These Places Shouldn’t Exist On Earth But They Damn Well DO! - Part 2

there are some places in our world that are wonderfully weird like area 51 the bermuda triangle or florida but there are others that in comparison seem completely impossible i'm talking about places where waterfalls exist under water locations where lightning strikes more than a million times a year and even parts of the ocean that literally catch fire have i peaked your curiosity then get ready to take a tour of even more places that shouldn't exist on our planet but somehow still do [Music] the everlasting lightning storm in venezuela something strange hangs in the air over the mouth of the great karatumbo river as it flows into the massive lake maracaibo a strange static electricity starts to build in the atmosphere a huge lightning storm follows soon after producing as many as 280 terrifying lightning strikes per hour this might look like any other thunderstorm but this is just one of up to 300 nights per year lightning rages over karatumbo every 365 days as many as 1. 2 million lightning discharges light up the region's sky that's so much that just 10 minutes of katatumbo's lightning could power 100 million light bulbs enough to illuminate all of south america the storm which the locals call rey lampango del caratombo has raged for as long as anyone can remember but how is it possible for a lightning storm to occur in the same exact place night after night for decades experts came up with countless theories from uranium deposits in the bedrock attracting lightning strikes to the influence of methane from nearby oil fields rumors even began to spread that the caratombo produces a special type of lightning some of which is colored because of the presence of methane but these myths simply aren't true and supposed images of colorful strikes like this are just a product of photoshop it wasn't until 2015 that an answer was finally found when scientists discovered lake maracaibo's basin is surrounded by mountains that trap warm winds coming off the caribbean sea when these winds collide with the cool air coming down from the andes mountains they're forced up condensing into a stream of never-ending thunderclouds while that's a pretty succinct explanation it doesn't make the reylampango del caratumbo any less electrifying to witness the ocean's on fire on july 2 2021 a gas pipe running along the seabed ruptured in the gulf of mexico just off the yucatan peninsula the break sent a stream of gas bubbling up to the water's surface but as emergency services began circling the incident they spotted something truly terrifying the ocean wasn't just bubbling with gas it was boiling with bright orange flames the water was literally on fire but surely that's not possible right i mean how can water catch fire and if water can catch fire why were those boats using more water to try and put it out well the methane and other wet gas components like ethane and propane released from the ruptured pipe are all highly flammable all it would have taken was a single spark to set it alight which could have traveled up the continuous stream of gas during the explosive breach so it's not actually the water that's on fire but the gas escaping to the surface the constant stream of gas from below then kept feeding the fire resulting in the hellish hot spot seen in that footage fortunately the fire was extinguished a few hours later workers used nitrogen to starve the area of oxygen which fire needs in order to burn a bit like using a huge fire extinguisher now i know scientists are saying that the oceans are warming up but this is just ridiculous a sea of stars with its white sands blue waters and sunny skies the maldives islands are pretty enchanting but during the summer months the island of vadu becomes even more magical waves lapping the shores are fringed with electric neon blue sparkles that make it look like the night sky is breaking on the beaches this breathtaking phenomenon is known as the sea of stars and while it does occur in the summer months scientists can't currently predict what specific conditions cause the lapping light show what they do know is that it's not actually stars in the sea it's a bioluminescent photoplankton called lincoludinium polydrum they produce light using a chemical called lucifern which is activated as a stress response to sudden movement in the water as a defense mechanism this acts a bit like a burglar alarm aiming to scare away any predators that get too close or attract even bigger predators to eat its predator while it might scare off sea-based predators but that beautiful blue glow is guaranteed to attract tourists now if you can't afford to take a worldwide trip to see these mind-blowing sights for yourself i have a much cheaper option for you just hit those like and subscribe buttons down below with just one click i'll provide you with first class tours of some of the most impossible astonishing and amazing attractions on earth hey and all from the comfort of your own home all done great now where are we headed to next bizarre blue hole the coastline of belize looks like something straight out of a dream until you spot the giant dark spot on the shore that's ominous enough to give you nightmares despite what it looks like this isn't the eye of some giant sea