Holes in the ground. Huge holes in the ground (41 photos)
P excavations in the ground discovered in Yamal in 2014 posed a mystery to scientists. The holes are explained by gas explosions; the smooth walls of the craters look like the bore of a gun barrel.Shots from underground occurred unnoticed by people. When Yamal reindeer herders posted pictures of the sinkholes on the Internet, only then did the holes become of interest to everyone.
It must be said that similar failures were found in the United States. The so-called “Devil's Hole” in Nevada is a well. Its depth cannot be measured; the cable with the load is jammed in a crevice.
The feeling of fear that grips a person near this failure arises from no one knows why. Scientific research It has been established that methane emissions occur from time to time from the Devil's Hole. They also lowered a video camera with illumination into the lake under a well, but it started spinning at a depth of 230 meters and had to be pulled out. Moreover, the water glowed with a bluish light when the spotlight was turned off.
Returning to the first Yamal hole, forty meters in diameter, we can say that not everything is clear with it either. There were witnesses to the ejection; they said that the air above the ground in that place first glowed, and then a fiery flash appeared. But scientists deny the possibility of spontaneous combustion of gas (methane) on the surface. The “bullet” in the form of a soil plug was supposed to fly high up. Indeed, there are many pieces of rock and earth near the craters within a radius of 120 meters.
Speaking about the Devil's Hole in the USA, we can add that UFOs were observed near it. Also not far from the failure there is the mysterious “Area 51”. Allegedly, the remains of alien creatures and fragments of their aircraft are stored there. Created in 1955, the base was first intended to test spy planes. Then work was carried out on it using Stealth technology. Today, Area 51 has a special status, that is, it is still classified.
In total, there are 7 giant holes on our planet, mostly of artificial origin. In Yakutia and South Africa, two of them were created by man for the purpose of diamond mining. There is also a deep open mine in the American state of Utah and a diamond quarry in Canada, a giant drain in the form of a hole near the Monticello Dam (USA, California).
The ground collapsed in Guatemala (in 2007), creating a crater with a diameter of 20 meters and a depth of 150. And finally, there is the Belize hole - a natural karst formation in the Caribbean Sea, explored by Jacques Cousteau. The atoll's three-hundred-meter diameter and depth of more than one hundred meters attract divers. The ebb and flow of the tides create whirlpools that are dangerous for scuba divers.
The holes that have appeared in Yamal are alarming. The soil collapses into major cities, which is especially dangerous. Human activity, thoughtless interference in natural environment sometimes leads to disasters. Natural failures also began to happen more often in Lately. Perhaps the esotericists are right when they believe that the Earth is entering a “painful fever”?
Hollows in the ground are formed by various reasons, but what they have in common is that giant pits are very difficult to eliminate, and the damage caused by them costs significant sums. Today we bring to your attention a selection of photographs of giant sinkholes taken in different parts of the world.
1. A gigantic sinkhole, which resulted in several houses being buried underground, in Guatemala City, photograph taken on February 23, 2007. At least three people are missing, officials say.
2. Cars lie in a sinkhole created when part of a highway collapsed into an underground cave in the southern Italian city of Gallipoli, photographed March 30, 2007. Fortunately, no one was injured as a result of the overnight incident, local police said.
3. People look at the collapsed part of the Shunwai Highway in Nanchang, Jiangxi province, China, photo taken April 25, 2007. No one was injured as a result of the incident.
4. View of the crater caused by a meteorite in the southern Peruvian city of Carangas, near the border with Bolivia, photograph taken September 16, 2007. According to local media, farmers living near the site of the meteorite's impact complained headache and nausea that prompted officials to send medical teams to the area. Photo taken September 16, 2007.
5. Crew members and television reporters stand near a hole in Paseo Nuevo in San Sebastian, photo taken March 12, 2008. The hole in the ground was caused by a storm that also sank numerous boats and caused significant damage in the Bay of Biscay area.
