Brace yourself for mind-blowing revelations as we explore the rising ground over Yellowstone and dive into 10 spine-chilling natural phenomena that will send shivers down your spine! From mysterious landscapes to jaw-dropping wonders, this video is your ticket to an adventure of a lifetime. Get ready to be amazed and hit that play button now! ✨ #YellowstoneMysteries
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00:00 So, you might have heard that Yellowstone National Park is sitting on top of a giant
00:06 supervolcano.
00:07 That's a reason why the area can boast powerful geysers and hot springs.
00:13 But it also means that underneath Yellowstone, there is an enormous magma chamber.
00:19 In 2015, researchers from the University of Utah found out that this chamber was much
00:25 bigger than everyone had previously thought.
00:27 They even found one more reservoir with magma under the top one.
00:32 Apparently, the more spacious the chambers are, the more magma they contain.
00:37 Together, the two reservoirs store a glob of magma that could easily fill the Grand
00:42 Canyon not once, but 11 times.
00:46 But you know the most worrying thing about the magma chambers?
00:49 They tend to push against the ground above them.
00:52 As a result, the land in Yellowstone rises about 1-2 inches a year.
00:58 On top of that, Yellowstone has the status of an active volcano, and its volcanic explosivity
01:04 index – yes, there is one – is 8 out of 8.
01:08 Such a high number means that if this volcano erupted, it would be an apocalyptic event.
01:13 To put it into perspective, the eruption of Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991, which
01:19 is considered the most powerful in living memory, was given a mere 6 on the volcanic
01:25 explosivity index.
01:26 Ha, loser!
01:28 Now, let's figure out if there's anything to worry about.
01:33 In March 2023, the University of Utah's seismograph stations recorded 354 earthquakes
01:40 in the entire region of Yellowstone National Park.
01:43 Sounds like a lot!
01:45 But keep in mind that the most impressive event of the month was a mini-earthquake of
01:50 magnitude 3.7.
01:54 It was part of a swarm of 106 earthquakes that began on March 29 and continued until
02:00 the end of the month.
02:01 Yep, earthquakes apparently also come in swarms, so be aware.
02:07 Experts say that Yellowstone's seismic activity is, well, kinda more active than usual.
02:12 But it's really nothing serious.
02:16 A geophysicist working at Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, called Michael Poland, claims
02:21 that the volcano won't erupt any time soon.
02:24 For this to happen, there must be enough magma ready to erupt beneath the surface.
02:30 There should also be enough pressure to cause this magma to rise.
02:35 But neither of these conditions exist today.
02:38 According to the expert, Yellowstone is stable now.
02:42 At the same time, Poland and his team are keeping track of all kinds of underground
02:47 activity, looking for warning signs of possible eruptions.
02:51 Some of them can be the frequency of earthquakes and ground deformation.
02:55 Thousands of mini-earthquakes, coupled with extreme changes in the surface of the ground
03:00 in that area, can be alarming.
03:03 The team also monitors the temperature of the park's thermal features.
03:07 That's another noteworthy sign of a potential disaster -- park-wide changes in geyser activity,
03:13 as well as gas and thermal emissions.
03:16 So despite the media claims that Yellowstone is due to erupt soon because the last eruption
03:22 happened 70,000 years ago, that's not how volcanoes work.
03:27 Experts say that it's one of the most popular misconceptions about volcanoes -- they don't
03:32 follow timelines.
03:34 If a super-eruption did happen, though, the most worrying thing for us would not be the
03:39 lava flows, and not an earthquake that would most likely accompany the natural disaster.
03:45 No, the worst consequence of such a super-eruption would be ash and ashfall.
03:51 Let's have a look at what it was like when the Yellowstone volcano erupted many years
03:55 ago.
03:57 There have been at least three super-eruptions in the history of the volcano.
04:02 The most powerful of them was 2,500 times more devastating than the terrifying eruption
04:07 of Mount St. Helens in Washington state in 1980.
04:12 As for the most recent super-eruption, it was dubbed the Lava Creek eruption.
