{ Amazing } Strange Wonders Of The World

Strange Wonders Of The World

Phenomenal Wonders Of The Natural World

WebEcoist and Environmental Oddities

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.

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.

Blue Holes

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.

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.

Ice Circles