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Watch the rare
wonders of nature…….
The classical natural wonders are
huge and hard to miss - vast canyons, giant mountains and the like. Many
of the most fantastic natural phenomena, however, are also least easy to
spot. Some are incredibly rare while others are located in hard-to-reach
parts of the planet. From moving rocks to mammatus clouds and red tides
to fire rainbows, here are seven of the most spectacular phenomenal wonders
of the natural world.
1) Sailing Stones
The mysterious moving stones of
the packed-mud desert of Death Valley have been a center of scientific
controversy for decades. Rocks weighing up to hundreds of pounds have been
known to move up to hundreds of yards at a time. Some scientists have proposed
that a combination of strong winds and surface ice account for these movements.
However, this theory does not explain evidence of different rocks starting
side by side and moving at different rates and in disparate directions.
Moreover, the physics calculations do not fully support this theory as
wind speeds of hundreds of miles per hour would be needed to move some
of the stones.
2) Columnar Basalt
When a thick lava flow cools it
contracts vertically but cracks perpendicular to its directional flow with
remarkable geometric regularity - in most cases forming a regular grid
of remarkable hexagonal extrusions that almost appear to be made by man.
One of the most famous such examples is the Giant's Causeway on the coast
of Ireland (shown above) though the largest and most widely recognized
would be Devil's Tower in Wyoming. Basalt also forms different but equally
fascinating ways when eruptions are exposed to air or water.
3) Blue Holes
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Blue holes are giant and sudden
drops in underwater elevation that get their name from the dark and foreboding
blue tone they exhibit when viewed from above in relationship to surrounding
waters. They can be hundreds of feet deep and while divers are able to
explore some of them they are largely devoid of oxygen that would support
sea life due to poor water circulation - leaving them eerily empty. Some
blue holes, however, contain ancient fossil remains that have been discovered,
preserved in their depths.
4) Red Tides
Red tides are also known as algal
blooms - sudden influxes of massive amounts of colored single-cell algae
that can convert entire areas of an ocean or beach into a blood red color.
While some of these can be relatively harmless, others can be harbingers
of deadly toxins that cause the deaths of fish, birds and marine mammals.
In some cases, even humans have been harmed by red tides though no human
exposure are known to have been fatal. While they can be fatal, the constituent
phytoplankton in ride tides are not harmful in small numbers.
5) Ice Circles
While many see these apparently
perfect ice circles as worthy of conspiracy theorizing, scientists generally
accept that they are formed by eddies in the water that spin a sizable
piece of ice in a circular motion. As a result of this rotation, other
pieces of ice and flotsam wear relatively evenly at the edges of the ice
until it slowly forms into an essentially ideal circle. Ice circles have
been seen with diameters of over 500 feet and can also at times be found
in clusters and groups at different sizes as shown above.
6) Mammatus Clouds
True to their ominous appearance,
mammatus clouds are often harbingers of a coming storm or other extreme
weather system. Typically composed primarily of ice, they can extend for
hundreds of miles in each direction and individual formations can remain
visibly static for ten to fifteen minutes at a time. While they may appear
foreboding they are merely the messengers - appearing around, before or
even after severe weather.
7) Fire Rainbows
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