Is the Sahara Shifting? What’s Happening in the Desert and Why We Should Care
we’ve all heard of the Sahara sure you have it’s the largest hot desert on the planet a sea of sand covering an area larger than the contiguous United States but have you ever wondered What Lies Beneath the sand dunes to answer this question we must travel deep into the past of our Blue Planet up until some 6,000 years ago the Sahara was grassland humans were around at this time not me spreading agriculture around the planet in the north of Africa the color green dominated plenty of rainfall meant that there were lakes rivers pastures and even Forest a completely different image of the Sahara from the barren landscape of today but then the climate started to shift the region became parched and the vegetation started disappearing the wind did the rest it took away the fine sediment after there were no plant roots to hold the ground together give it a couple thousands of years and you get a familiar image of the Sahara sand and rocks stretching as far as the eye can see but when it comes to volume only a quarter of the Sahara is actually sand the yellow Sands of the Sahara are just one part of the story the desert has many other features such as gravel Plains Salt Flats and plateaus makes you think if we understand the word desert correctly for people who study such terrains GE geologists there is only one condition for defining a desert precipitation if an area gets little or no rain then it’s considered a desert the Sahara certainly fits the bill its average annual rainfall is just 3 in compare that to the nearly 45 in a year in New York when we look at precipitation this sandy desert is only the third largest in the world number one and two are Antarctica and the Arctica they are larger than the Sahara by millions of square miles it sounds odd but there is more than one type of desert the first two are polar deserts while the Sahara is a subtropical desert but the difference in air temperature are staggering in Antarctica’s interior temperatures plummet to – 76° F compare that to the highest temperature on record in the Sahara of 136° f but this desert has a cool side at night the temperature is roughly the same as the average yearly temperature in Denmark this hot and cold roller coaster makes it hard to choose the right outfit when venturing into the Sahara and what about the sand how deep is it actually the depth varies between 70 and 140 ft that’s not too deep if you put the Statue of Liberty in a tall Dune half of it would still stick out of the sand it’s vast amounts in the Sahara were created by eolian processes that’s Greek for wind over time it blows and shapes the surface of the Earth in dry areas with sparse vegetation winds erode the ground much faster that’s what happened in North Africa under all that sand is the Bedrock and cracked clay if you started digging you would find the same everywhere on the planet with one important difference there is some type of soil covering the Bedrock this is not the case in the Sahara because of the aid climate and a lack of vegetation sand covers the ground below over the course of thousands of years a lot of interesting finds ended up in the desert sand for example there are petrified tree trunks these are essentially preserved prehistoric trees they date back to the time when the region was lush green in some places the Trees of this fossilized Forest are at least 65 ft tall the wood is so well preserved that you can still see the texture and Knots there are even fossilized pine cones in 1992 scientists found glass fragments in eastern Sahara these canary yellow glass shards were scattered across hundreds of miles they didn’t belong to an ancient civilization although ancient Egyptians used them to make jewelry in fact the breastplate of King Tut had a beautiful scarab beetle centerpiece made made from this desert glass for a long time scientists were puzzled about the true origins of these fragments they finally concluded that the glass was around 29 million years old it is an impact tape if that sounds like it has something to do with the word impact you are correct these rocks are formed when a meteorite hits the surface of the Earth this generates a lot of heat scientists estimate that the temperature needed to melt this mineral was close to 3 000° F apart from the regular fine grained sand we also have melted sand in the Sahara but the desert conceals other unlikely artifacts shark teeth are a common find in Morocco which sits in the western part of the Sahara what are the fossilized teeth of these Marine Predators doing in the middle of the desert this part of the world looked entirely different millions of years ago there was a sea cutting right through what is now a desert the trans Saharan Seaway ran the length of present day Algeria and Mali it was around 165 ft deep that was enough for all sorts of aquatic animals to inhabit it large catfish sea snakes and of course sharks lived in the a British archaeologists even Unearthed a turtle shell in Molly in the 1980s for centuries there was even an entire city hidden under the desert timgad was a Roman out Outpost constructed by the emperor Tran around the year 100 in the current