15 Strange Phenomena Found in the Desert

over the years people have discovered strange things happening in our deserts from unusual sink holes swallowing everything in their path to mysteriously balanced rocks join me I'm counting down 15 of the strangest phenomena happening in the desert let's start with number 15 the sailing Stones if you visit California's death valley and see a massive Boulder speeding by chances are that your eyes would not be deceiving you that's because in the racetrack paa area both very small small and very large rocks skid across a dried up lake bed at speeds of up to 5 m per

minute also known as sailing Stones they move easily because the area has a perfect balance of ice water and wind during the cooler winter months so if you ever visit Death Valley and see these rocks moving about you can rest assured everything is perfectly normal number 14 the desert glow if you travel to the Arizona desert at night you can witness a glowing spectacle that's because some local mushroom species light up at night creating a beautiful Eerie Ambiance now if that wasn't cool enough if you shine a UV light at one of the local bark

scorpions they glow a bright blue too due to fluorescent chemicals in their bodies and as such if you want a desert experience that's truly like no other I suggest making it out to the rural areas of this incredible US state number 13 flash floods now while it may seem strange to imagine a sandy desert flush with water it's not uncommon for desert areas to fall victim to flash flooding because desert soils tend to be dry and hard the desert surface doesn't absorb water easily this means that even a small amount of precipitation will run off

the soil instead of soaking into the ground often causing flash floods this is aggravated by the fact that some deserts have steep gullies known as a royos and these act as funnels as flood waters will flow through them and increase the intensity furthermore deserts also tend to get lots of rain all at once months which in turn increases the risk of flash flooding number 12 the Sahara and hurricanes while hurricanes may be very wet and deserts very dry it turns out that the Sahara Desert has an impact on hurricanes in the Caribbean you see in

the Sahara region differences between the hot dry desert in North Africa and the cooler wetter coast of West Africa creates a strong area of high altitude winds these winds are known as the African easterly jet now if they were constant there would be less hurricanes however because the African easterly jet is unstable they often create clusters of thunderstorms when this happens a tropical Cyclone sometimes forms as the major thunderclouds move Westward across the Atlantic and while not all hurricanes in North America form this way most of the major ones do number 11 the eye of

the Sahara located in the middle of the western Sahara desert in the country of morania the eye of the Sahara is a 40 km wide structure that resembles a giant Bullseye known by local nomadic tribes for centuries it was discovered by the Western World in the 1960s after the astronauts of Project Gemini spotted it and began using it as a landmark it certainly looks like it was carved into the ground but the reality is is that it has natural Origins and while it was first believed to be the result of an impact crater studies of

the rock have shown that the erosion was the more likely cause of its creation number 10 dust storms now one of the most common phenomena to happen in the desert of course is the classic dust storm caused when strong winds pick up sand particles from the ground they create thick walls of dust that are as much as 1.6 km High while they are found around the world different variations exist in different localities for example the habo is a form of Sandstorm most often found in the Sahara and sahil in essence it's an tense dust storm

carried by the wind of a weather front creating a massive wave of dust that looks like a Dusty tsunami another form of dust storm is the samum more common in the Arabian Peninsula it's a strong hot dry dust Laden wind so hot in fact that it's not unusual for its temperature to exceed 54° C these types of storms can be very dangerous in fact its name means poison wind in English due to its tendency to cause a sudden onset of heat stroke however one of the worst dust storms in history in terms of economic damage

struck not Africa nor Asia but the United States of America on April 14th of 1935 an estimated 272,000 tons of top soil became displaced in the dust bow region of the United States between Texas Oklahoma Kansas Nebraska Colorado and New Mexico the end result were multiple deaths hundreds of thousands of migrations to California and now a famous song by legendary folk artist Guth three number nine the hum of the desert for the past 800 years humans have heard a mysterious sound in the Sahara Desert often described as a hum or a groan the noise comes

in at a sizable 110 DB making it difficult to ignore yet for centuries nobody knew what it was some thought it was ghosts others demons however with today's scientific advancements we finally discovered the truth the sound is caused by Avalanches sand Avalanches to be exact you see in the late 19th century scientists figured out that the singing sand dunes have three shared characteristics first all of the singing Dunes are composed of dry and well sorted sand second the sound occurs spontaneously during Avalanches on a slip phase and third this is not the only way to

