The Great Blue Hole is a large underwater sinkhole off the coast of Belize that’s more than 1,000 feet wide and 400 feet deep. It formed as a limestone cave system during the last ice age when sea levels were lower, and the caves flooded as the planet warmed and sea levels rose. Jacques-Yves Cousteau made the site famous in 1971 when he declared it one of the top 10 scuba diving sites in the world, and today it is a World Heritage Site.
13 amazing sinkholes
Posts tagged "geology"
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Source mothernaturenetwork
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Reed Flute Cave
The famous Reed Flute Cave is a landmark and tourist attraction in Guilin, Guangxi, China. The cave itself is over 180 million years old. It is a natural limestone cave with multicolored lighting and has been one of Guilin’s most interesting attractions for over 1200 years. The cave got its name from the type of reed growing outside, which can be made into melodious flutes. Reed Flute Cave is filled with a large number of stalactites, stalagmites and rock formations in weird and wonderful shapes. Inside, there are more than 70 inscriptions written in ink, which can be dated back as far as 792 AD in the Tang Dynasty.
Source quantumaniac -
A SPOT satellite image shows a smoke plume coming from Mount Etna, which occupies the eastern part of the Italian island of Sicily. Mount Etna is Europe’s largest and most active volcano. Credit: Planet Observer / SPL / Barcroft Media. (via Telegraph)
(via itsfullofstars)
Source telegraph.co.uk -
A Berry Bowl of Martian Spherules
How were these unusual Martian spherules created? Thousands of unusual gray spherules, made of iron and rock but dubbed blueberries, were found embedded in and surrounding rocks near the landing site of the robot Opportunity rover on Mars. To help investigate their origin, Opportunity found a surface dubbed the Berry Bowl with an indentation that was rich in the Martian orbs. The Berry Bowl is pictured above, imaged during rover’s 48th Sol on Mars. The average diameter of a blueberry is only about 4 millimeters. By analyzing a circular patch in the rock surface to the left of the densest patch of spherules, Opportunity obtained data showing that the underlying rock has a much different composition than the hematite rich blueberries. This information contributes to the growing consensus is that these small, strange, gray orbs were slowly deposited from a bath of dirty water.
Credit: Mars Exploration Rover Mission, JPL, NASA
(via ikenbot)
Source ikenbot -
Volcanic Eruption: Major Types
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.Hawaiian- Quiet runny lava that flow easily downhill.
Strombolian- Violent and nosier than Hawaiian eruptions. Half-molten lumps of lava are thrown in short distances.
Vulcanian- Thick magma; large pieces of lava thrown greater distances than Strombolian eruptions. This type of eruption can destroy parts of the volcano.
Vesuvian- More explosive eruptions. Can destroy huge parts of volcano’s cone. Ashes and rock blown out for many hours.
Plinian- Very violent eruptions. Large portions of volcano collapse or blown apart.
Peléean- Eruptions expel large quantities of nuées ardentes or glowing, hot clouds of solid fragments that sweep down volcanoes on a rush of heated gases.
(via ohmysagan)
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Ol Doinyo Lengai, Tanzania. Marco Fulle.
Source fuckyeahvolcanoes -
A layer of low clouds covers the alpine valleys of northern Italy, just south of Lake Como. The clouds are just dense enough to hide uniformly the valley and also filter the artificial lights below like they were an opaque blanket. Above the layer, moonlight and high cirrus clouds make the night less dark. You can easily recognize the round shape of Lago di Olginate and the lights of the villages all around its banks.
Source ohscience