ERA for various reasons its residence abandoned it around the year 700 the Sands of the Sahara soon engulfed the city it had remained hidden for nearly a thousand years then in the 1700s a Scottish Explorer started digging out the city his team first uncovered a Sandstone triumphal Arch 40 ft High similar to the ones we can see in Rome and Paris is today an Amphitheater soon popped out of the sand and it was followed by well preserved statues of Roman emperors the scotsman’s find was so impressive that no one believed him at first it took two more centuries for archaeologist to fully excavate the city during the 1950s the site covers a surface as large as 10 Polo Fields the ruins reveal the full Mastery of Roman City Planning all the streets meet at a right angle in what is known as an orthogonal grid you can find the same layouts in modern cities such as New York historians estimate that during its Heyday 10,000 people called timy at home different nationalities lived here from Romans to people of African descent today more than 2 and 1/2 million people live in and around the Sahara they are spread across 11 countries in total and their living space is growing the desert is 10% larger than it was just a century ago this process doesn’t involve sand pouring out of the Sahara the ecosystems on the edges of the desert simply change over time the Wind Blows the soil away and vegetation dwindles the perfect conditions for the formation of a desert landscape these changes are happening in the sahal a region south of the Sahara Desert that’s why the African countries have recently come together for a project called called the Great green wall the primary goal is to stop the desertification of the sahal and hold back the Sands of the Sahara their plan is ambitious and involves planting a wall of trees from the West to the east of the African continent the proposed Forest is not only going to be long but wide as well the Sahara and the Sahel share a historic Bond since Antiquity camel Caravans have been making the journey from Africa’s Mediterranean Coast in the North to the savanas in the South the Golden Age of this trade kicked off in the 9th century the perilous Journey took several months to complete the route was 2 and 1/2 times longer than the length of the Grand Canyon explorers still find evidence of these ancient Caravans hidden away under the Sands of the Sahara you plan to spend your summer vacation in Africa the final Destin ation is the Sahara Desert it’s located in Northern Africa stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea you’re excited to ride camels and learn about the Region’s Rich cultures you hop on an extensively long flight and finally you are here you find yourself in the world’s biggest hot desert can you believe it’s 3 million square miles you’re ready for your first Adventure after drinking liters of ice cold water the guide gives you a choice you can spend 2 weeks visiting a collection of Oasis or you can help them solve an ongoing local mystery deep into the desert near this Algerian Town lies a mystery begging to be solved a collection of huge spotted circles in the sand there are dozens of them stretching for miles in a straight line the circles were first identified via Google Earth images several years ago people have debated them for years but no one seems to know the answer the strange thing is that they are so many miles away from any towns roads or human activity the quickest way to discover the truth behind the circles is asking questions you grab your notebook and set up to talk to locals everyone is helpful in this scenario geographers anthropologists elders and historians the first person you talk to is a map expert you need to understand if those circles were authentic or a satellite glitch you end up interviewing the people who take Google Earth’s satellite pictures pictures the circles are really there they appear in multiple pictures from many years then let’s understand why they are there in the first place after 2 days of interviews you have your first lead the circles could be the result of oil activity experts explained why this would make sense Algeria is a rich area for natural resources so this would be a sensible guess usually to find out if there is anything worth extracting companies would undertakes seismic surveys seismic surveys are a way of analyzing the Earth’s surface by sending shock waves into the ground depending on how these waves bounce back you’ll know what is located there a special vehicle could have marked the soil that way so did we unravel the mystery not quite so as you know the Sahara Desert is one of the driest areas on the planet the average high temperatures in summer are over 104° F to survive there people need to find ways of accessing water so these circles could be a kind of Ruin or leftovers from ancient water wells again I’d say this is a sensible guess ready for some factchecking some anthropologists agree that these circles could be ancient fageras fera is the name of a 2,500 year old style of irrigation system usually found in Northern Africa it is also known as a canat in other places in Northern Africa locals would dig a deep well at an elevated Point deep enough to