6. A sinkhole caused by recent rains in Guatemala, photograph taken May 30, 2010. As a result of Tropical Storm Agatha in Central America There were heavy rains, killing at least 17 people in the region and threatening landslides in three areas. At least one three-story home was buried in the sinkhole, which was caused by heavy rains that blanketed the region as a result of Tropical Storm Agatha.
7. A giant sinkhole caused by rainfall from Tropical Storm Agatha in Guatemala, photographed May 31, 2010. More than 94,000 people were evacuated, as a result of the squall and downpour, many houses were buried under a layer of mud and silt, and in addition, a highway bridge near Guatemala City was completely destroyed and sinkholes appeared on the roads in the capital.
8. A giant sinkhole caused by heavy rains from Tropical Storm Agatha, in Guatemala City, photographed June 1, 2010. Damaged roads and highway bridges further complicated rescue efforts in the region after the squall and storm killed at least 175 people.
9. Locals look at the giant sinkhole next to the building primary school Qingquan in Dachegnqiao Ningxiang City, Hunan Province, photograph taken June 15, 2010. The giant hole, 150 meters (492 feet) wide and 50 meters (164 feet) deep, has been growing in size since it appeared in January. Due to the appearance of this failure, more than 20 houses were destroyed. The cause of the hole remains unclear, local media reported.
10. General form sinkholes in the city center on June 16, 2010, after flooding in the town of Les Arcs-sur-Argens, in southeastern France, a day after unusually heavy rains hit the region and caused water levels in the Le Real River to soar. As a result of the flooding caused by heavy rains, 19 people were killed and 7 people are considered dead. The city is located on the Mediterranean coast of France. More than 350 mm (14 inches) of rain fell here within a few hours.
11. Potholes in the ground caused by a US bomb in the village of Khosrow Sofla in the Arghandab Valley, north of Kandahar, photo taken April 11, 2011. After it was discovered that the village was being used as a Taliban base for the production of improvised explosive materials, the civilian population was evacuated and US warplanes destroyed most of the buildings in the village of Khosrow Sofla on October 6, 2010.
12. . A crater that the Libyan government says was caused by coalition airstrikes in Bab al-Aziziya Square in Tripoli, photographed May 12, 2011. Libyan officials who showed reporters the crater said three people were killed and 25 wounded.
13. A truck crashes into a sinkhole after part of a bridge structure collapses into a river in Changchun City, Jilin Province, photo taken May 29, 2011. Two passengers in the truck were injured.
14. Workers carry out renovation work near a sinkhole that occurred after part of a bridge structure collapsed in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, photograph taken July 15, 2011. The sinkhole is 20 meters long and one meter wide, blocking the Qiantang Bridge in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou and injuring at least one driver. The truck, which was carrying a load of steel plates, fell from the bridge, but its driver managed to jump out, Xinhua news agency reported.
15. A sinkhole appears on the road after flooding in the city of Hyderabad, the capital of the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, photo taken on August 25, 2000. Helicopters evacuated people from flooded areas in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad, leaving a total of 93 dead.
16. Rescuers remove a bus with the help of a crane from a sinkhole on the street of Lisbon, photo taken November 25, 2003. The bus was parked on a street in Lisbon when the ground began to cave in. There were no reports of casualties.
17. A failure on the Shouyang segment of the expressway, which links the capitals of Hebei and Shanxi provinces in northern China, caused congestion, photo taken March 28, 2006. The 100-meter crater, 10 meters wide and 10 meters deep, appeared on the Shijiazhuang-Taiyuan Highway. No one was hurt, and the cause of the failure was not determined.
18. Palestinians look at a destroyed tunnel after an Israeli airstrike on the Gaza-Egypt border in the southern Gaza Strip, photo taken December 31, 2008.
19. Bird's eye view of the ruins of a residential building and a destroyed road in the village of Nachterstedt, photograph taken on July 18, 2009. Three residents are missing in eastern German village Nachterstedt after their lakeside home and another building suddenly collapsed into the water. A 350-meter section of the shore collapsed into the lake, 170 kilometers southwest of Berlin.
