Racetrack Playa, Death Valley California. Death Valley in

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Racetrack Playa, Death Valley California. Death Valley in California is home to rocks that seem to move on their own. Pebbles to Boulders are found scattered around the “racetrack” with trails that turn, loop, and zigzag behind them. Some of the Rocks move, others don’t. It was thought for some time that magnetic forces were the cause of the phenomena. Scientists now believe that the cause is wind. When there has been enough water to soak the flat clay, and temperatures lower below freezing, it causes tiny ice crystals to form. When the surface of a rock is slick enough in these conditions wind will actually have enough power to move them around, leaving a trail.

The Richat Structure, or “Eye of the Sahara.”

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This spectacular landform in Mauritania in the southwestern part of the Sahara desert is so huge with a diameter of 30 miles that it is visible from space. The formation was originally thought to be caused by a meteorite impact but now geologists believe it is a product of uplift and erosion. The cause of its circular shape is still a mystery.

The driest place on Earth, Atacama Desert.

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The Atacama Desert receives less than 1mm of rain per year, and at one point not a single drop of precipitation landed on its dry surface for 400 years. It’s caused by the Andes rainshadow; meaning that the trade winds moving east along South America lose all moisture when they slam against the steep slopes of the Andes Mountains. The Atacama Desert is found nestled up against the western slopes of the mountain range. Interestingly, several thousand miles south the winds change direction, and the deserts are then found on the eastern side of the Andes, such as the Monte Desert in Argentina.

The Naica Mine, Cave of Crystals, Mexico.

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These caverns found in a mine in Chihuahua Mexicoare home to some of the largest crystals ever discovered and are an impressive sight. The crystals are made mainly of Gypsum, and under these extremely rare conditions were allowed to grow unimpeded.

The Curtain of Fire, Hawaii.

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These amazing lava fountains erupted during the first stage of the Puu Oo eruption in January, 1983. The lava created a wall of magma 100-160 feet high along a fissure along the Eastern Rift of Mount Kilauea.

Sinkholes

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What could be more terrifying than the earth opening itself and swallowing your entire home? Among other places, this can become a reality in the Southeastern United States. Sinkholes are found in regions of Karst Topography, where pockets of loose sedimentary rock found under the surface can be eroded by groundwater, leaving behind caverns and caves, some of which collapse.

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Stone Forest, Southwest China.

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The Shilin (Chinese for stone forest) is an impressive example of karst topography. The rocks are made of limestone and are formed by water percolating the ground’s surface and eroding away everything but the pillars.

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Brandberg Massif — Namibia

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Namibia’s highest point looks like a regular grouping of rocky hills from ground level. But from a bird’s eye view (see photo, above) these rocks form a stunning 15km (9 mile) wide circular splotch on the barren landscape of southern Africa. Technically, Brandberg is not a mountain but a a granite intrusionformed by magma rising up through a single point in the earth’s crust. Most intrusions harden into a tall, relatively narrow cylindrical shape. What’s unusual—and amazing—about the Brandberg Massif is how very, well, massive it is.

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The Great Blue Hole — Belize

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The Great Blue Hole, bracketed by the Lighthouse Reef 100 km (60 miles) from Belize City in the Caribbean Sea, is right up there with the Similan Islands as one of our all-time favorite scuba diving locations. This is not the world’s only “blue hole” (eg. a deep mass of water formed by a vertical coral cave) but, at 400 meters across and 145 meters (475 feet) deep, it is the largest. It also happens to be one of the most perfectly circular.

Diamond Mine — Mirny, Russia

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Add this to our It’s So Bad It’s Good category: Eastern Siberia’s grotesquely enormous Mirny Diamond Mine.

Mirny’s diameter of 1.2km (.75 miles) means that, technically, it is only the second largest open mine in the world (after Bingham Canyon, below). But the mine’s depth of 525 meters, combined with its location at the edge of a 40,000 person town, makes it the world’s most ominous looking. As you can see in the photos it appears almost like the very planet is swallowing the town of Mirny. In fact, this is not far from the reality of it. Originally the mine was small and far from the town. Then the mine started producing many more diamonds than expected, which not only increased the size of the mine but also the size of the town (as workers moved in).

Bingham Canyon Mine — Utah, USA

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The Bingham Canyon mine is over .75 miles (1.2 km) deep and 2.5 miles (4 km) wide and so, for the moment at least, it beats out Mirny (above) for the title of the world’s largest man made hole.