produce sound with this sand about a hundred years later more field observations were conducted and they made an even stranger finding that the sound sound frequency doesn't depend on the dune's size or shape but on the diameter of the grains of sand then in 2010 the laboratory for physical statistics in Paris put it all together using models in their lab they were able to recreate the sound using 10 cm layers made to replicate the layers of sand they found that these layers slide down the Dune one after the other creating air cushions the weight of

the Avalanche eventually pushes the pent up air outwards causing vibrations that create this now famous desert hum given this standard grain influence sound is magnified by the number of layers so it's not hard to see how this strange hum become so loud number eight desertification deserts expand themselves through a process known as desertification and in recent years this process has accelerated desertification occurs when Land's biological potential is diminished or destroyed leading to an increase in desert area now typically it happens when extended periods of drought in arid or semiarid areas sap a soil's productivity until

it becomes proverbially dead most of the time this happens when the vegetation decreases after all vegetation massively decreases the rate of erosion and runoff and so when plants are no longer thriving in the soil it becomes far easier for the productive top soil to blow away or get damaged unfortunately desertification has sharply increased over the past 100 years or so as with many environmental problems humans are most mostly to blame here you see over the past few decades the number of humans that live on the edges of deserts has increased by some accounts 2 billion

people now live in at risk dry lands as this population expansion has happened these areas have become the subject of increased economic exploitation surrounding logging cattle grazing intensive farming and even mining to make matters worse hotter temperatures and changes in traditional rainfall patterns caused by climate change have made these areas more fragile and at risk and while effort such as more sustainable economic activity soil Improvement the planting of more trees and vegetation and better Water Management can all help stop the tide of desertification it's going to take a lot of money and political willpower to

truly stop this destructive force from becoming an increasingly serious problem moving on to number Seven Dust Devils now while dust devils may sound demonic the reality is is that these strange desert phenomena are mostly harmless in short dust devils are strong yet relatively shortlived whirlwinds they're ranging in size from half a meter wide and a few met tall to more than 10 m wide and over a kilometer tall these dust devils form when a pocket of hot air near the surface Rises quickly through the cooler air above it this forms an updraft and in certain

conditions the updraft May begin to rotate as the air rapidly Rises the spinning effect intensifies eventually becoming self- sustaining as this happens dust begins to funnel upwards and when fully formed it's essentially a funnel like chimney that funnels hot air both upwards and in a circle now generally speaking in order for a dust devil to form three things are needed to be present first there has to be flat Sandy conditions and this increases the likelihood of hot air being constant second there is usually either clear skies or light cloudy conditions as there needs to be

significant amounts of solar energy for the hot air near the ground to be hot enough finally there must be little to no wind and a cool atmospheric temperature as the difference between the ground air and higher air must be significant to sustain a dust devil furthermore windy conditions will destabilize the spinning effect of a dust devil causing it to falter as a final note it's worth noting that the Earth isn't the only place where dust devils have been seen that's because NASA's Viking probes have taken pictures of them happening on Mars the only difference is

that according to calculations the Dust Devils on Mars tend to be much larger and far more dangerous than our own in theory this could pose a threat to any human-made technology on the red planet well thankfully this isn't usually the case after all reports seem to indicate that their tendency to blow dust off Rovers has actually been beneficial number six the atakama sinkhole most of the time deserts are pretty stable places however the atakama sinkhole Is An Occurrence that seemed to have come out of nowhere The Story Goes that in August of 2022 a massive

sinkhole opened up in the middle of the atakama desert measuring in at 36 M across and 200 M deep it's absolutely massive for reference this is the size large enough to eat up paris's Arctic Triumph it's located at the alap perosa copper mine yet according to mine officials there has been no impact of personnel equipment or infrastructure the crater seems to have remained stable since it formed as it's only seen very minimal growth yet that doesn't mean that this is the end of the story because to date there seems to be no definite answer on