04:18 It formed the Yellowstone caldera after spewing out an insane amount of dust, volcanic ash
04:24 and rock into the air.
04:26 Recently, scientists have also learned about two other previously unknown super-eruptions
04:32 that happened around 9 and 8.7 million years ago.
04:36 The younger of the two is now considered to be the largest recorded event of the whole
04:41 Snake River Yellowstone volcanic province.
04:44 Anyway, let's have a look at what was going on all those millions of years ago.
04:50 Because I wasn't around then, so we're all assuming this stuff based on evidence.
04:56 The first signs of the disaster appeared long before the catastrophe broke out.
05:01 For thousands of years, the heat had been welling up from within the planet's insides.
05:06 It had been melting rock beneath the planet's crust and leaving behind huge chambers.
05:11 They were filled with a pressurized mixture of semi-solid rock, magma, water vapor and
05:16 different gases, including carbon dioxide.
05:20 All this scorching underground soup was expanding since more and more magma arrived with time.
05:26 The land over the volcanic system was rising upward almost unnoticeably.
05:32 A year before the super-eruption, Yellowstone gave a warning, a burp maybe, but that long
05:38 ago there was no one who could interpret these signals.
05:41 Plus, those alarming processes were mostly going on underground.
05:46 For example, decompression releases gas bubbles.
05:50 While bursting, such bubbles can often power particular kinds of eruptions.
05:56 Months before the eruption, small-scale earthquakes became more frequent and more intense.
06:01 The ground in many spots all over the super-volcano got hotter than it used to be.
06:07 Surface lakes and groundwater also became warmer.
06:10 If people had been around at that time, they would have noticed unusual steam fogging in
06:15 that area.
06:17 Not long before the eruption started, the growing pressure pushed the ground over the
06:21 magma chamber up.
06:23 This created a dome-shaped uplift.
06:26 Narrow cracks started to open along the edges of this dome.
06:30 Imagine opening a bottle of soda after you've shaken it.
06:34 Something like that was happening near the volcano.
06:37 Think Mentos and Diet Coke.
06:39 The pressure was released through the fractures when gases were bursting out from under the
06:43 surface.
06:45 So right before the disaster, the ground around the Yellowstone volcano lifted.
06:50 Geothermal pools and geysers heated up to boiling temperatures and got more acidic than
06:55 usual.
06:57 The magma started to rise toward the surface.
07:00 At one point, the rock roof of the magma chamber couldn't resist anymore and the eruption kicked
07:05 off.
07:07 Small but constant tremors began to move the ground days before the catastrophe.
07:12 But the real shaking didn't start until several minutes before the eruption.
07:17 With a deafening roar, a massive column of lava and ash hurled up into the air.
07:23 Within several minutes, a pyroclastic flow rushed across the area at a hurricane-force
07:28 speed.
07:30 Such a flow is a liquid mixture of half-solid lava pieces, volcanic ash, and hot, expanding
07:36 gases.
07:37 It looked like an extremely hot, toxic snow avalanche.
07:40 With a temperature of about 1300 degrees, it was burning everything in its path.
07:47 The volcano kept pumping ash for days on end.
07:50 For all living creatures, ash fallout was one of the most dangerous consequences of
07:54 the eruption.
07:56 Volcanic ash turns into glassy cement within seconds of being inhaled.
08:01 Most animals didn't have a chance to survive.
08:04 Even thick trees started to collapse under the weight of this dense substance.
08:09 It only took a couple of days until a thick layer of ash covered huge territories.
08:16 After the ash got into the stratosphere, the temperatures all over the world started to
08:20 drop.
08:21 The eruption was rich in sulfur, which is an effective sun blocker.
08:26 That's why it soon got so cold that there was no summer in the whole world for the next
08:30 several years.
08:32 Animals couldn't find food and clean water.
08:36 This natural disaster, called the Grays Landing Supereruption, was "colossal," as how researchers
08:42 described it in their recent studies.
08:45 It affected a huge territory.
08:47 The streams of lava enameled an area as large as New Jersey in scorching hot volcanic glass.