Bingham Canyon is superior to Mirny in another important way too: It is much more travel friendly. Although still a working mine, Bingham Canyon was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1966 and has doubled as a tourist attraction since. Every year from April through October the visitor center there is open for curious travelers. Inside the center are interactive exhibits, mineral samples and a 16-minute video overview of the mine. But the center’s coolest feature is the superb viewing platform from which it is oddly compelling to watch the goings on below. Though the machinery that operates in the mine is massive in comparison to, say, your car, it appears tiny relative to the enormous mine. It is hard to look down at the scene and not imagine that God is a 4 year old boy playing around with his toy trucks.

The sinkholes of Sarisariñama are one of these geologic oddities, like the Chocolate

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Hills of the Philippines, that leave scientists puzzled about how they formed. In the case of Sarisariñama they haven’t been puzzled for long—these strange sinkholes were first “discovered” in 1974. Some of the holes are not only perfectly round but, curiously, have a depth that almost exactly matches the hole’s diameter. Sarisariñama is a very remote place, is home to several plant and animal species found nowhere else on earth, and at the time of writing was not officially open to tourism.

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Barringer Meteorite Crater — Arizona, USA

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Really massive meteors that strike Earth—such as the Chicxulub meteor that hit in the Yucatán, Mexico and is thought to have caused mass extinctions—create such devastation that they don’t leave a crater so much as they alter the geology and geography of an entire region. What made the Barringer meteor so tourist friendly (if that’s a term that can be used to describe meteors) is that it was polite enough to fall in a flat and featureless area of Arizona, big enough to create a nice looking crater yet small enough to, you know, not wipe out all of humanity.

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Wave Rock in Hyden, Western Australia was pretty cool.

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This incredible rock formation, named obviously because of its wave like shape, is approximately 15 meters (about 50 feet) tall and 110 meters (360 feet) long. The shape was caused by subsurface erosion of the granite rock. After the rock was exposed, algae began to grow on its face, causing the darker streaks that add to the look of this rock.

Hell Gate in Uzbekistan.

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This site is truly amazing, with an incredible back story as well. 35 years ago, geologists were drilling for gas outside the small town of Darvaz. The drilling equipment unexpectedly broke through a cavern and the entire thing caved in. The gas that the geologists were looking for began to seep through the ground, and to make sure that nobody was harmed by the potentially poisonous gas, they lit it on fire. It has been burning ever since with no end in sight.

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Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia.

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The Bay of Fundy is not so much a marvel of geology as it a total coincidence. That doesnt mean its easy to understand how it works. Oceanographers say that the huge tidal range, which can fluctuate an entire 17 merers (thats about 55 feet) is a result of the perfect timing of normal tides, and the amount of time a wave takes to move from the opening of the bay to the end. One thing I find funny about the Bay of Fundy is that although it has these huge tides, people still have docks with boats on them, even though half way through the day any boat will be grounded!

Devils Tower in Wyoming.

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This huge rock, as there is no other way to describe it, stands tall in comparison to its surroundings. Although still disputed, the prevailing (and this writers favorite) theory is that the formation is a volcanic plug of a long extinct volcano. Magma moved up the inside of the volcano, but before it could erupt, the volcano died and the magma was left sitting inside. The hard igneous rock that the magma formed is more resiliant to erosion that the surroundig volcano which has long ago been washed away. The Devils Tower hexagonal pattern is the result of the cooling of magma. When magma cools, it shrinks, causing the cracks and pattern. This is called Jointing. The volacano that the Devils Tower was originally formed in would have been massive.

Giants Causeway in Northern Ireland.

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Legend has it that the Giants Causeway was built by an Irish giant as a bridge to Scotland so he could fight his rival giant there. But really, the Giants Causeway was formed in much the same way as the Devils Tower and Pilot Rock. The rock is from an ancient volcanic eruption, and the cooling of the magma formed the hexagonal pillars, a phenomena called “jointing”. The Giants Causeway covers a huge area that contains about 40,000 almost perfect hexagonal columns.

In the 1930s, workers from the United Fruit Company, clearing land in the Diquis

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Valley of Costa Rica, began unearthing large numbers of almost perfectly round stone spheres. The largest of these apparently man-made balls is over two meters in diameter and weighs over 16 tons. No one is sure exactly when or how they were made, or by whom, or for what reason, but, according to University of Kansas archeologist John Hoopes, “The balls were most likely made by reducing round boulders to a spherical shape through a combination of controlled fracture, pecking, and grinding.”

The world’s longest exposed mountain range is the Andes. They extend as a

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continuous chain of highland along the West Coast of South America. The range is over 7,000 km (4,300 mi) long, 200 km (120 mi) to 700 km (430 mi) wide (widest between 18° to 20°S latitude), and of an average height of about 4,000 m (13,000 ft).