what actually caused it and what the risks could be going forward Chris suniga thinks he might have the answer the mayor of the nearby city of Tiara amarilo he believes that mining activity likely had something to do with its Creation in a statement he announced quote we ask that the cause be clarified whether the collapse is the product of mining activity or something else end quote David Montenegro who's Chile's National geology and Mining service director seems to have similar suspicions he notes that there's a lot of water at the bottom of the sinkhole and that

this water is likely what caused it coincidentally enough the nearby mine pumps out water as mining waste so therefore pretty high chance that it was something that was causing the sinkhole worse still the sinkhole may not be the end of the story you see According to some scientists this Wastewater May create even more sink holes in the area causing serious risks to health and safety and to date the mine is still not claimed any responsibility and is calling on more studies to be conducted this sinkhole also has some interesting political implications you see the mine

is owned by Mina Ojos del Sal which is itself part of a mining complex that is majority owned by a Canadian company London mining Corporation in addition to this Canadian foreign control Japanese groups control a 20% share of the area so while the sitting president Gabrielle boric has harsh words for the mining company surrounding their overexploitation of the soil it may be difficult for him to do much without causing a diplomatic issue furthermore at the time three public institutions were set to file legal actions against the company yet to date there no public information regarding

the outcomes of these inquiries so only time will tell whether or not this Situation's going to remain stable or become a whole lot worse number five a mirage if you're ever stuck in the desert you'll almost certainly be on the lookout for water yet finding this water may be difficult for reasons that go beyond the dry climate that's because while you're on your search there's a good chance that your eyes are going to deceive you time and time again people have fallen for an iCal illusion known as a mirage now in essence mirages look like

massive pools of water in the distance however these are pools that simply don't exist and they form due to the interaction between the Earth and the sky more specifically mirages are the result of differences in air density refracting light in a desert it's common for the air near the ground to be much hotter than the surrounding air which makes it less dense than the surrounding air this in turn changes how light travels through it causing the light that was traveling downwards to be bent back upwards almost as though the hot air layer at the ground

were a mirror since the light comes downward from the sky and since the sky in the desert is usually clear that mirror light is now coming up from the ground that reflects the blue sky above it since the image also shimmers from convection currents in the air and since you usually see a large mass of shimmering blue when there's a body of water mirages typically look like a distant Pond or lake as you might imagine deserts aren't the only places where mirages can occur they often happen on high ways where they confuse drivers into believing

that there's water ahead of them that doesn't exist they also can sometimes involve other objects one famous example of this is in the so-called Fatam Morana it translates from Italian to English as Morgan the fairy this is in reference to a mirage over the Italian straight of mesina however the term feta Morana is used to explain all sorts of different mirages now it appears that the fetto Morana is the most common in the desert at Sea and in polar regions and that the objects it tends to project include things such as ships and false shorelines

well in any case wall mirages and fetor ganas may be pretty cool they can be pretty dangerous while driving so if conditions are especially hot and humid I'd suggest waiting until things get a little bit cooler and darker before hitting the road conversely in the winter time if you're driving in an area with a lot of ice and especially on a sunny day I'd suggest taking similar precautions number four desert locusts of all the pests that live on planet Earth Earth one of the most well documented are desert locusts recorded in writing since Biblical times

these little critters are known for descending on mass and eating up massive swads of crops as they migrate now in terms of their DNA desert locusts are a type of grasshopper however one of their main differences is that their ability to change their behavior and habits you see most of the time locusts are harmless solitary insects that feed on local vegetation however when conditions are just right such as prolonged periods of drought or heavy rains it changes the landscape and they begin to breed and release pheromones those pheromones attract them to each other and physically

change their bodies while they are normally small and short- ringed these pheromones help them become larger and long-winged and soon these now social and gregarious insects create massive swarms that go on the hunt for food some swarms have as many as 80 million members and each Locust is capable of eating its body weight in plants per day for reference this means that on a daily basis a swarm can eat enough food to feed 35,000 people allowing them to completely wreak havoc and worse still a new generation of locusts emerges every 8 weeks and each generation

