✈Worldwide Wednesdays: Astounding Sinkholes From Around the World

Where shall we travel to today?....

Astounding Sinkholes From Around the World

Sinkholes - frightening yet fascinating.They are holes created by the chemical dissolution of carbonate rocks.  They are everywhere!  They can form slowly or instantly, making them all the more intriguing and intimidating.  

The Devil's Sinkhole. This was the original site for a limestone dig near Hawthorne, Florida.  The Devil's Hole (sometimes referred to as the "Devil's Toilet Bowl" by the locals) is a fun spot for an afternoon dip. There is a rope swing, and two stands to jump from.






Sinkholes, also known as a sinks, shake holes, swallow holes, swallets, dolines or cenotes are common where the rock below the land surface is limestone, carbonate rock, salt beds, or rocks that can naturally be dissolved by ground water circulating through them - otherwise known as the karst processes.. As the rock dissolves, spaces and caverns develop underground. Sinkholes are dramatic because the land usually stays intact for a while until the underground spaces just get too big. If there is not enough support for the land above the spaces then a sudden collapse of the land surface can occur. Sinkholes may vary in size from 1 to 600 meters (3.3 to 2,000 ft) both in diameter and depth, and vary in form from soil-lined bowls to bedrock-edged chasms. Sinkholes may be formed gradually or suddenly, and are found worldwide. The different terms for sinkholes are often used interchangeably. Sinkholes may capture surface drainage from running or standing water, but may also form in high and dry locations.

This is a sinkhole in a parking lot at Georgia Tech in Atlanta, GA, USA

✈Worldwide Wednesdays: Unexplained Mystery - The Zone of Silence, MEXICO

Where shall we travel to today?....

Zona Del Silencia, MEXICO

There is much about our world that we still do not understand. Scientists tell us that natural mysteries abound in every corner of the Earth, from the lifeless desert of Chile to the bottomless depths of the Pacific, there are things we simply do not comprehend.

Perhaps this is the best way to describe a place in northern Mexico in the middle of the hot, searing, punishing Chihuahuan desert, a place commonly called the "Zone of Silence" by the few locals, scientists, students and visitors that wander there from time to time in search of answers. It is a strange place to experience, one of those mysterious natural wonders that beg our attention and muddle our senses. It is sometimes difficult to tell what is truth and what is not; to recognize what you see as real or not.

Drive 400 hundred miles west of El Paso and you enter into an unforgiving section of foreboding semiarid desert landscape that begs for mercy but offers none. The nearest settlement is Ceballos, a ragtag community that holds on precariously to its existence some 25 miles across the barren plain from the heart of "The Zone". Here life is challenging, and there is a constant, delicate balance between death and survival.

The region has remained all but undiscovered by the outside world. There are no fancy hotels in the Zone, no beaches or pools, no life except for the most hardy of insects, reptiles and small mammals that suffer its tormenting weather.

But in 1970 a faulty American Athena missile fired from the White Sands Missile Base in nearby New Mexico went off course inexplicably and crashed into the mysterious desert region and made the world aware of the unique and apparently unusual properties of the area. Subsequently a team of U.S. Air Force investigators, with Mexican government approval, journeyed to the crash site and made an unexpected discovery. Within an unspecified and sometimes shifting area within the Zone, radio signals fail to travel through the air, creating a type of dark zone. No television, radio, short wave, microwave, or satellite signals seem to penetrate this zone. The name, Zone of Silence, was quickly adopted, and researchers began flocking to the remote location shortly thereafter.

The Mexican government has since constructed a research complex in "the Zone", a place the scientists assigned there call the biosphere. The primary purpose of the research facility is to study the plant and animal life of the unusual region. But rumors have it that a lot more research is going on there than meets the eye - if there were any eyes in this remote part of the world to see it.

It turns out there may be some natural anomaly associated with the region. High levels of magnetite have been discovered there, and scientist have also found that the area is a hot bed for meteorite activity, raising speculation that there may be some unusual magnetic properties associated with the minerals in the chalky soil. Researchers have been trying to determine whether magnetic ore is naturally occurring or is the product of contamination from thousands or millions of years of meteorite bombardment. And if the high-magnetic properties are a result of natural causes, could this be the reason that so many iron-rich objects from space find their way to this remote spot on Earth?

Theorists are quick to point out that the Zone is geographically located just north of the Tropic of Cancer and shares the same latitude south of the 30th parallel as the Bermuda Triangle, a fact scientist point out is probably a simple coincidence. In fact, scientists at the Mexican research center have dubbed the region, the Mar de Tetys, or The Sea of Thetys, because at one time, millions of years ago, the area lay at the bottom of an ocean.

In defense of the theorists, there have been a number of unusual tales that have come out of the Zone. Strange lights, floating orbs, burning bushes, flying saucers, and alien encounters have all been reported with a degree of abundance considering the sparse population of the region. Ranchers of the area report the night sky is often filled with mysterious lights, and they have reported "floating aircraft" that allegedly landed vertically in the desert, often causing brush to ignite and catch fire.

And there have been reports of encounters with strange humanoid creatures. One ranch family claims they are regularly visited by a trio of blonde, long haired humanoids, two males and a female, that speak perfect Spanish. As the story goes, the visitors only ask for water, never for food or other provision. And when asked once by the rancher where they came from, they reportedly answered "from above".