The Rocky Mountains, otherwise called the Rockies are an important mountain

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range of North America. They stretch more than 4,800 kilometers from the northernmost part of British Columbia in Canada to New Mexico in the United States. Mount Elbert in Colorado at 14,440 feet above sea level is the range’s highest peak.

The Himalayas or The Himalayan Range means the abode of snow. It is a mountain

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range in Asia and separates the Indian sub continent from the Tibetan plateau. The Himalayas also comprise The karakoram, the Hindu Kush and the smaller mountain ranges that extend out from the Pamir Knot. The Himalayas has some the world’s highest peaks namely Mount Everest and K2.

On the Antarctic continent the three biggest mountain ranges are the Transantarctic

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Mountains (abbreviated TAM), the East Antarctic Ranges and the West Antarctic Ranges. The Transantarctic Mountains extends with some interruptions from Cape Adare in Northern Victoria Land to Coats Land. These mountains divide East and West Antarctica.

Sutherland Falls This waterfall is located in New Zealand is a popular tourist

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attraction. The height of this waterfall is about 580 meters and is considered to be the most beautiful waterfall in the country.

Langfoss. This waterfall is found in Hordaland, Norway and its cumulative height is

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about 612 meters. The width of this cascade is great and it falls into the Åkra Fjord. The waterfall is gorgeous and is said to be the most beautiful in the world.

Mardalsfossen is a waterfall which is found in Norway and its cumulative height is

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about 656 meters. Despite protests, this waterfall became a part of project that was looking into the benefits of hydroelectricity. If one stands across the Eikedalsvatnet lake, it is possible to the see the entire length of the waterfall.

Yosemite Falls is found in California in the United States of America and is

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considered to be among the tallest waterfalls in the Northern part of the country. The height of Yosemite Falls has been estimated at 739 meters. It is a very popular tourist attraction and has been said to be a crown jewel of the Yosemite National Park.

The Catarata De Yumbilla is found in Cuispes in Peru and was first discovered in

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the year 2006. The height of this waterfall has been estimated at 896 meters, making it the second tallest waterfall in the world. It is tucked in between the Andes Mountains and is undoubtedly beautiful.

Angel Falls is also known as Salto Ángel and is situated in Canaima in Venezuela. It

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is the tallest waterfall in the world and its height is about 979 meters or 3,212 feet. This waterfall cascades over an isolated plateau called Auyantepui and its tip is usually covered by clouds.

Tessellated Pavement, Tasmania

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The isthmus connecting the Tasman Peninsula to Tasmania is covered in a pattern of regular rectangular saltwater pools. Although these depressions look distinctly man made, they are in fact the result of a rare type of natural erosion. Occurring near sea coasts on flat rock which has broken into regular blocks, the effect is known as “tessellated pavement” for its resemblance to Roman mosaic floors.

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Fort Rock, Oregon, US

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Fort Rock is a volcanic landmark called a tuff ring, located on an Ice age lake bed in north Lake County. It was created when basalt magma rose to the surface and encountered the wet muds of a lake bottom. Powered by a jet of steam, molten basalt was blown into the air, creating a fountain of hot lava particles and frothy ash. The pieces and blobs of hot lava and ash rained down around the vent and formed a saucer-shaped ring of lapilli tuff and volcanic ash sitting like an island in the lake waters.

The Natural Bridge, US

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Virginia’s Natural Bridge is an enormous natural limestone arch. Carved by Cedar Creek over thousands of years, the arch was created when an ancient cavern collapsed leaving only the bridge.

Krishna's Butterball, Mahabalipuram

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Mamallapuram (aka Mahabalipuram) a tourist town 60 km south of Chennai, India is famous for its stone carvings which dates back to the Tamil Pallava dynasty in the 7th-9th century. These structures carved out of granite rocks, are among the oldest existing examples of Dravidian (South Indian) architecture.

One of the most famous rock here, created by nature and not by any human hand, is a precariously balanced natural rock known as Krishna's Butterball. This giant rock is perched on a stony mound seemingly in defiance of the law of gravity. Reportedly the kings in ancient times had tried to dislodge it using elephants but failed.

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Balanced Rock is one of the most popular features of Arches National Park, situated

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in Utah, United States. It is located next to the park's main road, at about 9 miles from the park entrance.

The total height of Balanced Rock is about 39 m, with the balancing rock rising 16.75 m above the base. The big rock on top is the size of three school buses. Until recently, Balanced Rock had a companion - a similar, but much smaller balanced rock named "Chip Off The Old Block", which fell during the winter of 1975/1976.