on average creates a 20-fold increase in the population the growing swarms then spread to the new areas disrupting the food supply upending livelihoods and creating a massive destructive cycle in terms of financials it should come as little surprise that locusts are nothing short of devast devastating based on figures from the World Bank a 2020 swarm in East Africa and Yemen amounted to as much as $8.5 billion doll in Damages now it should be noted that because Locust swarms are not constant and don't last forever all conditions if they're stable they're far less likely to swarm

and once conditions become less favorable they tend to stop swarming to make matters worse the areas where locusts swarm are often remote having little infrastructure and are located across several countries making it difficult to bring resources out and coordinate across jurisdictions worse still sometimes these areas are also in Conflict zones making it simply too unsafe for Aid workers to come in and help thus until a root caused is fixed we'll likely continue to have to pump more and more money into swarm prevention and eradication efforts number three Oasis it is nearly impossible for most humans

to eek out a living in the desert however with the help of a strange phenomenon known as an oasis this is in fact possible by definition an oasis is an otherwise dry and arid area made fertile by a source of fresh water now usually this is only possible with the help of a natural spring or other underground water source in settlements that rely on an oasis it's not uncommon for this water to be tapped and sometimes the wells that do so are centuries old and have been diligently maintained the massive Sahara Desert is a hot

spot for oases after all some of the world's largest supplies of underground water exist beneath the desert and in total this water supply supports about 90 major oases in the region and while the Sahara is the world's largest desert after all it's about the size of the continental United States the fact that these oases exist allowed nomadic communities to subsist by traveling from oases to oases in fact to this day nomadic tribes continue to travel in this region now due to their fertility oases have also traditionally been used for farming in most Oasis Farm setups

the date palm is the first tree to be planted these make up the outer layer and due to their size and shape they're perfect for both blocking out polluting Sands blown by the Desert Winds and providing shade for other crops these other crops tend to be grown within an inner layer and usually consist of trees with apricots dates figs olives and peaches now in terms of examples there are plenty of famous oases out there alhassa Saudi Arabia is especially notable it's been an important farming area for the Arabian Peninsula for thousands of years and to

this day it Contin used to be a local leader in producing dates rice corn sheep cattle and eggs the hakina Oasis is another important example one of the only true desert oases in the Americas it can be found in the southwestern Peru's atakama Desert located within massive sand dunes it's the subject of a popular Incan Legend The Story Goes that once upon a time a hunter caught a beautiful Incan princess Walking In The Sand Dunes near present day Haka as she walked and admired herself in a mirror she was carrying her eyes caught his gaze

shocked the princess began to flee and in the process she dropped the mirror it exploded into shards and this broken glass became a tiny pool in the desert consuming the princess and turning her into a mermaid well you won't see any mermaids out there today what you can see is the oasis's permanent population of about 115 people and the tens of thousands of wealthy tourists it hosts each year number two sand dunes when you think of a sandun chances are that a large immovable wave of sand is what comes to mind however the reality is

is that sand dunes are some of the most dynamic things in the desert as they often move and are usually teeming with life now to understand sand dunes you first need to understand sand sand forms from the erosion of rocks and as rocks break down the resulting material is a fine dust that's transported by the wind water or ice to a new destination usually it ends up in one of three places the sea the beach or or inside a sand dune when it comes to the composition of this sand the most common ingredient is silica

or quartz and while its makeup varies from place to place the color and texture of a grain of sand usually provides Clues as to its local and how far it's traveled generally speaking the smaller the grain the farther it's probably come and the easier it will move around in the wind now in short when the sand piles up it creates a sand dune more specifically in order for this pile up to happen there must be a large amount of loose sand in the area with little vegetation a wind or Breeze to move the grains of

sand and an obstacle that causes the sand to lose momentum and settle however there's just one problem when the sand is moved by wind as is most common today it usually only gets a few centimeters off the ground as such sand dunes tend to form in one of three ways the first is saltation which occurs when sand grains bounce along and stack on top of one another this accounts for 95% of the movement this second is creep movement and this happens when the grains collide with other grains such as clay or gravel causing them to