monster this is dean's blue hole a terrifying water-filled sinkhole though the light blue shores seem shallow and the hole in the middle appears small it's actually the entrance to an underground cavern that's 330 feet in diameter sinking a mind-blowing 663 feet down that's so deep that if you dropped a 60-story building in there it would just about reach the water's surface while the idea of such a bizarre underwater bottleneck would have most swimmers running to the shore free divers relish the challenges of diving down into the darkness without any breathing equipment they fearlessly leap off the lip of the hole and dive into the depths below though no one has ever hit the bottom one free diver has swum down an astonishing 331 feet into this hole on a single breath as badass as that guy makes it look i just unconsciously reached for my water wings but how can such a cavernous naturally bottlenecked cave exist well scientists believe it formed during past ice ages when the sea level was around 400 feet lower than it is today deep groundwater gradually dissolved the surrounding limestone until a small section of the ceiling collapsed forming a massive bottlenecked cavern then as the sea levels rose they filled the hole with water after that explanation i'm not sure whether i'm more amazed or terrified amazing mount rorima we all know that mountains form when two tectonic plates smash together buckling upwards into big jagged spires of rock right well if that's the case then how do you explain the perfectly flat plateau of mount rorima aptly called a tabletop mountain this amazing ridge of rock forms the highest point of the pacharaima mountain chain in south america its super massive plateau is a staggering 20 square miles in size and juts up more than 9 200 feet into the air its elevation is so sudden that explorers researchers and even low-lying clouds have problems trying to scale its peak but if mountains are formed by buckling upwards how come rorima is flat that's because rorima didn't come up from the ground researchers believe that this square cut mountain started forming when sand settled and became rock aka sandstone at the bottom of ancient oceans some 2 billion years ago for perspective the earth is only about 4. 5 billion years old so this really took some time after this sandstone formed the oceans receded and erosion took over chiseling down the areas around the plateau and creating a giant shelf of super ancient rock like that wasn't mind-blowing enough there are thousands of animal and plant species on the plateau that aren't found anywhere else in the world could this place be any more unique if it tried monstrous movila cave in 1986 researcher christian lascu was employed to help find the perfect location for a thermal power station in southeastern romania during his surveys he identified an almost 800 foot long cave which astonishingly didn't link to the surface it was an underground cavern that formed some 5.

5 million years ago completely separated from the terrestrial world called the movila cave the air down there is different containing less than half the oxygen than what we breathe on the surface in place of oxygen its internal atmosphere is rich in hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide making it a poisonous place for anything that breathes life shouldn't exist there and yet somehow it does scientists exploring the cave were shocked to discover 48 nightmarish species including spiders scorpions and centipedes 33 of which aren't seen anywhere else on the entire planet but how is it possible for life to have developed inside a sealed toxic atmosphere well life here depends on these strange foamy mats that coat the walls groundwater and floors unlike the process of photosynthesis on the earth's surface where sunlight is converted into energy these mats are made of bacteria that take their energy from a process called chemosynthesis this is when sulfur methane and ammonium from groundwater oxidizes providing a foul yet bacteria-rich food source for all the freaky underground animals somehow the more i learn about this impossible place the more i wish i could forget grand prismatic spring you usually find rainbows arching across the sky but in america's yellowstone national park there's one laid out in the ground this is the grand prismatic spring found in yellowstone's midway geyser basin it's the third largest natural hot spring in the world and at 370 feet in diameter it's bigger than an entire football field but even though it's not the largest hot spring in the world it's certainly the most colorful the vibrant blues greens yellows and oranges aren't from the surrounding rocks but from a variety of heat-loving bacteria as the geothermally heated water erupts from the center of the spring it can reach a spicy 189 degrees fahrenheit and this is too hot to sustain most life which leaves the middle of the spring a beautifully clear blue color but as it spreads out the water cools creating concentric circles of different bacteria that thrive at different temperatures ranging from 131 to 189 degrees fahrenheit i suppose this makes it something of a living thermometer as amazing as it is to observe it's mind-blowing to think that if the erupting water were just a few degrees hotter these incredible