At over 2000 kilometers long The Great Barrier Reef is the largest living structure on Earth :

The Great Barrier Reef is one of the seven wonders of the natural world. It is larger than the Great Wall of China and the only living thing on earth visible from space.

The Great Barrier Reef stretches over 3000km (1800 miles) almost parallel to the Queensland coast, from near the coastal town of Bundaberg, up past the tip of Cape York. The reef, between 15 kilometres and 150 kilometres off shore and around 65 Km wide in some parts, is a gathering of brilliant, vivid coral providing divers with the most spectacular underwater experience imaginable.
A closer encounter with the Great Barrier Reef's impressive coral gardens reveals many astounding underwater attractions including the world's largest collection of corals (in fact, more than 400 different kinds of coral), coral sponges, molluscs, rays, dolphins, over 1500 species of tropical fish, more than 200 types of birds, around 20 types of reptiles including sea turtles and giant clams over 120 years old.

Photo Credits : Unknown

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Red-dy salted! The bizarre African lake turned blood red :

French name of lake is Lac Rose (Pink Lake), and not without reason has been attributed to this akwenowi. Waters of the lake have a pink color that is particularly clear during the dry season.
        Lake lies to the east of the capital Dakar, Senegal, and the most southernmost point of Africa to the west of Cape Verde. Waters of the lake changes its color depending on the intensity of incident sunlight. It is believed that the pink color of micro-organisms are responsible, and high concentration of minerals in the surrounding soils, mainly chlorine and minerals.


Lake Retba like its counterpart in Australia, the lake is very salty Hillier and separated from the ocean only a narrow strip of dunes a few hundred meters. This is due to the fact that in ancient times the lake were small coves, which, by the applied sand was cut off from the open water area. As a result of evaporating seawater, seawater salinity growth followed, until the present level, which in the lake Retba is 38%, or about the same as the salinity of the Dead Sea.
The lake is still African mined salt, and the manner of delivery has not changed for years and is passed down from generation to generation. The whole process starts from the bottom grab the Pink Lake salty sludge. It is then transported to the shore, where salt is washed and dried in the sun. After drying, the salt forms a dense shell, which must be crushed. Finally ready to sell salt Piles left behind in small mounds.

Photo Credits : Source1, Source2, Source3, Source4

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Nacreous Clouds - Mother of pearl :

These rare clouds, sometimes called mother-of-pearl clouds, are 15 - 25km (9 -16 miles) high in the stratosphere and well above tropospheric clouds. They are often found downwind of mountain ranges which induce gravity waves in the lower stratosphere. Their sheet-like forms slowly undulate and stretch as the waves evolve. The clouds can also be associated with very high surface winds which may indicate the presence of, or induce, winds and waves in the stratosphere. They form at temperatures of around minus 85ºC, colder than average lower stratophere temperatures, and are comprised of ice particles ~10µm across. The clouds must be composed of similar sized crystals to produce the characteristic bright iridescent colours by diffraction and interference.

They have iridescent colours but are higher and much rarer than ordinary iridescent clouds. They are seen mostly but not exclusively in polar regions and in winter at high latitudes, Scandinavia, Alaska, Northern Canada. Lower level iridescent clouds can be seen anywhere. Nacreous clouds shine brightly in high altitude sunlight up to two hours after ground level sunset or before dawn. Their unbelievably bright iridescent colours and slow movement relative to any lower clouds make them an unmistakable and unforgettable sight

Photo Credits : Source 1, Source 2, Source 3, Source 4, Source 5

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Incredible Ice Bubbles In Lake Abraham :

Abraham Lake is an artificial lake on North Saskatchewan River in western Alberta, Canada. The lake was created in 1972, with the construction of the Bighorn Dam, and named after Silas Abraham, an inhabitant of the Saskatchewan River valley in the nineteenth century.
          Abraham Lake is home to a rare phenomenon where bubbles get frozen right underneath its surface. They're often referred to as ice bubbles or frozen bubbles. This has made the lake famous among photographers. Photographer Fikret Onal explains the phenomenon: "The plants on the lake bed release methane gas and methane gets frozen once coming close enough to much colder lake surface and they keep stacking up below once the weather gets colder and colder during [the] winter season."

 “Even though I've walked on a frozen lake before on every occasion, the frozen Abraham Lake made me feel completely uneasy since the lake was not covered with snow (it was too cold to snow, below -30 Celsius with wind chill). Even though the icy surface was around 8-9 inches thick, it still scared the hell out of me not only because of the fact that I can see all the cracks in all directions everywhere and to see the darkness of the lake bottom through the glassy surface, also the deep boomy, underwater and cracking sounds coming from the underneath of the lake surface…”

Photo Credits : Source

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Venezuela's Mysterious Catatumbo Lightning Phenomenon :

The point where the Catatumbo river meets Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela, a constant lightning storm illuminates the sky for around 10 hours a night, almost half of the nights out of the year. The storm is pretty much silent, with the lightning going from cloud to cloud and very rarely touching down on earth. Lightning bolts form at around 280 times per hour during a storm, and over the course of a year it is estimated there are about 1.2 million electric discharges.