move this accounts for about 4% of the movement and the third is when the sand grains get blown High into the air and then settle down this accounts for about 1% of sand movement also the types of wind can have an impact on Dune size stronger winds tend to make taller Dunes gentler winds tend to spread them out if the direction of the wind is generally the same over the years Dunes gradually shift in that direction additionally any vegetation that crops up will stabilize the Dune and prevent it from shifting now while it may seem

unlikely it turns out that shifting piles of sand also support thriving ecosystems for example there are several types of desert and dune plants that store rainwater in their leaves and stems and have strong anchor roots to stay attached to the dunes several species of snakes and lizards also call Sand Dunes home borrowing into them through a process known as sand swimming now if that wasn't cool enough thousands of types of beetles moths wasps flies crickets and spiders all live inside them too and strangely enough even some rodents are known to thrive inside of sand dunes

now while all of this may make sand dunes sound like interesting ecological Havens they can pose a risk to human settlements for example in China there are reports of sand dunes advancing upon some Villages at the rate of 20 m per year with methods such as fencing and dowsing the sand in crude oil has often been used to stop the movement these sand dunes are still quite a headache to deal with number one precariously balanced rocks deserts tend to have their fair share of rocks however few seem to defy the laws of physics as much

as precariously balanced rocks do known as pbrs for short several categories exist however by definition they are large rocks balancing on top of smaller rocks now while there are versions of these rocks that are made by artists as a form of expression there are thousands of examples out there that are not made by human hands but by the forces of nature it's these strange rocks that not only look really cool but can also teach us an awful lot about geography and geology for instance in Colorado Springs there's a 290 milliony old red Sandstone Boulder known

as Balanced Rock naturally perched on a slope ledge this 600 ton monstrosity looks like it's about to topple over yet miraculously it stays in place an even more impressive example exists in Goblin Valley State Park in Utah where there are thousands thousands of pbrs known as hudo these are mushroom-shaped rock Pinnacles that are often several meters tall and are usually very oddly shaped now not all pbrs are made equally some were created thousands of years ago when retreating glaciers plac them where they are today others are the lovech child of erosion which carved away at

large Rock faces until they became the chiseled pbrs that they are today some are also not pbrs in a strictly definitional sense while many of these structures appear to be balanced they may be connected internally by a slim spine of rock this makes them far sturdier than they appear to be now Beyond being pretty pbrs are also important due to their scientific value you see their crazy positions mean that they will inevitably fall at some point due to either erosion changes in weight distribution or an earthquake or other natural disaster as a result the fact

that one exists at all tells a scientist that their location has not experienced a major disturbance event for as long as the rock formations existed this can help these scientists deter and other facts about the area's geography however one pervading issue with pbrs is that it's often not nature but humans that lead to their ultimate demise that's because there's some people out there that think pushing them over is entertaining not realizing or caring that this has implications on scientific research and while jail sentences can be imposed if people are caught doing it in the ACT

their location in rural areas makes enforcement difficult so as a result people pushing over pbrs will likely continue Contin to be a problem for years it's also worth noting that weirdly enough there's a certain set of balancing rocks that made a massive Splash in the media about 20 years ago you see in the mid 2000s Zimbabwe's Skyhigh inflation rate made them the poster child of the dangers of a poorly run economy and when I say Skyhigh I mean it thanks to the decision to overprint money to pay debts at the crisis of the Peaks inflation

reaching a staggering 79 billion per per month while year-over-year inflation reached an astounding 89 sextilion per between the beginning and end of 2008 it was out of this inflation that ridiculous inventions such as the $100 trillion bill had to be created and on all of these bills one could find of all things a stack of rocks but what exactly was that stack of rocks well it turns out it was something pretty significant it's known as The Balancing rocks they're located in a national park and were chosen as a symbol of development and Environmental Protection following

the country's independence from the white ruled Rhodesia and while the Environmental Protection piece may still Reign true today the development piece has been lacking after all its economic woes took a toll in the country and while it's currently on the upswing it's still got a long way to go in any case if you want a 100 trillion doll note with the balancing rocks for yourself they can be had on eBay for about 150 us bucks a pop making them an interesting curiosity item thanks for watching Everybody I'll see you next time thank you to our

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