08:54 It instantly sterilized the land surface, wiping out all the plant life that had been
08:59 thriving there before.
09:01 Now, if such an eruption were to happen these days, it would cover Colorado, Utah and Wyoming
09:07 with almost 3 feet of toxic volcanic ash.
09:11 Many regions would be plunged into darkness.
09:14 Even the coast, where most Americans live, would experience problems with the spread
09:18 of the ash cloud.
09:20 It would destroy crops and contaminate pastures, ruin power lines and electrical transformers.
09:26 Well, so I'm sure you'll agree with me, it's a good thing that such a disaster isn't
09:32 expected to occur any time soon.
09:34 Hey, we got enough other stuff on our plate!
09:39 What if I told you there was a time on Earth when rain fell continuously for 2 million
09:44 years and completely reshaped the planet's destiny?
09:48 At the end of the Permian era, around 234 million years ago (I wasn't around then,
09:53 but I read about it), the Triassic period began, marked by the onset of an extended
09:58 period of rainfall.
10:00 This phenomenon is now called the Carnian-Pluvial event.
10:04 Well, that's what they decided to call it.
10:07 Recent studies supported by evidence suggest that it didn't reshape the planet in that
10:11 sense and that it was triggered by coal combustion.
10:15 The rain wasn't continuous either, so we just debunked a myth here!
10:21 Next we have columnar jointing.
10:23 This is the fancy term for groove patterns that form in lava flows, silts, dikes, and
10:29 other rocky stuff.
10:31 These lava creations come in all shapes and sizes.
10:34 Most are seen as straight parallel columns.
10:37 Some have curves and varying widths.
10:39 They can be as high as 1,181 inches.
10:43 I'll save you the math, it's roughly 98 feet.
10:49 The columns are formed by pressure and the cooling process.
10:52 As lava becomes cooler, it shrinks and forms cracks.
10:56 Once a crack starts, the lava moves around.
10:59 These cracks expand to the surface of the flow.
11:02 Water sneaks into the cooling lava, making it chill down fast starting from the surface,
11:08 leaving its mark in those patterns.
11:10 Devil's Postpile in California is a must-visit place if you want to see columnar jointing.
11:16 But hey, they're found all around the world!
11:19 Let's raise our heads to the sky to see something magical.
11:23 Fire rainbows, also known as circumhorizontal arcs, look like flames dancing above the clouds.
11:30 To see these eye-catching arcs, you need a special cloud type called cirrus clouds and
11:35 the sun at least 58 degrees high in the sky.
11:38 It's a VIP collaboration between sunlight and clouds.
11:42 Let's break it down further.
11:43 Take London, for instance.
11:45 It's around 51 degrees north.
11:47 Now, sorry, Londoners, no fire rainbows for you!
11:53 Now we move to deep waters to see underwater crop circles.
11:57 These are giant circular patterns found in 1995 near the shores of southern Japan.
12:03 Locals were baffled.
12:04 They dubbed them "mystery circles," as if the ocean had a secret talent for sand art.
12:09 The mystery was solved in 2011.
12:12 The unlikely artist turned out to be a tiny pufferfish, just 5 inches long.
12:17 The researchers found out that males were on a mission, spending a solid 7-9 days building
12:23 their circles by swimming in and out and using their fins to carve valleys into the sandy
12:28 floor.
12:29 They decorate the peaks of their creations with bits of shells and corals, turning their
12:33 sandy canvases into masterpieces.
12:36 Okay, they don't do it for the sake of art.
12:39 The curious circles have a purpose.
12:41 The sandy center of the circle serves as a nest.
12:45 Male swimming moves mix things up, getting sand particles just where they need to be.
12:50 When a lady pufferfish swims by, the male twirls and dances, swirling sand around.
12:56 If she is impressed and thinks he is the one, she lays her eggs in the sandy heart of the
13:01 circle.
13:02 There you go, another happy ending!
13:06 Now let's look at frost flowers.
13:08 You might've seen thin sheets of ice that look like delicate petals and sometimes pop
13:13 up from the stems of plants.
