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Earth never stops surprising us. Every corner of the
planet offers some sort of natural peculiarity with an explanation that
makes us wish we'd studied harder in junior high Earth science class.
Some of these sites are challenging to get to; others are busy tourist
destinations. They keep natural scientists searching for answers and the
rest of us astounded by the secrets and mysteries the world continues to
reveal.
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Blood Falls, Antarctica
Most people won't see Blood Falls in person, but even in photographs,
the sight is arresting: a blood-red waterfall staining the snow-white
face of Taylor Glacier. Glaciologists and microbiologists have sought to
determine what causes the mysterious red flow. They've concluded that
the source is a subterranean lake rich in the iron that gives the water
its red hue. Stranger still, recent research has revealed microorganisms
living 1,300 feet beneath the ice, sustained by the iron and sulfur in
the water. |
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Magnetic Hill, Moncton, New Brunswick
What could possibly cause an automobile to roll backward uphill without
power? A magnetic force from within the Earth? Something even more
fantastic? Since the 1930s, when the phenomenon of Magnetic Hill was
discovered (and almost immediately promoted as a tourist attraction),
people have been trying to figure out its riddle. |
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Surtsey, Iceland
When people try to convince you there's nothing new under the sun,
direct them to the Icelandic island of Surtsey. Before 1963, it didn't
exist. Then, an underwater volcano in the Westman Islands (Vestmannaeyjar)
erupted, and when the activity settled down in 1967, what remained was
an island where no island had been before. |
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Longyearbyen, Norway
From April 20 to August 23, the sun never sets over Svalbard, a
Norwegian archipelago that lies north of Greenland in the Arctic Sea.
The phenomenon plays havoc with everyone's body clocks. Is it noon? Is
it midnight? After a day or two, it's hard to tell. |
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Racetrack Playa, Death Valley, California
How ordinary stones manage to "sail" over the surface of Racetrack Playa
in Death Valley National Park is a mystery people have tried to solve
since 1915, when a prospector and his wife noticed tracks that seemed to
indicate that the stones had somehow traveled across the dry earth.
Short of cosmic intervention, the stones required terrestrial forces to
move them.
But what forces? The current prevailing theory about the "sailing
stones" of Racetrack Playa, presented by a team of physicists in 2011,
involves ice that forms around the stones, causing them to move and to
leave a trail in their wake. Many visitors still hope for a more
mystical explanation.
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Eternal Flame Falls, Orchard Park, New York
Behind the cascade of a small waterfall in the Shale Creek Preserve
section of Chestnut Ridge Park in suburban Buffalo, New York, you might
see what appears to be an optical illusion: a flickering golden flame.
Actually, you'll smell it before you see it, and amazingly, it's real,
fueled by what geologists call a macroseep of natural gas from the Earth
below.
A geological fault in the shale allows about 1 kilogram of methane gas
per day to escape to the surface, where, at some point, possibly the
early 20th century, a visitor had the idea to set it alight. The water
occasionally extinguishes the flame, but there's always another hiker
with a lighter to reignite it.
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Old Faithful, Yellowstone National Park
Yellowstone National Park claims the highest concentration of geysers of
any place on Earth. Geysers are hot springs with plumbing challenges
that result in eruptions. More than 300 can be found throughout the
park, and none is more famous than Old Faithful. In fact, Old Faithful
is the reason Yellowstone was designated a National Park -- the first in
the United States -- in 1872.
Its name comes from the perceived regularity of its eruptions, which
occur every 55 to 120 minutes and last for two to five minutes. The
spectacular eruptions remain a source of fascination for the more than
3.5 million people who visit Yellowstone each year. The fact that the
eruptions aren't quite as regular as they might seem -- and that the
mean eruption interval seems to be lengthening -- keeps geologists
fascinated, too.
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Relampago del Catatumbo, Ologa, Venezuela
Thanks to its humidity, its elevation and the clash of winds from the
mountains and the sea, the southwestern corner of Lake Maracaibo in
Venezuela has the world's highest frequency of lightning activity (250
flashes per square kilometer per year).
More than 200 nights per year, with peaks in May and October, lightning
flashes fill the sky -- sometimes 25 or more flashes per minute. To put
that in perspective: The National Weather Service classifies anything
over 12 strikes per minute as "excessive." Named for the Catatumbo
River, which flows from Colombia in to Lake Maracaibo, the Relampago de
Catatumbo, or Catatumbo Lighting, has become a highlight for travelers
who spend their nights wide awake and wide-eyed watching the spectacle.
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