This balanced rock is located in the Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs,

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Colorado. It is easily accessible by paved road and is a popular spot for tourist photography.

The Balancing Rock in St. Mary's Bay on Long Island, Nova Scotia seems to defy

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gravity as it stands on its end at the edge of the rock below. The 9 meter high column of rock is attached by two small sections with a gap between that you can look through.

Many curious rock formations are scattered over 50 acres on Brimham Moor. One

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of them is the Idol Rock precariously balanced on top of a smaller rock. The rocks eroded by water, glaciation and wind, have taken amazing shapes. Many of the formations suggest all manner of things, including elephants, hippos, bears, and mushrooms.

Mushroom Rock State Park, located in the Smoky Hills region of Kansas, is noted

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for its mushroom rock formations. These rocks were formed through a process of nonuniform erosion and weathering in which a hard mass of Dakota Sandstone resisted erosion while the underlying softer stone weathered away, forming a "mushroom" shape. There are two mushrooms and a giant shoe rock, as well as numerous other rock formations in the park.

Kjeragbolten is a massive 5 cubic meter boulder wedged in to a crevasse on the

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edge of the Kjerag mountain in Lysefjorden, Norway. The block of stone is suspended 984 meter above the deep abyss. Despite its impressive appearance, it is easily accessible on foot without any special equipment. The whole of Kjerag mountain is a popular hiking area, and Kjeragbolten is a favorite photo spot.

40 kilometers south of Oamaru, New Zealand, is a beach where dozens of 40 kilometers south of Oamaru, New Zealand, is a beach where dozens of calcium carbonate spheres have fallen out of a cliff face and rolled down into the water. They range in size from small nodules to giant balls over 4 meters in diameter. Said to be the result of slow growth around a nucleus, the spheres are referred to as "concretions" and are thought to be the result of tiny amounts of mineral precipitation taking place over 65 million years.

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Moqui Marbles are created over time by water that permeates sandstone layers and dissolves pockets to which later, iron oxides such as hematite, goethite and limonite are dissolves pockets to which later, iron oxides such as hematite, goethite and limonite are deposited, eventually seeping into the porosity. Formed millions of years ago, the sandstone which imprisons the iron node eventually weathers away, revealing the iron concretions as seen in the image above. Someday, these too shall break away and fall the valley floor below.

Read more: http://www.bukisa.com/articles/369084_moqui-marbles-a-natural-notable-meteor-wrong#ixzz1vtE9FeTp

Moqui Marbles were formed by flowing water which dissolved the surrounding material over millions of years. This is interesting to geologists and geophysicists of NASA because concretions exactly like these have been found upon the planet Mars by the Opportunity rover.

Read more: http://www.bukisa.com/articles/369084_moqui-marbles-a-natural-notable-meteor-wrong#ixzz1vtEVQQ7b

Termed 'blueberries' is used for the Martian variety, the images sent back by Opportunity show that those hematite concretions look very much like tiny blueberries in a muffin. It was theorized that water flowed on Mars millions of years ago, conditions which mirrored what also occurred on the Colorado Plateau during Earth's pre-history. If these concretion formations of iron oxide occurred on Earth under wetter conditions, similar geologic formations under similar conditions during the infancy of Mars should produce similar results. This assumption (and hope) proved to be true.

Read more: http://www.bukisa.com/articles/369084_moqui-marbles-a-natural-notable-meteor-wrong#ixzz1vtEdV3Eb

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http://www.austinriba.com/2008/04/amazing-geological-oddities/

http://travel.spotcoolstuff.com/amazing-views/7-circular-geological-oddities

http://www.austinriba.com/2008/09/amazing-geological-oddities-part-ii/

http://top-10-list.org/2010/06/25/top-ten-amazing-geological-oddities/

http://atlasobscura.com/place/costa-rican-stone-spheres

http://top-10-list.org/2009/10/05/worlds-ten-mountain-ranges/

http://top-10-list.org/2010/04/17/top-ten-tallest-waterfalls/

http://atlasobscura.com/place/oklo-reactor

http://morfis.wordpress.com/2010/11/29/10-geological-oddities/

http://armchairtravelogue.blogspot.com/2010/02/amazingly-balanced-rocks-around-world.html

http://www.amusingplanet.com/2012/04/10-famous-balancing-rocks-around-world.html

http://www.sailblogs.com/member/trim50/?xjMsgID=158144

http://www.bukisa.com/articles/369084_moqui-marbles-a-natural-notable-meteor-wrong

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