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The world around is filled with spectacular, sometimes even alien-looking natural phenomena that can come in the form of odd shaped clouds, unexplained balls of electric current, fish who make art, and glowing beaches.
There is not a more complete archive of earth’s fascinating natural phenomena than that which you are about to experience. Enjoy the beauty, destruction and infinite awes of planet earth.
Lenticular Clouds
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Stationary lens shaped clouds that form in the troposphere. Normally perpendicular in alignment to the wind direction. Because of their shape, they have been offered as an explanation for some UFO sightings.
Blood Falls
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Blood Falls is an outflow of an iron oxide tainted plume of saltwater, flowing from the tongue of Taylor Glacier onto the ice covered surface of West Lake Bonney in East Antarctica. Iron-rich hypersaline water sporadically emerges from small fissures in the ice cascades. The reddish deposit was first discovered in 1911.
Blue Lava
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At Indonesia’s Kawah Ijen Volcano, otherwise normal (red/orange) colored lava is accompanied by extremely high quantities of sulfuric gases. The sulfur burns readily when it is ignited by the lava and exposed to fresh air. The bright blue color of the sulfurs flames give the appearance of blue lava.
Brinicles
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A Brinicle is an ice stalactite, it forms beneath sea ice when a flow of extremely cold, saline water is introduced to an area of ocean water. Under the proper conditions a Brinicle can reach down to the sea floor.
Cocooned Trees
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Flood waters in Pakistan forced spiders to dwell in trees for an extended period of time to escape from being submerged. As a result the trees have become completely entangled in spider webs. Britain’s department for international development reports that the areas where the spiders have occupied the trees have seen far fewer cases of malaria spreading mosquitoes.
Columnar Basalt
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During the cooling of a thick lava flow, contractual joints or fractures form. If a flow cools relatively rapidly, significant contraction forces build up. The lava flow can not easily accommodate shrinking in the horizontal direction, and the extensive fracture network that develops results in the formation of columns.
Christmas Island Red Crab Migration
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The Christmas Island Red Crab is well known for its annual migration to the sea to lay their eggs in the ocean. It’s been estimated that 43.7 million adult red crabs once lived on Christmas Island, a relatively small area. For most of the year, red crabs can be found within the forests, however each year they migrate to the coast to breed.
Puffer Fish Circles
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Underwater cameras observed an unlikely artist creating these works of art. Puffer fish use their fins to carve the circular ridges. Attracted by the grooves and ridges, female Puffer fish would find their way to the male Puffer fish that created the masterpiece, made with them, and laid their eggs. The male Puffer also cracks small seashells into the structure, which are said to have vital nutrients for the newborns as they hatch.
The Door To Hell
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A 230 foot wide crater in the middle of the desert near the village of Deweze is the result of a team of Soviet scientists who set up a drilling platform to look for natural gas reserves. The rig collapsed, and the researchers set the crater on fire out of fear of spreading poisonous methane gas. They hoped the crater would burn out in a few hours, that was more than 40 years ago.