tap into underground water they would then dig parallel shafts at regular distances then they would dig an underground channel that connected the city to the well solely with the help of gravity water would run from the well to the city this traditional technology provided water for crops livestock and humans now let’s say these Wells made human-made Oasis possible even the closest municipality name was an indication that this could be true the name foget esoa is actually named after fog RPS these ancient Wells now this lead was proven to be very accurate you decide to travel over there to see for yourself you take a local bus sit back and enjoy the ride the landscape in Northern Algeria is filled with ancient looking towns you even see ruins of Wells along the way on the outskirts of small smaller cities opening Google satellite images you can see the Kat’s markings on the ground a series of holes running down several miles but as soon as you arrive you find out you were wrong Dale Lightfoot one of the world’s leading experts on canat said that the circles were definitely not canat even the satellite images confirm this difference uh-oh we were so close apparently canat or fogas would not run down streight line they wouldn’t be shaped like circles another clue that this wasn’t the case was that there were no Towns at the end the circles were really far away from any human activity and canots were explicitly built to provide water for human settlements well it sure was a good try you almost gave up on this mystery when you decided to take one more field trip it was days of preparation pickup cars Food Equipment also that the mystery of the Sahara circles could be UNR traveled on the first day you drove over 99 M into the desert you were always curious to see what this part of the world looked like over there you see nothing but mustard yellow Dunes the night sky is pretty decent though you can see the entire Milky Way with your own eyes you set up camp and sleep under a canopy of stars the next day tension grows there’s no cell reception oh dear but thankfully you added the coordinates of the circles to your Google Map and surprise the offline mode works out there you follow the coordinates but it leads you astray you start to get nervous thinking this was all in vain but you and the team get into the car and drive a few more miles past the coordinates on your phone after a very bumpy ride you can’t believe your eyes there it is an enormous crater dug on the sand surrounded by 12 smaller holes from up high it looks like a clock without the pointers of course on the ground they’re very faint so faint you almost miss them searching the area you notice all the holes had something similar metal wires thin wires that you can pull from the ground they’re buried deep so you start digging an object starts to reveal itself uh-oh it looks like old Dynamite this certainly surprises you um better stop digging to avoid any accidents at the end of the survey you feel satisfied but still curious what could all this dynamite mean and who put it there what comes next is the turning point of your adventure walking back to the car you see something shining on the ground you approach the item with curiosity it’s round and Rusty and looks like a sardine can what’s that doing here could this give you more clues about the circle’s mystery just in case you pick it up and put it in the car back in the city the puzzle pieces start to reveal the story behind the Sahara circles you bring photos in the Sardine Can and show them to Local experts they analyze your material and give you an intriguing verdict as a turns out guess number one was the closest one to the truth so what happened to the first guess why do we need to keep digging deeper well because it was only half right the Sahara circles are not not a historical footprint of seismic surveying back when the circles were made this technology didn’t even exist but they sure are related to oil exploration the dynamite filed holes were an old method for oil searching the circles are the leftovers of surveyors looking for resources underground and the Sardine cans well they were left by the workers who held explosion works you got to eat right according to the model of the can this happened more or less around the 19 1950s and 1960s so these circles aren’t even that ancient more like modern ones if you ask me well well well hope you are glad you tagged along and helped unravel this mystery see you in the next mystery solving Adventure you find yourself in Africa land of unique Wildlife home to a great variety of cultures and languages and first and foremost host to the world’s largest hot desert the Sahara it’s daytime and you are thirsty for some water and shade you’ve been walking for days trying to find one of those precious looking oases you feel you’re near but the Horizon just keeps stretching and stretching your mind is tired and your body is feeling all the heat it’s like you’ve eaten a full plate of hot pepper and then some more judging by how much you’re sweating and when I say hot think 100° fight hot on average no wonder this is happening after all you find yourself in the world’s biggest hot desert now I say hot desert since