20. Police officers inspect a collapsed section of highway in Hefei, Anhui province, photo taken August 8, 2009. A taxi and several motorcycles fell into the sinkhole, local media reported.
21. Jordanian Bedouins with their livestock next to a sinkhole that appeared on the southern shore of the Dead Sea on January 12, 2010, causing numerous problems for residents. The Dead Sea is slowly but surely becoming shallow, and could disappear completely within 50 years if no action is taken. Water levels are falling by one meter (three feet) per year. According to environmentalists, the sinkholes appear precisely as a result of a decrease in water levels.
A U.S. Army 1st Platoon soldier walks past a crater left by an improvised explosive device in the village of Khaleqdad Khan in Zabul Province, Afghanistan, May 26, 2012.
24. Workers carry out repair work in an area on the road in Xi'an, Shaanxi province, photo taken May 27, 2012. The cause of the collapse, about 6 meters (20 feet) deep, 15 meters (49 feet) long and 10 meters (33 feet) wide, is under investigation. According to data provided by local media mass media, no casualties.
27. A rescue team works near a collapsed section of Highway 549 near Lake Landvetter outside Gothenburg, photographed December 11, 2006. Thunderstorms occurred in western Sweden.
28. Sinkhole on Highway 15 in San Diego that occurred on February 24. It was formed as a result of an accident drainage pipes that burst due to heavy rains. The resulting sinkhole is about eight hundred feet long, forty feet wide and seventy feet deep.
29. Local residents pass by a car that fell into a hole in the road. The sinkhole was caused by heavy rains in the northeastern Spanish city of Castelldefels, photograph taken on October 9, 2002. Heavy rains hit the region, causing flooding, damage and transport problems, but no one was injured.
30. Rescuers try to pull out a car that fell into a flooded hole on Borges de Medeiros Avenue in Rio de Janeiro, photo taken April 30, 2004. The driver, who did not want to identify himself, left open door on the passenger side, and could only watch as the car plunged into the flooded hole. The failure was formed as a result of a rupture water pipes. The width of the hole was two and a half meters. Rio's famous Corcovado Mountain is visible in the background in this photo.
31. A sinkhole formed after an earthquake in India.
32. Rescuers to workers utilities Los views a sinkhole caused by heavy rains on Tujunga Avenue in the Sun Valley area of Los Angeles, photographed February 19, 2005.
Incredible facts
Imagine that you are calmly walking down the street, when suddenly the ground begins to shake and a huge hole suddenly appears under you. This is not a horror movie script, but a phenomenon called sinkhole, which can reach incredible sizes and absorb everything that appears on the surface.
The other day In Florida, USA, a 37-year-old man was swallowed by a huge hole., which opened right in his bedroom while he was sleeping.
Sinkhole approximately 6 meters wide and more than 15 meters deep led to the collapse of the concrete floor in the house.
Five other people in the house heard the loud noise and the man's screams, but they were not injured. The victim, Jeff Bush, most likely did not survive after falling underground.
Sinkhole
The sinkhole that suddenly opened up in Florida is a phenomenon that is more common than we think. What causes them and how dangerous are they?
Most sinkholes formed when acidic rainwater gradually dissolves limestone and other soil rocks, leaving a huge void, which leads to the collapse of what is on the surface, be it open field, road or house.
Collapse may occur suddenly, or it may simply lead to gradual subsidence of the soil or the formation of small reservoirs and salt marshes.
Sinkhole holes are found everywhere, especially in the USA, China, Mexico and Papua New Guinea.
The biggest holes in the ground
Here are some photos of the huge holes that have swallowed up streets, sidewalks and buildings around the world.
1. Sarissarinama Plateau, Venezuela
The Sarisariñama Plateau is located in the Jaua-Sarisarinama Park in Venezuela and is one of the mysterious and beautiful natural wonders of the world. There are several dips on the plateau with a diameter of up to 350 meters and a depth of 350 meters.
