Top 10 Awesome Natural Phenomenon In The World

Those top 10 natural phenomenons which we might not even have a chance to see it in our life. But at least we can see the pictures here and show you the details about the phenomenon. Check it out!

1 ) Pink and White Terraces

New Zealand’s Pink and White Terraces, were considered a natural wonder until they were destroyed by a violent volcanic eruption in 1886. The Pink and White terraces have been dubbed by a number of people as “The Eighth Wonder of the World”. Unfortunately they were completely destroyed by a volcanic eruption on the 10th June 1886, at 3:00 am by Mt Tarawera, which violently erupted, belching out hot mud, red hot boulders and immense clouds of black ash. Several hours later, the bed of Lake Rotomahana blew out, burying the Maori villages of Moura and Te Ariki under a deep layer of liquid mud, stones and ash.  The Mount Tarawera eruption was New Zealand’s most violent and destructive volcanic eruption in recent history. Mount Tarawera is 30 kilometres from Rotorua amidst the North Island’s volcanic- thermal region. This eruption caused approximately 153 deaths.

2 ) Cave of the Crystals

Cave of the Crystals or Giant Crystal Cave is a cave connected to the Naica Mine 300 metres deep in Chihuahua, Mexico. The main chamber contains giant selenite crystals, some of the largest natural crystals ever found. The cave’s largest crystal found to date is 11 m in length, 4 m in diameter and 55 tons in weight. The cave is 27 m in length and 9 m in width. The cave is extremely hot with air temperatures reaching up to 58 °C with 90 to 100 percent humidity. The cave is relatively unexplored due to the extreme temperatures and high humidity. Without proper protection people can only endure approximately ten minutes of exposure at a time.

3 ) Catatumbo Lightning

The Catatumbo Lightning is an atmospheric phenomenon in Venezuela. It occurs strictly in an area located over the mouth of the Catatumbo River where it empties into Maracaibo Lake. The frequent, powerful flashes of lightning over this relatively small area are considered by some to be the world’s largest single generator of tropospheric ozone. It originates from a mass of storm clouds that create a voltaic arc  at more than 5 km of height, during 140 to 160 nights a year, 10 hours per day and up to 280 times per hour. It occurs over and around Lake Maracaibo, typically over a bog area that forms where the Catatumbo River flows into the Venezuelan lake.

After appearing continually for centuries, the lightning was not seen for several months in January – April 2010, apparently due to a drought, raising fears that it may have been extinguished permanently.

4 ) Light Pillars

A light pillar is a visual phenomenon created by the reflection of light from ice crystals with near horizontal parallel planar surfaces. The light can come from the sun (usually at or low to the horizon) in which case the phenomenon is called a sun pillar or solar pillar. It can also come from the moon or from terrestrial sources such as streetlights.

5 ) Penitentes

Penitentes, or nieves penitentes, are a snow formation found at high altitudes. They take the form of tall thin blades of hardened snow or ice closely spaced with the blades oriented towards the general direction of the sun. Penitentes can be as tall as a person.  These pinnacles of snow or ice grow over all glaciated and snow covered areas in the Dry Andes above 4,000 m. They range in size from a few cm to over five metres. Penitentes were first described in the literature by Darwin  in 1839. On March 22, 1835, he had to squeeze his way through snowfields covered in penitentes near the Piuquenes Pass, on the way from Santiago de Chile to the Argentinian city of Mendoza, and reported the local belief  that they were formed by the strong winds of the Andes.

6 ) Moeraki Boulders

The Moeraki Boulders are a number of huge spherical stones, found strewn along a stretch of Koekohe Beach near Moeraki, a small settlement just south of Hampden on New Zealand’s Otago coast. These boulders are grey-coloured septarian concretions which have been exposed through shoreline erosion from black mudstone coastal cliffs that back the beach. They originally formed in ancient sea floor sediments during the early Paleocene some 60 million years ago.  The boulders weigh several tonnes and are up to three metres in diametre.

7 ) Sun Dogs

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. Sundogs may appear as a colored patch of light to the left or right of the sun, 22° distant and at the same distance above the horizon as the sun, and in ice halos. 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.

8 ) Columnar Basalt

Giant lava flows covered much of Eastern Washington and parts of Idaho and Oregon 17 to 12 million years ago. Unlike volcanic eruptions such as Mt. St. Helens, lava erupted out of cracks in the earth’s crust and flowed for long distances. This type of volcano is called a basalt flood. It is estimated that around 300 floods occurred on the Columbia Plateau. The basalt cooled from the top of the lava flow, and also from the bottom up. As the basalt cooled it shrunk 5 to 10 percent and cracked, forming columns. As the basalt crystallized the cracks grew, but the bottom cracks did not match those at the top and created an area between the cooling layers that is chaotic compared to the uniform top and bottom layers. The in-between layer is called the entablature. The long columns that are obvious in the photo to the left is the lower portion of a basalt flow; the upper columns of this flow have been subjected to significant erosion, and only the entablature between the layers remains.

9 ) Red Tides

Red tide is a naturally-occurring, higher-than-normal concentration of the microscopic algae Karenia brevis.  This organism produces a toxin that affects the central nervous system of fish so that they are paralyzed and cannot breathe. As a result, red tide blooms often result in dead fish washing up on Gulf beaches. When red tide algae reproduce in dense concentrations or “blooms,” they are visible as discolored patches of ocean water, often reddish in color.Red tide is a natural phenomenon not caused by human beings. When temperature, salinity, and nutrients reach certain levels, a massive increase in Karenia brevis algae occurs. No one knows the exact combination of factors that causes red tide, but some experts believe high temperatures combined with a lack of wind and rainfall are usually at the root of red tide blooms.

10 ) Ice Circles

An ice disc/disk or ice circle is a rare natural phenomenon that occurs in slow moving water in cold climates. They are thin and perfectly circular slabs of ice that rotate slowly in the water. It is believed that they form in eddy currents. Ice discs have most frequently been observed in Scandinavia and North America, but they are occasionally recorded as far south as England and Wales. An ice disc was observed in Wales in December 2008 and another was reported in England in January 2009.