 No one is quite sure how long this has been going on or why. The lightning storm was mentioned in a poem written in 1597, and has been part of local folklore for as long as locals can remember. It is suspected that methane gas rises from Catatumbo bogs at the mouth of the river and mixes with storm clouds coming off the Andes, creating this unbelievable spectacle.

 

 It is so bright, it can be seen hundreds of miles away and is used by ships to navigate. It is also suspected to be the number one ozone producing agent in the world (unfortunately the type of ozone isn't the same as the kind being depleted in the earth's atmosphere).

Photo Credits : Unknown

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The eye of the Sahara - Richat Structure :

This has got to be one of the strangest places on Earth – but you couldn’t make much of it if you were just walking by. It’s located in a rather remote area, and the few people who noticed something odd about it didn’t know just how odd it really is because it’s hard to figure out from ground level; as a result this 50 km structure didn’t receive much attention until some astronauts made reports about it .

Located in Mauritania, the Eye of the Sahara is not really what you would call a structure, but rather a huge circular formation; it was originally thought to be a crater, but the more recent and accepted theories suggest that it is in fact a product of erosion that took place in geological time.
You can also see it on Google Maps, it’s really a brilliant view, and you can zoom in and out for proportions (coordinates are 21.124217, -11.395569).

 The Richat structure (Sahara, Mauritania) appears as a large dome at least 40 km in diameter within a Late Proterozoic to Ordovician sequence. Erosion has created circular cuestas represented by three nested rings dipping outward from the structure. The center of the structure consists of a limestone-dolomite shelf that encloses a kilometer-scale siliceous breccia and is intruded by basaltic ring dikes, kimberlitic intrusions, and alkaline volcanic rocks

Photo credits : Source1, Source2, Source3

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Amazing Fairy-Tale Flower Tunnel In Japan :

It’s very far and few between these days that gardens are playfully constructed with the user’s perspective in mind. Japan has some interesting landscaping going on in many forms– with one of our favorites being a floral escape that’s just perfect for an Alice in Wonderland type day.
The Wisteria Tunnel at Kawachi Fuji Gardens, in Kitakyushu, Japan embodies all of that and more. The natural tree setting allows the perfectly lined strands of wisteria to fall where they may, and the varying lavender hues able to fade in and out to give the gardens some depth. The most fantastic part of this area is the tunnel formed from wisteria flowers, which would be an amazing place to let the mind, body and soul wander.

Photo Credits : Source

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Chinese Fisherman Use Flares To Catch Fish :

Fishermen have their own bizarre ways of catching fishes that we don’t even think of while eating and enjoying it!  Out of many other various ways, this trick in which Chinese fishermen use flares to attract fishes at night. Apparently what we understand here is that the light attracts these fishes during the night and they jump out of the water.
Photo by Chang ming chih
Photo Credits : Source

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Sundog Light Phenomenon :

A Sun dog or sundog is an atmospheric phenomenon that creates bright spots of light in the sky, often on a luminous ring or halo on either side of the sun. They can be seen anywhere in the world during any season, but they are not always obvious or bright. Sundogs are best seen and are most conspicuous when the sun is low. Sundogs are made commonly of plate-shaped hexagonal ice crystals in high and cold cirrus clouds or, during very cold weather, by ice crystals called diamond dust drifting in the air at low levels.

          These crystals act as prisms, bending the light rays passing through them with a minimum deflection of 22°. If the crystals are randomly oriented, a complete ring around the sun is seen a halo. But often, as the crystals sink through the air they become vertically aligned, so sunlight is refracted horizontally in this case, sundogs are seen.

Photo Credits : Source1, Source2, Source3, Source4

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Colored Honey Made by Candy-Eating French Bees :

Beekeepers in northeastern France found themselves in a sticky situation after bees from their hives began producing honey in shades of blue and green . The colored honey could not be sold because it did not meet France's standards of honey production: It was not obtained from the nectar of plants and it deviates from the standard coloring of honey (nearly colorless to dark brown).

That's bad news for a region that produces a thousand tons of honey a year and has already had to cope with a high bee mortality rate and low honey production after a harsh winter. An investigation by beekeepers in the town of Ribeauville (map) uncovered the cause of the problem: Instead of collecting nectar from flowers, local bees were feeding on remnants of colored M&M candy shells, which were being processed by a biogas plant roughly 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) away.

The waste-processing plant discovered the problem at the same time the beekeepers did and quickly cleaned any outdoor or uncovered containers that M&M waste was stored in. The candy remains will now be stored in a covered hall.

Photo Credits : Source

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Beautiful species of Peacock Spider :

Maratus volans, better known as the Peacock Spider, is the dandiest, the cutest little thing you’ll see today. The male of this species has two rounded, most brilliantly colored skin-like flaps on either side of his abdomen that are folded down close against the sides of the body, like a shawl. The brilliant colouring is not just for decoration, he uses it when he courts his mate.
        The Peacock Spider is extremely tiny – a mere four millimetre in length. Hiding in the undergrowth, it is the sort of thing an average Australian bushwalker would pass right by, but not Dr Jurgen Otto who captured these shots on his camera.

 Maratus speciosus

 Maratus harrisi

Darlington’s peacock spider

Maratus linnaei

 Undescribed species of Maratus from Tasmania

Maratus mungaich

Maratus splendens

Photo Credits : www.flickr.com/photos/59431731@N05

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