Earth's magnetic field to gale-force winds to slippery algae. BLOG: Waiting for Death Valley's Next Big Bang Jagged plates of thin ice, resembling panels of broken glass, bulldoze the rocks across the flooded playa, the scientists reveal today (Aug. 27) in the journal PLOS One. The Wanderer by Paul Rojas / 500px. How do Ghost Forests Happen? This Is Why Some Sand Dunes Sing. Giant Ammonite fossil and Otto. The Truth About Real-Life Dire Wolves. IM__A__DOG__AMA comments on A map of the worlds deepest cave. It takes over a month to reach the bottom. Tunnel O' Fish : interestingasfuck. Manpupuner rock formations. Russian stamp depicting the Manpupuner rock formations The Manpupuner rock formations (Man-Pupu-Nyer; Мань-Пупу-нёр) or the Seven Strong Men Rock Formations or Poles of the Komi Republic are a set of 7 gigantic abnormally shaped stone pillars located west of the Ural mountains in the Troitsko-Pechorsky District of the Komi Republic.
These monoliths are around 30 to 42 m high and jut out of a hilly plateau formed through the weathering effects of ice and winds.[1] According to a local legend, the stone pillars were once an entourage of Samoyeds giants walking through the mountains to Siberia in order to destroy the Mansi people. However, upon seeing the holy Mansi mountains, the shaman of the giants dropped his drum and the entire team froze into the stone pillars.[2] See also[edit] Butte References[edit] External links[edit] Coordinates: This snake looks like it came right out of our imagination : woahdude. Centralia mine fire. The Centralia mine fire is a coal seam fire that has been burning underneath the borough of Centralia, Pennsylvania, United States since at least May 27, 1962. The cause of the fire is suspected to be from a trash burning that hit a coal strip in a cave. The fire burns in underground coal mines at depths of up to 300 feet over an eight-mile stretch of 3,700 acres.[1] As of 2015[update], the fire continues to burn.
At its current rate, it could burn for over 250 more years.[2] The blaze has resulted in most of the town being abandoned. Population dwindled from 2,761 in 1980 to only 7 in 2013, and most of the buildings have been leveled. A small part of the Centralia mine fire after being exposed during excavation in 1969 Background[edit] On May 7, 1962, the Centralia Council met to discuss the approaching Memorial Day and how the town would go about cleaning up the Centralia landfill, which was introduced earlier that year.
The fire[edit] Plan and execution[edit] Escalation[edit] Gallery[edit] Bearded Vultures Are The Most Punk Rock Animals In The World. I love these guys, read up about them a lot. (I don't work with birds but their biology and behavior are fascinating.) They've got a robust system for dealing with the incredible amount of calcium they eat, both to digest it (lots of acid) and to excrete it. They've got a rather expansible esophagus and no crop/diverticulum to accidentally snag on bone fragments. And there's photos somewhere around here of one taking off with a rib sticking out of its beak. Not an accident, just more like "one last bite, this is for the road.
" This is all a rather neat adaptation for a narrow niche with a very broad footprint. Flagged. Before A Solar Eclipse, The Whole World Goes Wavy. Bull. The phenomenon is called "a glitch". This is the internet. We all know that there is a dome over the planet and the stars are fake. We've never walked on the moon, we cannot leave the Earth's atmosphere, and the hole in the ozone releases the trapped gasses. Wake up. You cannot actually see the stars. We Know Your Secret! Flagged Shhhhhh! Here's What The Night Sky Would Look Like With Much Better Eyes.
Under water spider. The Ancient Secrets of a "Bleeding" Glacier Are Finally Being Revealed. This Tree Bleeds When You Cut Into It. IN NORWAY. Snow roller. A snow roller is a rare meteorological phenomenon in which large snowballs are formed naturally as chunks of snow are blown along the ground by wind, picking up material along the way, in much the same way that the large snowballs used in snowmen are made. Unlike snowballs made by people, snow rollers are typically cylindrical in shape, and are often hollow since the inner layers, which are the first layers to form, are weak and thin compared to the outer layers and can easily be blown away, leaving what looks like a doughnut or Swiss roll.
Snow rollers have been seen to grow as large as two feet in diameter. The following conditions are needed for snow rollers to form: Because of this last condition, snow rollers are more common in hilly areas. However, the precise nature of the conditions required makes them a very rare phenomenon. Gallery[edit] On January 27, 2014, these snow rollers were formed overnight during high winds in the community of Venus in western Pennsylvania. Sunstone (medieval) Iceland spar, possibly the Icelandic medieval sunstone used to locate the sun in the sky when obstructed from view. A stone found in Alderney amid the wreckage of a 16th-century warship in early 2013 may lend evidence of the existence of sunstones as navigational devices.[2] One medieval source in Iceland, "Rauðúlfs þáttr",[3][4] mentions the sunstone as a mineral by means of which the sun could be located in an overcast and snowy sky by holding it up and noting where it emitted, reflected or transmitted light (hvar geislaði úr honum).[5] Sunstones are also mentioned in Hrafns saga Sveinbjarnarsonar (13th century)[6] and in church and monastic inventories (14th–15th century) without discussing their attributes.
