The Bay of Fundy is known for its high tidal range. The quest for world tidal dominance has led to a rivalry between the Minas Basin in the Bay of Fundy and the Leaf Basin in Ungava Bay, over which body of water lays claim to the highest tides in the world, with supporters in each region claiming the record.

The Canadian Hydrographic Service finally declared it a statistical tie, with measurements of a 16.8 metre (55.1 feet) tidal range in Leaf Basin for Ungava Bay and 17 meters (55.8 feet) at Burntcoat Head for the Bay of Fundy.  The highest water level ever recorded in the Bay of Fundy system occurred at the head of the Minas Basin on the night of October 4–5, 1869 during a tropical cyclone named the “Saxby Gale”. The water level of 21.6 metres (70.9 feet) resulted from the combination of high winds, abnormally low atmospheric pressure, and a spring tide.

Tidal streams south of Hillsborough, New Brunswick.

Point Wolfe. 

 

 

 

Military Police riding buffalo on the island of Marajo in Brazil.

Real-life “Buffalo Soldiers” — military police mounted on gigantic water buffalo — routinely patrol the streets of the Brazilian island of Marajo, to the delight of tourists and Bob Marley fans.

The photo of these two soldiers and their steeds was snapped by photographer Fernando Camara on a recent sightseeing jaunt.

It’s traditional for Marajo’s military police to ride the docile, 1,000-pound creatures, he told Caters News.

Marajo, an island the size of Switzerland off Brazil’s northern coast, has some 450,000 domesticated and feral water buffalo — more animals than people. When they’re not carrying soldiers around, they haul farm equipment and provide milk, meat and hides.

“It has become a bit of a tourist attraction,” Camara said. “But it was started with the objectives of reinforcing safety and maintaining the culture of the local population.”

Whether the two buffalo soldiers photographed were also, in fact, dreadlocked rastas could not be immediately determined.

Marajo population: 383,386 (2014)

The Darién Gap is a break in the Pan-American Highway consisting of a large swath of undeveloped swampland and forest within Panama’s Darién Province in Central America and the northern portion of Colombia’s Chocó Department of South America. It measures just over 160 km (99 mi) long and about 50 km (31 mi) wide. Roadbuilding through this area is expensive, and the environmental toll is steep. Political consensus in favor of road construction has not emerged. Consequently there is no road connection through the Darién Gap connecting North/Central America with South America and it is the missing link of the Pan-American Highway.

 

Big Balanced Rock in Chiricahua National Monument, southeast Arizona

 

A balancing rock, also called balanced rock or precarious boulder, is a naturally occurring geological formation featuring a large rock or boulder, sometimes of substantial size, resting on other rocks, bedrock or on glacial till. Some formations known by this name only appear to be balancing but are in fact firmly connected to a base rock by a pedestal or stem. There is no single scientific definition of the term, and it has been applied to a variety of rock features that fall into one of four general categories:

• A glacial erratic is a boulder that was transported and deposited by glaciers to a resting place on soil, on bedrock or on other boulders. It usually has a different lithology than the other rocks around it. Not all glacial erratics are balancing rocks; some are firmly seated on the ground. Some balancing erratics have come to be known as rocking stones, also known as logan rocks, logan stones or logans, because they are so finely balanced that the application of just a small force may cause them to rock or sway. A good example of a rocking stone is the Logan Rock in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom; another is the Trembling Rock in Brittany, France.
• A perched block, also known as a perched boulder or perched rock, is a large, detached rock fragment that most commonly was transported and deposited by a glacier to a resting place on glacial till, often on the side of a hill or slope. Some perched blocks were not produced by glacial action but were the aftermath of a rock fall, landslide or avalanche.
• An erosional remnant is a persisting rock formation that remains after extensive wind, water and/or chemical erosion. To the untrained eye it may appear to be visually like a glacial erratic, but instead of being transported and deposited it was carved from the local bedrock. Many good examples of erosional remnants are seen in Karlu Karlu / Devils Marbles Conservation Reserve in the Northern Territory of Australia.
• A pedestal rock, also known as a rock pedestal or mushroom rock, is not a true balancing rock but is a single continuous rock form with a very small base leading up to a much larger crown. Some of these formations are called balancing rocks because of their appearance. The undercut base was attributed for many years to simple wind abrasion but is now believed to result from a combination of wind and enhanced chemical weathering at the base where moisture would be retained longest. Some pedestal rocks sitting on taller spire formations are known as hoodoos.

 

Balanced Rock is one of the most popular features of Arches National Park, situated in Utah, United States. It is located next to the park’s main road, at about 9 miles from the park entrance.

