Nature
Volcano Blows Above Town And People Hardly Notice
The people seem to know the limitations of the volcano.
They seem to have a lot of trust in what the scientists say.
Mount Bulusan, or Bulusan Volcano, is the southernmost volcano on Luzon Island in the Republic of the Philippines. It is situated in the province of Sorsogon in the Bicol region, 70 km (43 mi) southeast of Mayon Volcano and approximately 250 km (160 mi) southeast of the Philippine capital of Manila.
It is one of the active volcanoes in the Philippines.
Must scare the crap out of the tourists.
Great National Geographic photos
Elephant and Queleas, Tanzania
Base jumping, Yosemite national park, California
Water Buffalo India
Great White checking out the shark cage
Cheetahs in Kenya checking out the tourists
Leopard (left) stealing a Cheetahs kill
Elephants moving through the Serengeti
Geladas monkeys Ethiopia
Giraffes and Gazelles Namibia
Child and buffalo in Vietnam
Harvesting Kash flowers India
Kyrgyz girls Afghanistan
Mountain gorilla and baby
Chicken farm Pennsylvania
Climbing redwood trees in California
Lions in the Serengeti
Sleeping white lion South Africa
Tigers India caught on trail cam
Free rock climbing Yosemite California
Lake Wakatipu New Zealand
Lions chilling in Tanzania
Weird Balancing Rocks Around The World
A balancing rock is a naturally occurring geological formation featuring a large rock or boulder, sometimes of substantial size, resting on other rocks that often look precariously balanced. In reality, these rocks only appear to be balancing but are in fact firmly connected to a base rock by a pedestal or stem.
Here are some famous balancing rocks of the world.
Balanced Rock, Utah
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.
Balanced Rock, Colorado
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.
Balancing Rock, Digby, Nova Scotia
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.
Idol Rock, Brimham Moor
Many curious rock formations are scattered over 50 acres on Brimham Moor. 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.
Mushroom Rock, Kansas
Mushroom Rock State Park, located in the Smoky Hills region of Kansas, is noted for its mushroom rock formations. These rocks were formed through a process of nonuniform erosion and weathering in which a hard mass of Dakota Sandstone resisted erosion while the underlying softer stone weathered away, forming a “mushroom” shape. There are two mushrooms and a giant shoe rock, as well as numerous other rock formations in the park.
Chiremba Balancing Rocks, Zimbabwe
The Chiremba Balancing Rocks is located 13 km southeast of Harare in Epworth. Although strange balancing rocks are found all over Zimbabwe, this particular one became famous after being featured in Zimbabwean currency. 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.
Mexican Hat, Utah
The Mexican Hat rock formation is located on Highway 163, 24 miles west of Bluff, in Utah. The name “Mexican Hat” comes from a curiously sombrero-shaped, 60-foot wide by 12-foot thick rock outcropping on the northeast edge of town.
Devils Marbles, Australia
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, Norway
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 meter above the 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.
Golden Rock, Burma
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.
Amusing Planet
Wonderful Wasserfalle
Wonder Mountain, Toronto
The Unique Dragon Tree
Dracaena cinnabari, the Socotra dragon tree or dragon blood tree, is a dragon tree native to the Socotra archipelago in the Arabian Sea. It is so called due to the red sap that the trees produce.
The dragon blood tree has a unique and strange appearance, with an “upturned, densely packed crown having the shape of an uprightly held umbrella”. This evergreen species is named after its dark red resin, which is known as “dragon’s blood”. Unlike most monocot plants, Dracaena displays secondary growth, D. cinnabari even has growth zones resembling tree rings found in dicot tree species. Along with other arborescent Dracaena species it has a distinctive growth habit called “dracoid habitus”. Its leaves are found only at the end of its youngest branches; its leaves are all shed every 3 or 4 years before new leaves simultaneously mature. Branching tends to occur when the growth of the terminal bud is stopped, due to either flowering or traumatic events (e.g. herbivory).
Socotra, also spelled Soqotra, is an island and a small archipelago of four islands in the Arabian Sea. Socotra is part of Yemen. It had long been a part of the Aden Governorate. In 2004 it became attached to the Hadhramaut Governorate, which is much closer to the island than Aden (although the nearest governorate was the Al Mahrah Governorate). In 2013, the archipelago became its own governorate.