The sunstone texts of Hrafns saga Sveinbjarnarsonar were copied to all four versions of the medieval hagiography Guðmundar saga góða.[7] The description in "Rauðúlfs þáttr" of the use of the sunstone is as follows: Two of the original medieval texts on the sunstone are allegorical. A Simple Optical Phenomenon That No One's Figured Out Yet. Given the distances involved and altitude, how about magnetic lensing and/or magnetic effects upon the ice crystal structures? Magnetic fields can be very powerful, but variable. The locations of magnetic fields and pressure-temperatures required would mean that there would only be a few seconds where the lensing effect would actually be noticeable. It would be even more interesting if the magnetic fields would vary the shapes of the ice crystals to help produce the effect.
Complete stab in the dark, of course, for such a light subject. :P We love that wordplay. I believe it has been seen from places other than an airplane. But the altitudes that the lensing occurs at are pretty stable, aren't they? No science behind my idea, just a random thought, btw. A floating fire ant raft is pushed down on the surface of water.
MrDorkESQ comments on So last night, during sunset, as the full moon was rising, and while driving out of a bad storm, the sky sorta... divided. Anyone know what this is? The Schiller Effect Makes Stone Seem to Light Up Internally. Bismuth crystals. Behold The Marvel Of Nature That Is A Cloudbow. 21 Biblical Weather Events That Actually Happened. Condition Called Tetrachromacy Allows This Artist To See 100 Million Colors. It’s always been fun to discuss whether or not people perceive colors in the same way. That can be tricky enough when dealing with individuals with normal color perception, but those who have various degrees of color blindness have a limited range. But what about those who have a greater range? The human eye is packed with millions of cone-shaped cells that allow for color to be perceived.
For those with normal vision, the three types of cones allow vision of about one million distinctive colors. Some animal species including certain birds, insects, fish, and reptiles, have a fourth type of cone cell that extends color perception into the UV range. Though evolution has mostly scrubbed that fourth cone from the mammalian lineage, there is evidence that a small group of humans may have a genetic variant that allows for tetrachromacy. Antico, who now lives in California, is an impressionist. The genes responsible for red and green cone cells are located on the X-chromosome. Terrifyingly Brilliant Spider Creates Stunningly Advanced Web. I have a healthy respect for spider ingenuity. One summer, these penny sized spiders kept making huge webs in the evening on the front porch that we kept walking into when we came out of the house. But, after about a week, the spiders moved their webs up and to the right about a foot, just enough to let a human pass by without hitting it.
On the plus side, it was surprisingly considerate of them. On the minus side, the spiders are LEARNING. Gigantopithecus. Can Arthritic Joints Really Predict The Weather? The Strangest Animals You've Never Heard Of | I Fucking Love Science. This is a place in Ireland where every 2 years, the stars line up with this trail in mid June. It's called the 'Heaven's Trail'. : pics.
Watch an X-Class Solar Flare Ignite the Skies Over Iceland. RomJonNoMind comments on When you combine a controlled wildfire burn, and a dust devil. p49J3rc.gif (350×190) 5 Insane Myths Your Grandma Told You (Science Says Are True) A sea cave in the Algarve, Portugal [1200x1600] : EarthPorn. Lost River (Indiana) Scientists finally know what created these mysterious rainforest structures!
Long Before Trees Overtook the Land, Earth Was Covered by Giant Mushrooms. You Won't Believe These Patterns Created by Flocks of Birds in Flight. 6 Horrifying Videos That Prove Nature is Trying to Kill Us. The Uncanny Places on Earth That Look Like Alien Worlds. Facebook. Top 10 Adventures You Don't Hear About. How did crows develop a social safety net?
Striking natural landscapes that look like works of fantasy art. The bizarre life forms that cannot be categorized. Bee Orchid. Butterflies remember a mountain that hasn't existed for millennia. BBC Nature - Diving bell spiders use bubble webs 'like gills' Facebook. Things May Be Bad, But at Least Our Streets Don't Burp Mystery Goo - The Daily Show with Jon Stewart - 05/20/13. Weird Places. Facebook. Weird Places: Europe's Dancing, Crooked Forests. Facebook. The mysterious fairy circles of Namibia. Fairy Rings. Facebook. We have absolutely no clue what built this crazy-complex structure. Facebook. Facebook. An eagle, a fox and my cat all getting along fine on my porch. Snake Insistently Plays Dead, Is a Giant Ham About It.