The total height of Balanced Rock is about 39 m, with the balancing rock rising 16.75 m above the base. The big rock on top is the size of three school buses. Until recently, Balanced Rock had a companion – a similar, but much smaller balanced rock named “Chip Off The Old Block”, which fell during the winter of 1975/1976.

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This balanced rock is located in the Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs, Colorado. It is easily accessible by paved road and is a popular spot for tourist photography.

 

The Balancing Rock in St. Mary’s Bay on Long Island, Nova Scotia seems to defy gravity as it stands on its end at the edge of the rock below. The 9 meter high column of rock is attached by two small sections with a gap between that you can look through.

 

Many curious rock formations are scattered over 50 acres on Brimham Moor, U.K. One of them is the Idol Rock precariously balanced on top of a smaller rock. The rocks eroded by water, glaciation and wind, have taken amazing shapes. Many of the formations suggest all manner of things, including elephants, hippos, bears, and mushrooms.

 

The Chiremba Balancing Rocks is located 13 km southeast of Harare in Epworth. Strange balancing rocks are found all over Zimbabwe. The Balancing Rocks have been used as a metaphorical theme to explain the importance of development coupled with preserving the fragile environment of Zimbabwe as similar to that of the Balancing Rocks found in Epworth, Matopos and in other areas.

 

The Devils Marbles are amongst the most famous Australian rocks, located south of Tennant Creek area of Northern Territory. These huge, red, rounded granite boulders vary in size, from 50 cm up to six metres across, and they are strewn across a large area. Many of them seem impossibly balanced on top of each other.

 

Kjeragbolten is a massive 5 cubic meter boulder wedged in to a crevasse on the edge of the Kjerag mountain in Lysefjorden, Norway. The block of stone is suspended 984 meters above a deep abyss. Despite its impressive appearance, it is easily accessible on foot without any special equipment. The whole of Kjerag mountain is a popular hiking area, and Kjeragbolten is a favorite photo spot.

 

The Golden Rock (Kyaik-htiyo or Kyaiktiyo), perched atop a cliff near Yangon, is one of the most sacred sites in Burma. According to legend, the Golden Rock itself is precariously perched on a strand of the Buddha’s hair. The rock seems to defy gravity, as it perpetually appears to be on the verge of rolling down the hill. At the top of the rock is built a small pagoda and covered with gold leaves pasted on by devotees. A glimpse of the “gravity defying” Golden Rock is believed to be enough of an inspiration for any person to turn to Buddhism.

 

Krishna’s Butterball is a curious tourist attraction in Mahabalipuram, a town about 60 km south of Chennai famous for its stone carvings. The “butterball” is a giant balancing rock, 5 meters in diameter, perched on a smooth slope, seemingly defying all laws of physics.

In Hindu mythology Lord Krishna had an insatiable appetite for butter, and as a child, would often sneak a handful from his mother’s butter jar. Situated on a hill slope near the Ganesh Ratha this massive natural rock boulder is attributed to a bolus of butter the young Krishna would steal.

An earthquake hits and those goats are pancakes.

NatGeo

Snowboarding in Nepal. Steep enough!

 

Ice climbing Colorado

 

Tree skiing near Whistler, B.C.

 

Waterfall kayaking Norway

 

Real Mountain Biking

 

Surfing near big rocks Tasmania

 

Wall climbing Zion Utah

 

Surfing paparazzi, Hawaii

 

Free climbing Yosemite, California

 

Kamikaze kayaking Mexico

 

Upside down group skydiving Texas

 

Crazy kamikaze kayaker, Spain

 

Japan

 

Free climbing Yosemite. These guys are spiders. One slip and they will be squashed spiders.

 

Ice climbing a glacier, Mt. Kilimanjaro, Tanzania

 

Bike base jumping Utah. They stay with the bike all the way down with the parachute.

 

Hawaii. Now that is how to live!

Andes Mountains, also called the Andes, Spanish Cordillera de los Andes or Los Andes, is a mountain system of South America and one of the great natural features of the Earth.

The Andes consist of a vast series of extremely high plateaus surmounted by even higher peaks that form an unbroken rampart over a distance of some 5,500 miles (8,900 kilometres)—from the southern tip of South America to the continent’s northernmost coast on the Caribbean. They separate a narrow western coastal area from the rest of the continent, affecting deeply the conditions of life within the ranges themselves and in surrounding areas. The Andes contain the highest peaks in the Western Hemisphere. The highest of them is Mount Aconcagua (22,831 feet [6,959 metres]) on the border of Argentina and Chile.