Each hole has developed its own ecosystem with unique species of animals and plants.
2. Failure in Berezniki, Russia
The Berezniki sinkhole was formed in 1986 as a result of a mine accident, and every year the situation only got worse. In 2007, the dimensions of the failure at the first mine were 80 by 20 meters, and depth up to 200 meters. By the end of August 2012, the fourth funnel had grown to the size 103 by 100 meters.
3. Hole in Guatemala
In February 2007, a sinkhole in Guatemala 100 meters deep swallowed up more than a dozen houses. More than 100 people were evacuated and three people died. The hole was the result of corrosion sewer system deep below the surface. The failure was accompanied by loud sounds, and an unbearable smell emanated from the hole.
In 2010, another hole opened in Guatemala 18 meters wide and 60 meters deep.
4. Bimmah, Oman
Bimmah Sinkhole is a limestone crater that is now a popular tourist attraction in Oman.
Other holes in the ground
5. In May 1981, a giant hole appeared during the day in Winter Park in Florida, USA. The city has turned this area into an urban lake.
6. In 1995, a sinkhole 18 meters deep, measuring 60 by 45 meters, swallowed up two houses in San Francisco.
7. In the city of Dysetta, Texas in the USA, a relatively small 6-meter sinkhole expanded to 270 meters per day.
8. In November 2003, rescuers had to rescue a bus in Lisbon, Portugal, after it fell into a hole. 9 meters deep, which was presumably caused by heavy rains.
9. In March 2007, the road collapsed into underground network caves in the southern Italian city of Gallipoli.
10. In September 2008, the road collapsed, creating a sinkhole 5 meters deep and 10 meters wide in Guangzhou Province, China.
11. In May 2012, a hole appeared on the road in Shaanxi Province, China. 15 meters long, 10 meters wide and 6 meters deep.
12. Another road in this province collapsed in December 2012, leaving a hole 6 meters deep and 10 meters wide.
Among the amazing natural phenomena we can certainly include the periodically opening up of different places globe holes.
1.Kimberlite pipe "Mir" (Mir diamond pipe), Yakutia.
The Mir kimberlite pipe is a quarry located in the city of Mirny, Yakutia. The quarry has a depth of 525 m and a diameter of 1.2 km, and is one of the largest quarries in the world. Mining of diamond-bearing kimberlite ore ceased in June 2001. Currently, an underground mine of the same name is being built on board the quarry to develop the remaining sub-quarry reserves, the extraction of which open method unprofitable.
The world's largest diamond quarry is amazing.
2.Kimberlite pipe " Big hole" , South Africa.
The Big Hole is a huge inactive diamond mine in the city of Kimberley (South Africa). It is believed that this largest quarry, developed by people without the use of technology. Currently it is the main attraction of the city of Kimberley.
From 1866 to 1914, approximately 50,000 miners dug the mine using picks and shovels, producing 2,722 tons of diamonds (14.5 million carats). During the development of the quarry, 22.5 million tons of soil were extracted. It was here that such famous diamonds as "De Beers" (428.5 carats), bluish-white "Porter-Rhodes" (150 carats), orange-yellow " Tiffany" (128.5 carats). Currently, this diamond deposit has been exhausted. The area of the “Big Hole” is 17 hectares. Its diameter is 1.6 km. The hole was dug to a depth of 240 meters, but was then filled with waste rock to a depth of 215 meters, currently the bottom of the hole is filled with water, its depth is 40 meters.
At the site of the mine previously (about 70 - 130 million years ago) there was a volcano. Almost a hundred years ago - in 1914, developments in “ big hole” were discontinued, but the gaping mouth of the pipe remains to this day and now serves only as a tourist attraction, serving as a museum. And... it starts to create problems. In particular, there was a serious danger of collapse not only of its edges, but also of the roads built in its immediate vicinity. South African road services have long banned the passage of heavy freight vehicles in these places, and now they strongly recommend that all other drivers avoid driving along Bultfontein Road in the Big Hole area. The authorities are going to completely block the dangerous section of the road. And the world's largest diamond company, De Beers, which owned this mine since 1888, did not find anything better than to get rid of it by putting it up for sale.
