Wonders of nature!
The most attractive places on earth are certainly mountains and oceans. However, sometimes at least the popularity is won by cavities filled with water or not. Here are collected the most incredible holes on the surface of the earth, for various reasons have gained fame.
1. The Great Blue Hole, Belize
One of the most popular dive sites for recreational diving is the Great Blue Hole, made famous by the French explorer Jacques-Yves Cousteau. It was he who first descended to the bottom of the hollow, measuring its depth (120 m) and discovering at depth a system of caves with massive stalactites. Practically a round hole with a diameter of more than 300 m is a karst funnel formed during the last ice age. Here there are no corals and aggressive species of sharks, so, despite the relative distance from civilization (96 km to the nearest city), the Great Blue Hole is especially popular among diving enthusiasts.
2. Hole Glory, Monticello Dam, California
The Monticello dam, built on the site of the eponymous flooded city, is famous not for its size, but first of all for the world's largest funnel for dumping water. Having a diameter of 21 m, it passes 1370 cubic meters per second, allowing to maintain the optimum water level during the rainy season. At the dam all conceivable security measures are taken to prevent people from finding themselves near the funnel.
3. Karst funnel of the Dead Sea, Israel
The population growth and development of the chemical industry are the main reasons for the appearance of huge failures along the coast of the Dead Sea, in the territory of the Ein Gedi National Park. At the moment there are more than 3,000 only known funnels, and how many of them actually - no one knows. Moreover, their number is constantly increasing. Specialists attribute this primarily to the intensive decrease in the level of the Dead Sea (about 1 m per year), caused by a number of reasons, the main of which is the massive use of the main sea-feeding artery - the Jordan River - in the melioration of the arid southern region and as the main source of drinking water in a densely populated part countries. Salty water leaves, and fresh groundwater rises from the depths of the earth, blurring the salt layers, as a result of which voids form beneath the surface, which leads to failures. The sizes of some amaze - in one such funnel can fit an eight-story building.
4. "Hell", China
One of the most exciting places on earth is the world's largest natural depression Tianken Xiaozha, located in one of the central provinces of China. Dimensions of the dip are impressive: 626 m in length, 537 m in width, and from 511 to 662 m in depth. In addition, the funnel has sheer walls, which serves as an additional attractive factor for extreme tourists. On one of the steep walls is built a ladder, 2800 steps of which lead to the bottom. A subterranean river with a length of 8.5 km runs along the bottom of the karst funnel, which comes to the surface only here. Despite the fact that the "underworld" formed 129 thousand years ago was well known to local residents, scientists and the public learned from this amazing natural phenomenon only in 1994 during the search for new places for research by British speleologists.
5. The failure of Brimma, Oman
This place is remarkable for its extraordinary beauty and splendor, therefore it is not surprising that it attracts a lot of tourists. Stunning bowl of limestone is filled with purest bluish water, which can be seen except in the pictures. The municipal authorities decided to turn the failure into a water park to attract local and foreign lovers to swim in a picturesque place.
6. Bingham Canyon, Utah, United States
Better known as the Kennecott copper deposit, this world's largest quarry is located southwest of Salt Lake City. Its dimensions are staggering: about 1 km deep and 4 km wide! If the two skyscrapers of the Empire State Building are stacked on top of each other, they will not even reach the top of the pit from the bottom of the pit. The deposit, discovered 110 years ago, still works, giving up to 450 tons of rock per day.
7. Blue hole Dean, The Bahamas
The second deepest blue hole in the world is located near the town of Clarence on Long Island. Although most of these natural depressions have a depth of about 100 m, the blue hole of Dean exceeds this parameter more than twice, leaving down 202 m. It is distinguished by an unusual structure: having a diameter of 25-35 m closer to the surface, the depression widens considerably and at a depth 20 m reaches a diameter of 100 m, forming a kind of dome. Popular among lovers of deep-sea diving and scuba diving, the blue hole of Dean, however, is notorious among the locals: it is said that its creation was not without the evil forces, and careless divers can easily tighten into the dark pool.
8. "Gates of Hell", Turkmenistan
This crater, more like the scenery of a catastrophe film, with a diameter of 60 and a depth of 20 m, has been burning for 45 years already. It all started in 1971, when geologists discovered an underground gas field. When the drilling began, the developers came across an underground cavern, as a result of which all the equipment, including the rig, fell underground, and a gap filled with gas formed. Geologists did not think of anything better than how to set fire to the gas to continue the work. It was assumed that it would burn out in a few days. However, it's been 45 years already, and the fire is not going to fade. The whole surface of the crater is covered with torches of different sizes, some of which reach 10-15 m.
In 2013 Canadian researcher George Coronis managed to descend to the bottom of the crater, where he found bacteria that do not occur anywhere else on the surface of the earth, and excellently feel in this infernal flame.
9. The Big Hole, South Africa
The world's largest quarry, excavated without the use of machinery, was once the richest diamond field of Kimberley, now exhausted. Between 1866 and 1914, 50,000 miners shoveled 22.5 million tons of soil with shovels and pickaxes, extracting 2,722 kilograms of diamonds worth 14.5 million carats. At the same time, a quarry with a width of 463 m and a depth of 240 m was formed. Now the bottom of the quarry is filled with water to a depth of 40 m.
10. "Devil's failure", Texas, USA
An extruded hole measuring 12 by 18 m opens the entrance to a huge underground hall descending to a depth of 122 m. In the cave there is a colony of the fastest flying animals on earth - bats of the Brazilian fold type. These little animals about 9 cm long and weighing only 15 g can develop the speed of horizontal flight to 160 km / h. In the "Devil's Failure" is constantly located about 3 million of these amazing mammals.
11. Guatemalan failure, Guatemala
In 2010, in the capital of the country - the city of Guatemala - a sudden collapse of the soil, which absorbed a three-story factory and created a danger for nearby buildings. An almost round hole with a diameter of 20 m has a depth of about 90 m. A combination of natural and anthropogenic factors led to such a dangerous phenomenon: flooding caused by Hurricane Agatha, eruption of Pakaya volcano near the city, and banal leakage of sewer pipes.
This failure was not the first such phenomenon in Guatemala. In 2007, the city experienced a similar collapse of the surface to a depth of about 100 m.
12. "The Lake of Morning Glory", Wyoming, USA
A beautiful hollow, a water-filled geothermal spring, got its name due to its similarity to the flower of the witchberry, which in the States is called "morning glory." Initially, the hollow was painted blue in the center, in the deepest place, gradually turning into yellow on the periphery, as well as on the petioles of convolvulus. But recently, due to negligent tourists throwing coins and any garbage into the water, the source feeding the geyser has become clogged, which led to uncontrolled reproduction of bacteria and a change in blue to green and yellow to orange. Near the source, even a sign with a warning about the need for careful treatment of the lake due to the risk of changing the name to "lost fame".