colors wouldn't exist at all so either this crazily colorful spring is one incredibly natural coincidence her mother nature is just showing off under waterfall the island of mauritius is home to some stunning sights like its beautiful beaches and its famous seven colored sands but the attraction that sets this little island apart from the rest of the world is the presence of an unbelievable underwater waterfall just off its southwesternmost point this impossible sub-aquatic cascade of water appears to plunge down into the depths of the ocean even though we're seeing it with our own eyes an underwater waterfall like this defies everything we know about physics or at least it would if it were real despite all the photos videos and even satellite images of it in motion this is actually the most impressive optical illusion in the natural world sands on the shores are being driven by ocean currents off the mass currents plateau and off into the sea leaving these curtailing trails that resemble the movements of a waterfall from the right angle anyone else feel like they just got pranked real good by mother nature moving mountains did you know that most mountains even ones as large as mount everest change position every year only by a few millimeters as tectonic plates down below slowly grind together and gradually move layers of the earth's crust but over in tanzania there are mountains that somehow move a phenomenal 55 feet every year now they're known as the moving mountains but looking at them here i'm not too sure about that last part of their name a more accurate title would be the shifting sand dunes which are found in tanzania's ingarongaro conservation area however these 33 foot high and 330 foot wide mounds don't move like normal sand dunes either as you can see the sand is weirdly dark compared to the landscape around it this is because it contains a strangely large amount of magnetized volcanic ash the dunes magnetism is so strong that if you throw a handful of it into the air it apparently clumps back together and rejoins the dune so as strong winds drag the dune in different directions the sand sticks together leaving the same crescent shapes dotted over the landscape but there's almost no other magnetic ash in the area so where exactly did these bizarre magnetic dunes come from well if we zoom out and follow their drag marks we can see that they've trailed down at least 10 miles to the edge of the now extinct ingarongaro volcano it's believed to have erupted around 2. 5 million years ago but even today ash from its eruption is still rolling across the landscape and talk about leaving your mark on the world an island of ice if you've seen the titanic you'll know that icebergs can grow to be big and solid enough to take down entire ships that one in particular was estimated to be a whopping 100 feet high and 400 feet long but alarming lumps that size are forgive me for this just the tip of the iceberg in february 2021 research teams studying the burnt ice shelf in antarctica witnessed a mind-bending event a gigantic crack suddenly snaked through the 500-foot thick ice shelf it came almost a decade after scientists detected a growth of vast cracks in the ice but what happened next took even the most experienced scientists by surprise instead of the ice breaking off in small sections a staggering 490 square mile iceberg snapped off in one for perspective this menacing mound of ice is bigger than the entire city of los angeles since it snapped off in february research teams have been keeping a close eye on this island-sized iceberg naming it a74 icebergs naturally break off from antarctica into the ocean as the seasons change but one this size is something else it's a gigantic city-sized floating island how impossibly large does that sound currently it hasn't drifted too far from its antarctic location even so i don't think any ships will risk traveling through those waters anytime soon phenomenal fingal's cave scotland is famous for its world-class whiskies but it's also home to a site that's so strange you'll wonder if it's a drunken hallucination even if you're sober this is the isle of staffa an island with the plateau that appears to be impossibly perched on top of a jungle of hexagonal shaped stilts but it wasn't man that propped up this lump of land entirely volcanic in origin the hexagonal stilts are actually columns of basalt that were created some 50 million years ago as the island was being formed a layer of very smooth well-mixed lava began to cool evenly probably thanks to its exposure to the sea and as it cooled each part of the lava contracted and shrank into itself pulling the lava into evenly spaced centers this created fractured chunks of cooled lava that are all impeccably hexagonal this is known as columnar jointing the most fascinating example of which can be found inside one of the island's otherworldly caverns this is fingal's cave a sea cave that opens like a mouth lined with hexagonal basalt teeth into the heart of the island in reality though the cave was formed when a tilt in tectonic pressure forced a crack to open in the otherwise impenetrable basalt armor the sea has slowly eroded parts of the cave within producing a perfect path around the edge couldn't look like it was more perfectly built for tourists if it tried