7 incredible natural phenomena , you've probably Never Seen!

[Güven]

Venezuela's Everlasting Storm
The mysterious "Relámpago del Catatumbo" (Catatumbo lightning) is a unique natural phenomenon in the world. Located on the mouth of the Catatumbo river at Lake Maracaibo (Venezuela), the phenomenon is a cloud-to-cloud lightning that forms a voltage arc more than five kilometre high during 140 to 160 nights a year, 10 hours a night, and as many as 280 times an hour. This almost permanent storm occurs over the marshlands where the Catatumbo River feeds into Lake Maracaibo and it is considered the greatest single generator of ozone in the planet, judging from the intensity of the cloud-to-cloud discharge and great frequency. The area sees an estimated 1,176,000 electrical discharges per year, with an intensity of up to 400,000 amperes, and visible up to 400 km away. This is the reason why the storm is also known as the Maracaibo Beacon as light has been used for navigation by ships for ages.



The collision with the winds coming from the Andes Mountains causes the storms and associated lightning, a result of electrical discharges through ionised gases, specifically the methane created by the decomposition of organic matter in the marshes. Being lighter than air, the gas rises up to the clouds, feeding the storms. Some local environmentalists hope to put the area under the protection of UNESCO, as it is an exceptional phenomenon, the greatest source of its type for regenerating the planet's ozone layer.

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Honduras' Rain of Fishes




The Rain of Fish is common in Honduran Folklore. It occurs in the Departamento de Yoro, between the months of May and July. Witnesses of this phenomenon state that it begins with a dark cloud in the sky followed by lightning, thunder, strong winds and heavy rain for 2 to 3 hours. Once the rain has stopped, hundreds of living fish are found on the ground. People take the fish home to cook and eat them. Since 1998 a festival known as "Festival de la Lluvia de Peces" (Rain of Fish Festival) is celebrated every year in the city of Yoro, Departamento de Yoro, Honduras.




Morocco's Climbing Goats



Goats on trees are found mostly only in Morocco. The goats climb them because they like to eat the fruit of the argan tree, which is similar to an olive. Farmers actually follow the herds of goats as they move from tree to tree. Not because it is so strange to see goats in trees and the farmers like to point and stare, but because the fruit of the tree has a nut inside, which the goats can't digest, so they spit it up or excrete it which the farmers collect. The nut contains 1-3 kernels, which can be ground to make argan oil used in cooking and cosmetics. This oil has been collected by the people of the region for hundreds of years, but like many wild and useful things these days, the argan tree is slowly disappearing due to over-harvesting for the tree's wood and overgrazing by goats.



As a result a group of people and organizations have banded together to try to save the tree. To do so one of the primary locations where the trees grow has been declared a biosphere preserve. It was also decided that by making the world aware of the oil, it's great taste and supposed anti-aging properties, would create a demand for it. However, the people who planned to market the oil could not envision people wanting to put an oil on their food or their face that was collected from goat excrement. As a result, a campaign is being led to ban grazing on the trees by goats during certain parts of the year to allow the fruit to ripen and fall off on its own. The fruit is then collected and turned into oil by oil cooperatives. So far, this arrangement seems to be working.




Kerala's (extraterrestrial?) Red Rain



From 25 July to 23 September 2001, red rain sporadically fell on the southern Indian state of Kerala. Heavy downpours occurred in which the rain was coloured red, staining clothes with an appearance similar to that of blood. Yellow, green, and black rain was also reported.

It was initially suspected that the rains were coloured by fallout from a hypothetical meteor burst, but a study commissioned by the Government of India found that the rains had been coloured by airborne spores from a locally prolific terrestrial alga. Then in early 2006, the coloured rains of Kerala suddenly rose to worldwide attention after media reports of a conjecture that the coloured particles were extraterrestrial cells, proposed by Godfrey Louis and Santhosh Kumar of the Mahatma Gandhi University in Kottayam. The terrestrial origins of the solid material in the red rain were supported by an investigation into the isotopic ratios of nitrogen and carbon.