13:15 The ice is about as thick as a credit card.
13:17 It forms when the weather is cold outside.
13:20 The soil is damp but not frozen, as well as plant stems.
13:24 Not all plants produce these frost flowers, and the conditions must be just right.
13:29 Here's how it happens.
13:31 The water inside a plant's stem gets pulled up from the ground.
13:35 When it freezes, it expands and cracks the stem vertically.
13:39 As it hits the chilly air, it turns into ice.
13:42 As more water gets pulled up through the crack, it keeps pushing out super thin layers of
13:47 ice.
13:48 Whether a frost flower looks like a narrow ribbon or a wider one depends on the length
13:52 of the crack.
13:54 And the way it curls and shapes itself into these petals is random, or the reason might
13:58 lie in the difference in friction along the sides of the crack.
14:02 These frost flowers are unique and delicate, and they don't last long.
14:06 They melt or just disappear quickly.
14:09 To spot them, keep an eye out for tall grass, especially in places that don't get mowed
14:14 much.
14:15 Pay attention to purple ironweed, blackberries, and wing stems.
14:23 In Russia, on the shores of the Baltic Sea, there's an enigmatic national park.
14:29 The Dancing Forest is a place that no scientist has managed to explain so far.
14:34 The pine trees of the forest are all crooked and twisted into loops and spirals.
14:39 The forest didn't appear until the early 60s, when the pines were planted in order
14:43 to make the sand dune in that area more stable.
14:46 One theory is that it's the unstable sand that made the trees twist in such a way.
14:52 Other theories for the crooked trees are strong winds, or even supernatural powers.
14:57 Some people say the forest is a place where positive and negative energies meet, twisting
15:01 the trees.
15:03 Local legend says that if a person climbs through one of the rings of a tree, it'll
15:07 add an extra year to this person's life, or they'll be granted a wish.
15:12 I like that one.
15:13 Speaking of bizarre trees, and I was, one grows in the region of Piedmont, Italy.
15:19 There, a cherry tree grows on the top of a mulberry tree.
15:23 The strange thing is that both trees are perfectly healthy.
15:28 A continuous storm at Saturn's north pole has an odd shape – a hexagon.
15:34 This is probably because of the gradient of the winds.
15:37 The total length of this cloud pattern is 9,000 miles, which is about 1,200 miles longer
15:43 than the Earth's diameter.
15:45 The hexagon has been observed for many years, but it gets even more mysterious because it
15:50 changes color too.
15:52 It used to be turquoise, but it has recently shifted to a golden color.
15:56 The reason for the color change is that the pole gets exposed to sunlight as the seasons
16:02 change.
16:04 Rain isn't unusual for Oakville, Washington.
16:07 However, this one still doesn't have any solid scientific explanation.
16:12 Instead of common raindrops, people watch translucent jelly-like blobs fall from the
16:17 skies.
16:18 These blobs covered about 20 square miles.
16:21 Those who got really close to the "rain" experience flu-like symptoms.
16:26 What were the blobs?
16:28 Researchers claim that the blobs contain human white blood cells.
16:32 Later tests showed no presence of nuclei.
16:35 Some people claim the blobs might've been evaporated jellyfish resulting in rain.
16:40 Or maybe even waste from a commercial plane.
16:44 Walking rocks, also known as sailing rocks, move across the Death Valley National Park
16:49 in California without any external intervention, leaving long trails in the dirt and sand along
16:56 their way.
16:57 Various time-lapse footages of the moving rocks have been taken.
17:02 Scientists even installed GPS navigators on some of the rocks, and it showed that the
17:06 rocks move at a considerable speed.
17:09 Some researchers believe that the movement is due to thin sheets of ice that form overnight
17:14 at freezing temperatures in the valley, letting the rocks move until it melts during the day.
17:19 Or there was a Rolling Stones concert.
17:23 Nah.
17:25 The Batageka Crater in Siberia looks like a doorway to the underworld.
17:30 It's about a half-mile long and over 280 feet deep, but it never stops growing.
17:36 As it gets deeper, it exposes more underground layers.