desert boat graveyard in the far reaches of northern uzbekistan lies monak a city that really shouldn't exist even though it's in the middle of a desert countless abandoned boats and ships can be found scattered throughout the place rusted beyond repair the presence of these old boats in such a sun-scorched land is enough to make anyone scratch their heads but if we rewind 100 years moonok's situation begins to make sense believe it or not back then moonok was a bustling fishing port it was perfectly situated on the shores of this salty aral sea the fourth largest salt sea in the world many other port towns grew around it but in the 1960s a series of soviet dams began diverting the sea's two main water sources the amudarya and the seerdaria rivers this extensive irrigation greatly reduced the amount of water flowing into the arrow and by the year 2000 it had lost a staggering 75 percent of its volume a quick look at google maps now shows the faint silhouette of where the sea was and what dismal amount remains today the devastating dams put ten thousand fishermen out of work leaving many with no choice but to abandon their boats and find work elsewhere thousands of people still call the city home but without the vital errol sea it's likely monok will one day be as abandoned as its ships the brutal bolton strid if i ask you to imagine the most dangerous stretch of water in the world what comes to mind maybe some white water rapids perhaps a 1000 foot waterfall or even one of those deep dark blue holes well what about astrid more specifically the boltonstrid in yorkshire england at a glance it looks like a lovely little babbling brook that's probably a few feet deep at best you must be mad to think there was any danger that could compare to a raging waterfall here right wrong just 30 feet upstream the wide rushing river wharf barrels through this exact brook so where does this immense amount of water go exactly well instead of remaining wide the bottleneck of the brook forces the water to flow vertically as it travels down a tight natural shaft in the rocks years of erosion have deepened the channel further down so while the strid may look like a little stream from the banks there's a river worth of force flowing beneath the surface and it's this deceptive looking surface that's dragged down many happy-go-lucky wanderers over the years it's so dangerous that local records indicate it's claimed the lives of every single person who's ever set foot in it knowing that i i think i'll go find a bridge thanks ridiculous rocks unless you're an avid geologist you might not think that rocks are all that interesting however there's one mega rock that appears to defy nature and physics in equal measure and just by looking at it you can see why this is the al-nasla rock formation of tama saudi arabia even though it looks like someone has carved this thing straight down the middle with some sort of ultra precise laser that super straight slit is astonishingly all natural but that's not its only amazing feature if you look at the base two small pedestals are all that separate the bizarre boulders from the ground i mean the entire thing looks like it was built in minecraft rather than in real life so how exactly was this precariously balanced rock split so perfectly without toppling over well leading geology theories suggest that the split was likely caused by some sort of huge tectonic motion thousands of years ago the ground shifted underneath one half of the rock causing it to split in two another theory is that this rock was once part of an underground fault line as the material surrounding faults tends to be weaker and erodes more easily from forces like water and wind while this makes a lot of sense it's not enough for some non-geologists who claim that the perfect split could only have been achieved by let me make sure i get this right aliens with laser beams i don't know about you but i think aliens probably have more intelligent things to do than sawing a desert rock in half with that being said what do you think caused this incredible crack let me know down in the comments a peculiar pond the color of ponds is usually limited to deep blue murky green or dole brown though there's one incredibly colored exception to this rule over in hokkaido japan here the aptly named blue pond is such a rare vibrant shade of blue that it looks like it's made from kool-aid and just like kool-aid there's nothing natural about it it was artificially created in 1988 after a dam was built on the ba river this was to stop volcanic mud flows from the erupting mount takachi from reaching the nearby town however the reason why the color is so vibrant is something of a mystery scientists believe it has something to do with the high concentration of aluminum hydroxide in the water which doesn't dissolve easily and so reflects the sunlight in a unique way this means depending on the weather the water can appear bright blue or jade green sulfur in the water from a nearby volcano also bleaches the rocks lining the bottom giving the pond a kind of blank canvas that only increases the vibrancy of the incredible coloring i don't know about you but this pond really blew me away the eye of the sahara the sahara desert is the largest hot desert in the entire world with a total area of 3.