3. Kennecott Bingham Canyon Mine, Utah.
The largest active open-pit mine in the world, copper mining began in 1863 and is still ongoing. About a kilometer deep and three and a half kilometers wide.
It is the world's largest anthropogenic formation (excavated by humans). It is a mine whose development is carried out using an open pit method.
As of 2008, it measures 0.75 miles (1.2 km) deep, 2.5 miles (4 km) wide, and covers an area of 1,900 acres (7.7 sq. km).
The ore was first discovered in 1850, and quarrying began in 1863, which continues to this day.
Currently, the quarry employs 1,400 people who extract 450,000 tons (408 thousand tons) of rock daily. The ore is loaded into 64 large dump trucks, which are capable of transporting 231 tons of ore, these trucks cost about $3 million each.
4. Diavik Quarry, Canada. Diamonds are mined.
The Canadian Diavik quarry is perhaps one of the youngest (in terms of development) diamond kimberlite pipes. It was first explored only in 1992, the infrastructure was created by 2001, and diamond mining began in January 2003. The mine is expected to last from 16 to 22 years.
The place where it emerges from the surface of the earth is unique in itself. Firstly, this is not one, but three pipes formed on the island of Las de Gras, approximately 220 km south of the Arctic Circle, off the coast of Canada. Because the hole is huge, and the island is in the middle Pacific Ocean small, only 20 km²
A short term The Diavik diamond mine has become one of the most important components of the Canadian economy. Up to 8 million carats (1,600 kg) of diamonds are mined from this deposit per year. An airfield was built on one of its neighboring islands, capable of receiving even huge Boeings. In June 2007, a consortium of seven mining companies announced their intention to sponsor environmental studies and begin construction of a major port on Canada's North Shore to accommodate cargo ships of up to 25,000 tons, as well as a 211 km access road that would connect the port to the consortium's plants. . This means that the hole in the ocean will grow and deepen.
5. Great Blue Hole, Belize.
The world-famous Great Blue Hole is the main attraction of picturesque, ecologically perfectly clean Belize (formerly British Honduras) - a state in Central America, on the Yucatan Peninsula. No, this time it is not a kimberlite pipe. It is not diamonds that are “mined” from it, but tourists - diving enthusiasts from all over the world, thanks to which it feeds the country no worse than a diamond pipe. Probably, it would be better to call it not “Blue Hole”, but “Blue Dream”, since this can only be seen in dreams or in a dream. This is a true masterpiece, a miracle of nature - a perfectly round, twilight blue spot in the middle of the Caribbean Sea, surrounded by a lace shirtfront of the Lighthouse Reef.
View from space!
Width 400 meters, depth 145 - 160 meters.
It’s like they’re swimming over an abyss...
6. Drainage hole in the reservoir of the Monticello Dam.
A large man-made hole is located in Northern California, USA. But this is not just a hole. The drainage hole in the Monticello Dam reservoir is the largest spillway in the world! It was built about 55 years ago. This funnel-shaped exit is simply irreplaceable here. It allows you to quickly release excess water from the tank when its level exceeds permissible norm. A kind of safety valve.
Visually, the funnel looks like a giant concrete pipe. It is capable of passing through itself as much as 1370 cubic meters per second. m of water! The depth of this hole is about 21 m. From top to bottom it has the shape of a cone, the diameter of which at the top reaches almost 22 m, and at the bottom it narrows to 9 m and comes out on the other side of the dam, removing excess water when the reservoir overflows. The distance from the pipe to the exit point, which is located slightly to the south, is approximately 700 feet (about 200 m).
7. Karst sinkhole in Guatemala.
A giant funnel with a depth of 150 and a diameter of 20 meters. Caused by groundwater and rain. During the formation of the sinkhole, several people died and a dozen houses were destroyed. According to local residents, from about the beginning of February, soil movements were felt in the area of the future tragedy, and a muffled rumble was heard from underground.