Completely appears to be the surface of an Alien planet light years away.
Awesome Iceberg brings tourists to tiny Newfoundland town
A new natural attraction drew scores of tourists to a small town of around 500 people in Newfoundland, Canada over Easter weekend. A massive iceberg appeared near the coast, and photographers dashed to the area to snap pictures.
The Southern shore highway close to Ferryland filled with traffic over the weekend as tourists came to view the impressive iceberg. The Newfoundland coast area is commonly called iceberg alley due to the ice blocks that float down during the spring from the Arctic, but this particular huge iceberg might stay right where it is, according to Ferryland Mayor Adrian Kavanagh, who told The Canadian Press it’s the biggest one he’s ever seen in the area.
Usually just the tip of an iceberg is visible, with the rest of the mass beneath the waves, so many run aground when they float near the coast. Local Don Costello told CBC News the iceberg probably won’t be moving unless winds keep blowing because it’s stuck on shallow ground. He estimated the iceberg’s highest point is roughly 150 feet.
The BBC reported more icebergs are drifting through iceberg alley than is normal for this point in the year, with hundreds of icebergs in the Atlantic. This particular iceberg has moved around some and broken apart, but it appears it’ll stick around for a while.
I think the name of the town “Ferryland” should also cause tourism.
Red River Floodway keeping Winnipeg Dry Again
The Floodway is operated this way: the Floodway gates are raised backing up the water on the Red River. The backup causes the water to spill over into the Floodway channel that circumvents Winnipeg emptying back into the river north of the city.
Floodway to the right in blue
Images taken today
Early-bird geese checking out the situation
South of the city
Giant Waves in Hawaii
Big surf hits Kauai on January 28th… local kids (not the brightest) play in the waves at Lumahai Beach. One person is swept out to sea and luckily rescued.
The future of NOAA, the world’s largest repository of climate data, is now in the hands of a climate-change denier
qz.com
The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is home to the world’s largest repository of climate data.
It houses data from the United States and from other countries, many of which rely on NOAA’s archives to understand everything from the shifting global climate, to the health of fisheries, to ocean chemistry, to the paleoclimatic record—including million-year-old tree rings. NOAA’s information also figures into the daily lives of Americans perhaps more than any other agency; if you’ve checked the weather forecast lately, you can thank NOAA. And perhaps most importantly, NOAA’s records serve as the backbone of scientific evidence of human-induced global warming.
“The archive spans data that goes well over a hundred years,” Scott Stephens, a NOAA meteorologist, tells Quartz. “Especially for the US, there’s data that goes back almost to Independence.”
Now, all that is in the hands of Kenneth Haapala, selected by US president Donald Trump to help appoint top administrators at NOAA. Haapala serves on the transition team for the US Department of Commerce, which oversees the agency. He is also an unabashed climate-change denier.
Haapala is a policy expert at the Heartland Institute, a conservative group that has equated belief in climate change with terrorism and mass murder. The group devotes significant resources to promoting the false claim that there not a scientific consensus on climate change, and that, according to its website, “Most scientists do not believe human greenhouse gas emissions are a proven threat to the environment or to human well-being,” which is also false.
Heartland has also worked to influence public school curriculums away from teaching about climate change as a man-made reality. The group has been financed in part by donations from foundations tied to Koch Industries, a major oil refiner.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D) of Rhode Island and Arizona Rep. Raul Grijalva (D) wrote a letter to Trump last week, opposing Haapala’s appointment and citing his work downplaying the threat of sea level rise, the Huffington Post reported.
“We urge you to remove Mr. Haapala and any others who share his discredited views on climate science from the DOC landing team. He certainly does not understand or appreciate NOAA’s mission and therefore is unfit to serve in any capacity that oversees operations or personnel decisions at the agency,” the congressmen wrote.
Haapala will help choose NOAA’s leadership once the Senate votes on billionaire investor Wilbur Ross, Trump’s choice for secretary of commerce. Ross pledged during his confirmation hearing to support NOAA’s scientific research and advocate that it continues to be accessible to the public.
“If confirmed, I intend to see that the Department [of Commerce] provides the public with as much factual and accurate data as we have available. It is public tax dollars that support the Department’s scientific research, and barring some national security concern, I see no valid reason to keep peer reviewed research from the public,” he said. “To be clear, by peer review I mean scientific review and not a political filter.”
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