17:40 The layers show what our planet looked like thousands of years ago, as the slumps reveal
17:44 the used-to-be climates.
17:47 The crater appeared back in the 60s, and it all started with rapid deforestation.
17:52 Trees no longer cast shade on the ground, and it got hotter.
17:55 The permafrost melted, resulting in the crater formation.
18:01 The throbbing hum in Taos, New Mexico, has driven locals wild since the 1990s.
18:12 The low-frequency hum deprives people of sleep and depletes their energy.
18:17 Even though scientists have tried to find the source of the hum, they still haven't
18:21 pinpointed its origin.
18:23 Different variations of the hum have also been heard in the UK, Australia, Canada, and
18:27 other areas of the US.
18:29 Luckily, only about 2% of the world's population can hear it.
18:34 The hums have been blamed on mechanical devices, multiple disturbances of auditory systems,
18:39 and even animals.
18:40 The West Seattle hum, for example, was blamed on toadfish.
18:47 Fairy rings, also known as elf rings or pixie rings, are mysterious rings of mushrooms that
18:52 appear in grasslands and forested areas.
18:55 There's a lot of debate about why these fungi form a nearly perfect circle.
19:00 Some superstitions claim that fairy dances would burn the ground, causing mushrooms to
19:05 rapidly grow.
19:08 In Costa Rica, there's an assortment of about 300 spherical stone balls.
19:13 Locals call them "las bolas", which is simply "the balls" in English.
19:18 These stones have an almost perfect round shape.
19:21 Some of them are huge, weighing up to 16 tons each.
19:24 They're also made of different materials – gabbro, limestone, and sandstone.
19:29 They're considered to have been put in straight lines in front of the chiefs' houses, but
19:33 there's no precise information of their origin.
19:37 Some myths claim that these stones originated in Atlantis.
19:43 If you ever travel to the Mekong River in late October, you have a chance of seeing
19:48 glowing balls rising from the water and beelining up into the air.
19:53 Locals call these glowing balls the "Naga Fireballs".
19:56 The size of the lights vary.
19:58 The reddish balls can be as tiny as a spark and as large as a basketball.
20:03 There can be dozens to thousands of balls a night.
20:06 Myths don't have any solid explanation for why it happens, but it could be due to flammable
20:11 gases released by the marshy environment.
20:14 Some superstitious locals are sure it's all because of a giant serpent living in the
20:19 Mekong.
20:20 Great balls of fire!
20:24 In Minnesota, on the north shore of Lake Superior, there's a park known for the Devil's Kettle.
20:30 This is a waterfall that splits in two.
20:33 One part of the river continues, while the other part disappears into a hole in the ground.
20:38 Whatever object you throw into the Devil's Kettle won't reappear.
20:42 Scientists still haven't fully explained where the water that drops into the hole goes.
20:47 Devil's Kettle is considered to be unsafe for people because it's nearly impossible
20:51 to trace the flow.
20:53 Yeah, not a place to go tubing.
20:57 Grunions are fish known for their bizarre mating ritual.
21:00 The females climb out of the water and onto the shore.
21:04 They dig their tails into the sand in order to lay eggs.
21:07 The legs stay hidden in the sand, waiting.
21:10 Ten days later, the high tide comes, washing the newly hatched young to the sea.
21:16 Scientists still can't give any solid explanation for this way of breeding.
21:22 People who live in rural central Norway, over the Hestalen Valley, can often witness floating
21:27 lights of white, yellow, and red cross the sky.
21:31 The lights appear both at day and night, and once back in the 80s, they were spotted 15-20
21:37 times in a single week.
21:38 The Hestalen lights can last just a few seconds, but sometimes they can last more than an hour.
21:44 The lights move, seeming to float or even sway around.
21:49 Some scientists believe that the reason for these lights is due to ionized iron dust.
21:54 Others say it's combustion that includes sodium, oxygen, and hydrogen.
21:58 Many people claim they're just misidentified aircrafts.
22:02 That's it for today!
22:03 So hey, if you pacified your curiosity, then give the video a like and share it with your
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