Brazilian's longest wave on the Earth



Twice a year, between the months of February and March, the Atlantic Ocean waters roll up the Amazon river, in Brazil, generating the longest wave on the Earth. The phenomenon, known as the Pororoca, is caused by the tides of the Atlantic Ocean wich meet the mouth of the river. This tidal bore generates waves up to 12 feet high which can last for over half an hour.




The name "Pororoca" comes from the indigenous Tupi language, where it translates into "great destructive noise". The wave can be heard about 30 minutes before its arrival, and it's so powerful that it can destroy anything, including trees, local houses and all kind of animals.


The wave has become popular with surfers. Since 1999, an annual championship has been held in São Domingos do Capim. However, surfing the Pororoca is especially dangerous, as the water contains a significant amount of debris from the margins of the river (often, entire trees). The record that we could find for surfing the longest distance on the Pororoca was set by Picuruta Salazar, a brazilian surfer who, in 2003, managed to ride the wave for 37 minutes and travel 12.5 kilometers. A surfer's dream: riding an almost never-ending wave.

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**Close Music

Denmark's Black Sun



During spring in Denmark, at approximately one half an hour before sunset, flocks of more than a million European starlings (sturnus vulgaris) gather from all corners to join in the incredible formations shown above. This phenomenon is called Black Sun (in Denmark), and can be witnessed in early spring throughout the marshlands of western Denmark, from March through to the middle of April. The starlings migrate from the south and spend the day in the meadows gathering food, sleeping in the reeds during the night.

Idaho's Fire Rainbow



The atmospheric phenomenon known as a circumhorizon(tal) arc, or "Fire rainbow", appears when the sun is high in the sky (i.e., higher than 58° above the horizon), and its light passes through diaphanous, high-altitude cirrus clouds made up of hexagonal plate crystals. Sunlight entering the crystals' vertical side faces and leaving through their bottom faces is refracted (as through a prism) and separated into an array of visible colors. When the plate crystals in cirrus clouds are aligned optimally (i.e., with their faces parallel to the ground), the resulting display is a brilliant spectrum of colors reminiscent of a rainbow. The example shown above was captured on camera as it hung for about an hour across a several-hundred square mile area of sky above northern Idaho (near the Washington border) on 3 June 2006.

[Nájlá]

subhanallah.
i find this bottom one quite funny.

Morocco's Climbing Goats

[Güven]

^lol Yeah , How Did They Get There ?!!

[Nájlá]

i dont know.

but are they alive or dead?

[Güven]

^Alive Ofcourse ( i think)

[Nájlá]

some one probley hanged them up.

i feel sorry for them.

[*~Sofia~*]

Salams,

Nice pics, Jazakhallah for sharing. I like the fire rainbow one and found the Honduras rain of fishes quite amazing.. I would love to witness that one day inshallah.
As for the goats, sister najla, no need to feel sorry for the goaties.. they climb the trees coz they love the fruit which grows on the trees. They have to get to them somehow

Nice post brother, jazakhallah.

[Güven]

Wa iyaaki Sis
Yeah I would Love To see A Rain Of Fish lol

['Abd-al Latif]

Morocco's Climbing Goats



Goats on trees are found mostly only in Morocco. The goats climb them because they like to eat the fruit of the argan tree, which is similar to an olive. Farmers actually follow the herds of goats as they move from tree to tree. Not because it is so strange to see goats in trees and the farmers like to point and stare, but because the fruit of the tree has a nut inside, which the goats can't digest, so they spit it up or excrete it which the farmers collect. The nut contains 1-3 kernels, which can be ground to make argan oil used in cooking and cosmetics. This oil has been collected by the people of the region for hundreds of years, but like many wild and useful things these days, the argan tree is slowly disappearing due to over-harvesting for the tree's wood and overgrazing by goats.