Then there's the story of the visiting researcher at the "Biosphere" who became lost in the desert. He reports he was directed back to the research center by a similar trio of blonde "strange looking people." Another story has it that a TV news investigation crew was aided by strange beings in the desert after being stuck in the road after an unusual cloud burst. These "beings" reportedly wore long raincoats and ball caps, something, admittedly, you don't often see in the desert wilderness.

How much about the unusual region in northern Mexico is true and how much is the product of human imagination, how much fact and how much fiction, no one can say for sure. But there is little question that there does exist some natural phenomena that appears to evade logical explanation. What the cause and effect may be (science, miracle or magic) remains to be seen. But isolationists and serious researchers of the unusual will find the region of great interest if you're in the mood for a dirty day in the desert.

Just don't plan on watching any TV in Ceballos. There isn't any.


Video

Resource(s):
mexicolesstraveled.com, strangemag.com



⅏Did You Know: Global Smurfs Day, Julius and Ethel Rosenbergs' Execution, Brazil's Pele and more!

Did You Know...

Global Smurfs Day - The Celebration of the Comic's Belgian Creator, Peyo, is held this year on his birthday, June 25, 2011?  What makes this celebration so unique is that gatherings will take place around the world as part of Global Smurfs Day.

London's O2 arena becomes the O-Blue, Taiwan's landmark Red House turns into the Blue House and New York City's South Street Seaport turns into Smurf Street Blueport.

The Smurfs (French: Les Schtroumpfs) is a comic and television franchise centered on a group of small blue fictional creatures called Smurfs, created and first introduced as a series of comic strips by the Belgian cartoonist Peyo (pen name of Pierre Culliford) on October 23, 1958. The original term and the accompanying language came during a meal Peyo was having with his colleague and friend André Franquin in which, having momentarily forgotten the word "salt", Peyo asked him (in French) to pass the schtroumpf. Franquin replied: "Here's the Schtroumpf — when you are done schtroumpfing, schtroumpf it back" and the two spent the rest of that weekend speaking in schtroumpf language.  The name was later translated into Dutch as Smurf, which was adopted in English.

Peyo - 1990

Peyo was born in 1928 in Brussels as the son of an English father and a Belgian mother. On Christmas Eve 1992, Peyo died of a heart attack in Brussels at age 64.

He took on the name "Peyo" early in his professional career, based on an English cousin's mispronunciation of Pierrot (a diminutive form of Pierre).

The 50th anniversary of The Smurfs and the 80th anniversary of the birth of its creator, was recently celebrated by issuing a high-value collectors' coin: the Belgian 5 euro 50th anniversary of The Smurfs commemorative coin, minted in 2008.



Continuing the celebration...

Also as part of a promotion for the upcoming film The Smurfs, all fans are encouraged to dress Smurfy-style (white hat, white pants and shoes - with a blue body). Hats and t-shirts will be supplied at venues.

The event is an attempt to set a new Guinness World Records title for the "Largest Gathering of People Dressed as Smurfs within a 24-hour period in Multiple Venues."

Representatives from Guinness will be on hand in 12 cities around the world.

Then there's "The Smurfs" 3D movie.  The upcoming animated and live-action film follows the tiny blue Smurfs when they are chased out of their village by the evil wizard Gargamel. The Smurfs land in Manhattan's Central Park trying to find their way back home.
Sony Pictures chose to host an event promoting the movie in Juzcar -- on the condition that the facades of the village's buildings be covered with blue paint.
Hence, the residents of Juzcar, a small village of some 250 people in Spain's Malaga province, got in on the action when they literally painted the town a nice shade of blue!

Many "smurf-ified" themselves on the day of the event, donning blue body paint plus the signature smurf uniform of white pants and cap. Sony has promised to repaint the town white after the premiere.

The film releases in North America July 29, in Belgium August 3 and in France, Hong Kong, Spain and the UK on August 10, rolling out internationally through August and September.



✈Worldwide Wednesdays: The Houston Art Car Parade, USA

Where shall we travel to today?....

The Houston Art Car Parade, USA

"The things people do to their cars" I would always say when driving around town.  They'd make their vehicles look really high that you need a ladder just to get into them, or really low that you'd be paranoid to go over a bump.  Or the cars that add neon lights underneath them so it looks like the car is glowing underneath.  Little did I know that was NOTHING compared to the cars that are seen annually at The Houston Art Car Parade in Houston, Texas.  There were all makes and models involved but I'm a HUGE fan of American cars  - both the classics and the new, so to see them 'decorated' in this way kind of made me cringe a bit, to say the least, so I had to keep in mind it was 'ART' and try to appreciate it for what it is. 

I mean, these works of art are so creative the 'sky is the limit' as to what you can create and use.  Some of the vehicles I couldn't even recognize because they were so well decorated! 

The Houston Art Car Parade was born on April, 1988 with a 40 car parade seen by an estimated 2,000. By the following year, the parade size doubled and the crowd swelled to tens of thousands.

Today, the Art Car Parade is the highlight of a three-day celebration of the drive to create, Art Car Weekend.

• The parade attracts 250+ vehicles and other entries from 23 states along with Canada and Mexico
• A live audience of some 250,000
• Parade entries include anything on wheels from
• unicycles to
• lawnmowers to
• cars and go-carts
• Entries are as likely to be made by members of the general public as by recognized artists.

Community groups, public and private schools, and professional organizations have become regular participants. Inspired by what they see, spectators create art cars of their own and often become future participants. And as the parade grows, attracting more and more participants, the complexity and quality of the entries increases.

Let's GET ON with the PHOTOs!!

Resource:  orangeshow.org/art-car/

All photos courtesy of Ed Schipul