 

 

The Andes are not a single line of formidable peaks but rather a succession of parallel and transverse mountain ranges, or cordilleras, and of intervening plateaus and depressions. Distinct eastern and western ranges—respectively named the Cordillera Oriental and the Cordillera Occidental—are characteristic of most of the system. The directional trend of both the cordilleras generally is north-south, but in several places the Cordillera Oriental bulges eastward to form either isolated peninsula-like ranges or such high intermontane plateau regions as the Altiplano (Spanish: “High Plateau”), occupying adjoining parts of Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, and Peru.

 

 

 

Volcano in Chile

 

The Andean mountain system is the result of global plate-tectonic forces during the Cenozoic Era (roughly the past 65 million years) that built upon earlier geologic activity. About 250 million years ago the crustal plates constituting the Earth’s landmass were joined together into the supercontinent Pangaea. The subsequent breakup of Pangaea and of its southern portion, Gondwana, dispersed these plates outward, where they began to take the form and position of the present-day continents. The collision (or convergence) of two of these plates—the continental South American Plate and the oceanic Nazca Plate—gave rise to the orogenic (mountain-building) activity that produced the Andes.

 

Bolivia

 

Patagonia region of Chile

 

Santiago, Chile

 

 

Crazy staircase at Machu Picchu, Peru

 

 

 

Space Shuttle passes over The Andes

 

Argentina

 

 

 

Peru

 

The Four Corners is a region of the United States consisting of the southwestern corner of Colorado, southeastern corner of Utah, northeastern corner of Arizona, and northwestern corner of New Mexico. The Four Corners area is named after the quadripoint where the boundaries of the four states meet, where the Four Corners Monument is located. It is the only location in the United States where four states meet.

 

 

 

 

 

The Four Corners is part of the high Colorado Plateau. This makes it a center for weather systems, which stabilize on the plateau then proceed eastward through Colorado and into the central states. This weather system creates snow and rain fall over the central United States.

Protected areas in the Four Corners area include Canyon de Chelly National Monument, Hovenweep National Monument, Mesa Verde National Park, and Monument Valley. Mountain Ranges in the Four Corners include Sleeping Ute Mountains, Abajo Mountains, and the Chuska Mountains. The Grand Canyon and Glen Canyon Dam/Lake Powell are nearby.

 

 

Another very strange geological formation is the Bisti Badlands in northwest New Mexico.  This is an Alien landscape that science fiction writers could not have thought up.

The Bisti Badlands, also called Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness, is a vast rolling landscape of phantasmagoric formations of earth and stone located in northwestern New Mexico’s high desert lands. Wind and water erosion over a long time have carved a fantasy world of strange rock formations and hoodoos here in the form of pinnacles, spires, mushrooms and other unusual forms that have attracted names such as “Cracked Eggs”, “Bisti Wings” and “Rock Garden”.

Bisti is derived from the Navajo word “Bistahi” which means “among the adobe formations.” De-Na-Zin takes its name from another Navajo word for “cranes.” This little visited and largely unknown area was once an ancient riverine delta on the shores of an ancient sea, 70 million years ago. As the water slowly receded, a lush foliage grew along the many riverbanks and many prehistoric animals roamed the region. When the water disappeared totally, it left behind layers of jumbled sandstone, mudstone, shale and coal. Much of the coal burned away in ancient fires that lasted centuries. Erosion then shaped the characteristic features of the modern landscape of the Bisti Wilderness. Six thousand years ago, when the last ice age receded, the waters of the melting glaciers helped expose fossils and petrified wood, as well as eroding the rock into the hoodoos now visible.

 

 

Mainly three kinds of formations are exposed in Bisti Wilderness area — the Ojo Alamo Formation, which has left bare the thick deposit of volcanic ash from an ancient eruption, and below that the Fruitland formation and the Kirtland Shale.

The Ojo Alamo Formation spans the Mesozoic/Cenozoic boundary, and mostly contain dinosaur fossils. The Fruitland Formation contains layers of sandstone, shale, and coal, and was laid down when the conditions were marshy, warm and humid, with poor drainage. The Fruitland Formation is found primarily on the western side of the Wilderness. The Kirtland Shale is the product of alluvial muds and overbank sand deposits from the many channels draining the coastal plain in the late Cretaceous period. It overlies the Fruitland Formation, and is exposed on the eastern side of the badlands. Many of the gray hoodoos in the wilderness are made up of this formation.

The unique egg-shaped formation, in the “egg factory” area, are also the result of erosion. The cracks are the result of differential weathering, while the speckled appearance due to mineral deposits in the stream that cut through the sedimentary rock.