As a result a group of people and organizations have banded together to try to save the tree. To do so one of the primary locations where the trees grow has been declared a biosphere preserve. It was also decided that by making the world aware of the oil, it's great taste and supposed anti-aging properties, would create a demand for it. However, the people who planned to market the oil could not envision people wanting to put an oil on their food or their face that was collected from goat excrement. As a result, a campaign is being led to ban grazing on the trees by goats during certain parts of the year to allow the fruit to ripen and fall off on its own. The fruit is then collected and turned into oil by oil cooperatives. So far, this arrangement seems to be working.

looooooool this is amazing and so hilarious at the same time.

[Orn]

so the pic and the goats are real afterall lol!

[Tania]

The goats seems to have lot of fun in the tress but too bad the people want to stop them. I would leave them to enjoy the fruits

[Woodrow]

Yes those goats are alive. One of my fondest memories of Morocco. When I first got to Morocco, I tought the trees were olive trees and could not understand why people let the goats eat all of the olives.

[Güven]

Wait There is More ...




Curtain of Fire, Hawaii – Located in volcanic Hawaii, Extreme pressure gushing out of a volcano, a fissure vent, and tons and tons of deadly lava, maybe something even hotter than Damien Rice’s “Volcano” — that’s what the Curtain of Fire is. Imagine a geyser, but instead of one hole to burst out of, think, a whole line — it makes for some spectacular display of the awesome power hidden beneath areas with volcanic activity — and seeing it gobble up a tree just adds to the excitement even more.





Death Valley Moving Rocks – Much like crop circles, these mysterious rocks up in Death Valley, California are being debated upon. Are they man-made occurrences? Does someone move them via air at night? Do the rocks come alive when no one’s looking? Are strange energies pulling the rocks underground? Are there sand people sand-submarines that use these rocks as periscopes? However they happen, these rocks show off a trail, with no external footprints of who, or what pushed them. The thing is, the local authorities have prohibited people from actually going near the rocks, to prevent them from being stolen or moved.





Blue Holes in the Bahamas – We’ve all heard about black holes, but what the heck are blue holes??? Blue holes are, according to Wikipedia, “oughly circular, steep-walled depressions, and so named for the dramatic contrast between the dark blue, deep waters of their depths and the lighter blue of the shallows around them. Their water circulation is poor, and they are commonly anoxic below a certain depth; this environment is unfavorable for most sea life, but nonetheless can support large numbers of bacteria.” What are they exactly? Almost-perfectly circle holes in the water that is noticeably bluer than the rest of the water surrounding it. These deep water caves are said to hold details of almost a hundred million years of history.




Banaue Rice Terraces – Located in the Philippines, these layered rice plantings have been built by the native Ifugaos and are estimated to be 2000 years old. Using minimal equipment, they’ve managed to create a primitive irrigation system that waters the crops from the top to the bottom by utilizing the rainforest areas located on top.



The Matterhorn, the Swiss Alps – This mountain may not be the highest, but there’s something special about it. It is immediately recognizable by its outline. It seems like a mountain that has edges. Four sides make it seem like a pyramid. But wait, there’s more! There’s an interesting story behind it too, from the website I found this info from, it says, that “About 40 million years ago, the Alps were created. When two sections of the Earth’s crust crashed into each other, it threw up rocks into a chain of buckled, folded mountains.” Hence, the origin of this unique natural splendor.

[Nájlá]

wow subhanallah.

erm at the rock wow its just scary a rock moving by its self.
subhanallah.

[north_malaysian]

Wait There is More ...

How deep is that hole...I hope it doesnt suck ppl or boats..

I knew about this since I was a kid...if I'm not mistaken the Indonesians have this kind of paddy field too... in Malaysian language we call it as "Padi Huma"

[Tania]

The moving rocks...its so hard to believe it.
Before i knew only about the Bermude triangle which i think its still a mystery.

[Güven]

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

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.







Sinkholes

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.

[truemuslim]

this one looks like the "upper level" fell on it






Subhanallah...
what is around the world that we havent even noticed yet! well at least i havent noticed yet.
jazakallah khair bro for sharing these!

[north_malaysian]

Imagine if you're driving at nite....

[Tania]

How can they live there knowing in any minute the rocks can be errodated and their house to move in a sinkhole. Also, i think its expensive to fill up that holes