2. Nature has helped produce stunning wonders around the world.
Some of these natural phenomena are so bizarre that it can be
tough to believe they exist, but the breathtaking and eerie wonders
reveal nature's immense power.
From a bright pink lake in Australia to the Northern Lights, here
are some of the world's most fascinating natural marvels.
3. Puerto Rico and the Maldives, bioluminescent phytoplankton create stunning shimmering waters.
4. Morning Glory clouds are very rare types of clouds. They can stretch 1,000 kilometers long and occur at altitudes of up to 2 km. Although similar clouds are seen in many
places worldwide, the ones over Burketown, Queensland in Australia occur predictably every spring.
5. In Morocco, goats climb up argan trees
in order to eat their fruit. The site is not
uncommon to locals, but travelers are
often shocked to see the bizarre
phenomenon.
6. Tanzania’s Lake Natron: a salt lake fed by mineral-rich hot springs that is the only regular breeding area in East Africa for the 2.5 million lesser flamingoes.
7. For most of the year, the red land crabs of Christmas Island, in Australia, reside in the forests. But around November, around 120 million of them emerge from the forest,
crossing the area’s roads and heading towards the Indian Ocean to release their eggs at the high tide.
8.
9. Rainbow eucalyptus aka
rainbow gum: patches of
outer bark are shed annually
at different times, darkening
and maturing to give blue,
purple, orange and then
maroon tones.
13. After a flood hit the Pakistani village of Sindh in
2010, millions of spiders crawled to safety in the
trees and spun their webs. The result led to
fascinating web-cocooned trees.
15. A fallstreak hole, also known as a punch hole cloud, is a large circular or elliptical gap, that can appear in cirrocumulous or altocumulous clouds. Such holes are formed when
the water temperature in the clouds is below freezing but the water has not frozen yet due to the lack of icenucleation particles.
16. Alberta, Canada, is filled with frozen
bubbles. The bubbles are the result of
methane gas released by the area's
plants and animals.
17. One of nature’s most spectacular displays,
the Northern Lights are formed from
electrically charged particles from the sun
that combine with different gases to
produce a multicolored light show. Alaska,
Iceland, and northern Scandinavia.
18. Every summer, around 1.5 million bats
take flight over the skies of Austin,
Texas, producing an awe-inspiring nature
show.
19. Dirty thunderstorms, aka volcanic lightning, occur when lightning is produced in a volcanic plume.
20. The Richat Structure, also known as the
Eye of the Sahara, stands as a large
bulls’-eye in the middle of Africa's
Sahara desert.
21. About 40,000 massive basalt columns
have formed the stunning Giant's
Causeway, located on the Antrim
plateau in Northern Ireland.
22. Kawah Ijen volcano, located in East Java,
Indonesia, is famous for its bright blue fire
that streams down the mountain in the
evenings.
23. When the surface of the sea freezes—such as around the north and south poles—it does so in a way that forces pockets of especially cold and salty seawater to gather on the
underside of the ice. This mixture of brine is denser than the seawater below it, and as a result it tends to slowly sink to the bottom.
24. For years, large stones have
been moving across California’s
Racetrack Playa of Death Valley
National Park.
25. Monarch butterflies are the only butterflies who can make a two-way migration. Every year, they take to the skies from eastern North America to the Sierra Madre
Mountains of Mexico (during the end of October) and from western North America to California.
26. The naturally terraced thermal springs of
Hierapolis-Pamukkale in the province of
Denizli in western Turkey
29. Fire whirls are also known as fire tornado or fire devil. They are unusual phenomena in which the fires obtain vertical vortices and create an effect that looks like tornado.
30. This is a natural phenomenon which usually happens only in arid regions like Dubai along with other middle eastern regions.
31. Frost flowers: ice crystals commonly found growing on young sea ice and thin lake ice in extremely cold, calm conditions nearing -22C or -7.6F.
34. Named after the river on which it takes place every year from late spring to early summer, the Blooming of the Tisza is an incredible natural phenomenon that attracts
tourists from all around the world to Hungary. As millions of long-tailed mayflies reach sexual maturity, they shed their larvae skin and burst from the river in search of a mate
before dying just a few hours later.
36. Some of the most incredible natural phenomena lie in the migration patterns of different animals.
37. Scientists explain that the foam is created by impurities in the ocean, such as salts, chemicals, dead plants, decomposed fish and excretions from seaweed.
38. The remarkable ice spikes are called penitentes because of
their similarity to white-hooded monks in procession.
39. Circumhorizontal arcs, or Fire Rainbows,
form when sunlight enters ice crystals in
the high levels of clouds, splitting them
into an array of colors.
42. The flamingo population has been adversely affected in recent years by suspected heavy metal poisoning, and the lake is currently under threat by a proposed soda ash
plant by Tata Chemicals.
43. The Door to Hell, a gas fire in Turkmenistan accidentally ignited by scientists in 1971 and still burning.
44. The Giant’s Causeway, Northern Ireland: an
area of about 40,000 interlocking basalt
columns, the result of an ancient volcanic
eruption.
45. The Namib Sand Sea, located in Africa on the coast of Namibia’s Namid-
Naukluft Park, is the only coastal desert in the world.