It so happens that from time to time our planet fails. If you're lucky, holes of various sizes and degrees of bottomlessness are formed in deserted seas, jungles, taiga and tundra, but it also happens that entire cities are in danger of going underground. In some cases, nature itself is responsible for such pranks, simply presenting a person with a fait accompli, but increasingly, the blame for such incidents remains with people. Onliner.by has selected the top most beautiful and terrible, large and deep holes, places where the center of the Earth becomes a little closer.
1. Dongguan, China.
It is in China that sinkholes occur especially often. Natural disasters in this huge country are combined with extremely intensive construction, which is often carried out in flagrant violation of all established norms and rules. Last summer the construction new station underground railway in the southern Chinese city of Dongguan, it ended with almost an entire street going underground.
The funnel formed in several stages. First into the first hole with an area of 80 square meters a minibus fell, and a day later, into a hole that turned out to be four times larger, the minibus was followed by the structures of an almost completed metro station and part of a city street. In this case, one person died, several neighboring buildings were seriously damaged, and the process of formation of the failure was caught on video.
2. Meridian, Mississippi, USA.
Diners who wanted to dine at the IHOP fast-food pancake house located in the rural town of Meridian in the heart of Mississippi were definitely not prepared for the surprise that nature had in store for them. On November 9, 2015, at 7:15 p.m., a giant trench 180 meters long and 15 meters wide suddenly appeared in a restaurant parking lot. A dozen cars of the establishment's clients immediately fell into it.
Most likely, the cause of the incident was the prolonged rains, which had been falling in Meridian for two weeks by that time. Local media reported that a storm sewer ran directly under the parking lot, apparently unable to withstand the pressure of the incoming water. According to another version, the failure could have occurred due to the construction work. The IHOP restaurant had only been open for a week at the time of the emergency, and construction of a hotel continued nearby. Fortunately, the vehicles were the only ones damaged during this incident.
3. Batagai, Yakutia, Russia.
Scientists first discovered the Batagai fault in the mid-1960s. At that time it was a relatively small ravine, but over the past five decades it has grown to cyclopean dimensions of a kilometer long, 800 meters wide and up to 100 meters deep. The hole, reminiscent of an overgrown tadpole, is located in a sparsely populated area, near the village of Batagai, where the forces of prisoners in camps before the Great Patriotic War Tin mining began. The emergence of this curious object is connected with this circumstance.
For the needs of the created mine, forests were cut down in the vicinity of Batagai. Subsequently, active permafrost melting occurred in this area, as a result of which upper layer soil and fell into the resulting voids. From the point of view of the ecology of the region, the ongoing process is negative in nature, but so far the rare tourists here and especially scientists who have received a convenient testing ground for studying permafrost are happy with what happened. According to the Yakut tradition, the remains of a mammoth and ancient plants, whose age reaches 200 thousand years, have already been discovered here.
4. Guatemala, Guatemala.
On February 23, 2007, in the capital of Guatemala, Guatemala City, nothing foreshadowed trouble, until an almost perfectly round hole with sheer walls hundreds of meters deep appeared right in the middle of a densely populated residential area. In this case, there were no casualties: as a result of this tragedy, five people died at once. The worst thing is that these victims were not the last.
Just three years later, in May 2010, another similar failure (20 meters wide, 90 meters deep) appeared in Guatemala, completely destroying a three-story factory building. As a result of this incident, 15 people have already died. Both tragedies were caused by a combination of factors: leaking sewers and heavy rains that caused flooding simply eroded the volcanic and limestone rocks on which the city stands.
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5. Ein Gedi, Israel.
If in Guatemala the matter was limited to only two failures, then in the Israeli oasis of Ein Gedi, located on the coast of the Dead Sea, they literally number in the thousands. The reason for their formation was the constant, ongoing decline in the level of the Dead Sea.
The Dead Sea is one of the saltiest bodies of water on the planet. At the same time, due to the ever-increasing withdrawal of water from the Jordan River that feeds it, the water level in the sea is falling at a rate of about a meter per year. The rock salted by the sea begins to be actively eroded by fresh water. groundwater, which, in turn, leads to the formation of numerous and extensive voids, the obligatory precursors of failures. It is extremely difficult to predict their appearance, which seriously threatens the tourism potential of the region.
6. Tianken Xiaozhai, China.
This is the deepest natural sinkhole on Earth. An underground river flowing in the Difeng Cave in the Chinese municipality of Chongqing has, over time, eroded the limestones that form the local mountains. The result was logical: the resulting karst sinkhole is 662 meters deep and more than half a kilometer wide.
Speleologists discovered it relatively recently, in 1994, after which the hole received the nickname “Sky Pit.” In addition to tourists, the pit was favored by numerous plants and animals, including the rare clouded leopard.
7. Solikamsk and Berezniki, Russia.
Over thirty years, starting in 1986, six large sinkholes appeared on the territory and in the immediate vicinity of the Ural cities of Solikamsk and Berezniki. Since the 1930s, active mining of potassium salts has been carried out here, as a result of which settlements found themselves surrounded by large mine workings. Moreover, the cities that grew over time eventually occupied the territory above them, and they were separated from the vast underground voids only by a relatively thin, 250-350-meter jumper.
The salt rock underground continues to be dissolved by groundwater. This process deforms the inter-mine bridges left in the workings, which ultimately leads to destabilization of their structure, flooding of mines, the formation of cracks, and man-made earthquakes. The sinkholes in Berezniki and Solikamsk continue to increase, which has already led to the resettlement of entire urban areas on the surface and the closure of a number of enterprises.
8. Sarisarinyama, Venezuela.
Tepuis are unique mesas in Venezuela, the remains of an ancient plateau isolated from the rest of the world at their base. On their flat tops there is a special world with endemic species of plants and animals that have evolved along their own path for thousands of years. In addition to this circumstance, tepuis are also interesting for their numerous karst sinkholes, the largest of which are located on Mount Sarisarinyama in the Venezuelan state of Bolivar.
They were formed by the collapse of the arches of the underground river tunnels that literally pierce the mountain. The largest of the four failures on Sarisarinyam are Sima Humboldt and Sima Martel, located 700 meters from each other, going 300-350 meters deep into the tepui. At their bottom there is life of its own, including even large trees, and this life was isolated from both the top of the plateau and Big Earth- a unique microcosm within a microcosm, a thing in itself, discovered only in the 1960s.
9. Darvaza, Turkmenistan.
This crater in the Turkmen Karakum desert has a telling nickname - “The Gates of Hell”. From the outside he really looks ominous. In the early 1970s, Soviet geologists searching for gas near the village of Darvaza first discovered an underground cavity instead, where all their equipment fell. However, in addition to the cave, there was still gas there, which began to actively seep into the environment.
Wanting to save people and their livestock from possible poisoning from the products of these earthly secretions, geologists set fire to the gas, hoping that it would quickly burn out. The scale of the deposit exceeded their expectations. The Darvaza crater is still burning, becoming a tasty object for extreme tourists.
10. Great Blue Hole, Belize.
This is by no means the largest or deepest hole on the surface of the Earth, but it is definitely the most beautiful. An ordinary karst sinkhole, formed after the collapse of the arches of limestone caves, was flooded by the Caribbean Sea. The result of nature’s work could not but please people.
Surrounded by a coral reef and azure shallow water, the “Big Blue Hole”, 120 meters deep, was explored by the expedition of the outstanding traveler Jacques-Yves Cousteau, who opened this formation to the general public. Despite its remoteness from the coast and a certain danger, especially during high tides that cause unpredictable whirlpools, thousands of divers now swim to this sea hole to go down to its bottom, see with their own eyes the stalactites growing there, and along the way enjoy the tropical inhabitants of this amazing place .