the biggest deserted Landscapes are actually the cold ones located in Antarctica and the Arctic I see Antarctica’s Frozen desert is more or less the size of 1 million LAX yep the Los Angeles International Airport the Arctic desert is just a bit smaller than that now in case you don’t know the Sahara desert is located in Northern Africa stretching from the Atlantic Ocean all the way over to the Red Sea it occupies an area large enough to place approximately 100,000 Disney World theme parks side by side according to scientists its boundaries are expanding deserts usually form in the subtropics because of what’s called hadly circulation the air rises at the equator and descends into the subtropics this circulation of air has a drying effect which helps the formation of desert Landscapes since the 1920s the Sahara is considered to have expanded by over 10% how is this happening well let’s start from the beginning you probably know the Sahara Desert as one of the most inhospitable places on Earth today just FYI for a place to be considered a desert it has to receive less than 4 in of rain per year due to the very small precipitation index deserts are usually dry and Aid places there is little humidity in the air and daytime temperatures can go as high as 130° F usually there isn’t that much animal and plant life because of the lack of water but in the Saharas case it wasn’t always like that it may be difficult to imagine Northern Africa without the tons of sand it has today but about 20,000 years ago the Sahara was actually one big Oasis recent discoveries show clear evidence of what the scientists now call the green Sahara in the mid 1800s a German Explorer crossing the Sahara encountered some paintings and Engravings that Nomad artists had left behind what he saw in those paintings looked nothing like his actual surroundings instead of an arid landscape with only camels and desert vegetation The Rock paintings depicted jungle animals like giraffes and hippos there were even images of livestock and grazing animals such as cattle and sheep something that seems impossible for modern day Sahara artists usually draw what they see around them so this finding really intrigued the German Explorer the drawings were so detailed that the artists must have had close contact with those animals you can find this rock art spread out in the northern part of the African continent from Western Sahara to Saudi Arabia geologists soon took a keen interest in this and found the first Clues to what this could mean they have been able to confirm that in fact Northern Africa was once much wet they found evidence from nearby deep sea sediment off the coast of morania sample cores of underwater sand and mud known as Saharan dust flux show geologists that indeed a green Sahara was possible the more dust is blowing off of the desert and into the bottom of the ocean the drier the climate in the region the sediment cor show that there was much less dust only half as much coming off Northern Africa during the humid period this period has to do with Earth’s natural cycles normally the Earth rotates at a tilt of 23 1/ 12° but this angle is not consistent and changes over time Earth’s Tilt is responsible for the amount of sunlight each hemisphere receives it affects several ecosystem functions on the planet during the time of the green Sahara the Earth received between 4 and 8% more sunlight than it does today so when the earth tilted about 20,000 years ago the Northern Hemisphere received more direct sunlight which affected humidity levels in the region as the Northern Hemisphere got warmer this affected mon Monsoon activity more specifically the West African Monsoon monsoons are wind systems that affect a Region’s rainfall index and humidity levels as a part of the globe gets warmer it allows for more air to rise it combines with the wind to draw moisture up into the atmosphere little by little Northern Africa also became wetter the increased moisture made the Sahara so wet that there were actual bodies of water in the region as vegetation grew the plants held on to moisture better than than bare sand could there is evidence of natural basins throughout the Sahara and lakes so big they would fit all of the US’s Great Lakes inside of them archaeologists uncovered evidence of vibrant Societies in what are now Aid areas it looks like ancient cultures were able to take full advantage of the African humid period according to researchers the human population peaked across the Sahara about 9,000 years ago there are traces of fireplaces hunting tools Fish Hooks and even mounds of Fishbones records show that there have been over 230 green periods over the span of 8 million years solar radiation is always changing due to Natural orbital Cycles that’s why Earth will most certainly see another green Sahara moment it might be thousands of years from now but it will happen the same way the Sahara turns green it turns yellow again let’s put it like that all it takes is a significant axial tilt and a few years of readjusting however another phenomenon is calling the attention of scientists now recent Studies by the National Science Foundation from the University of Maryland show the Sahara has expanded 10% over the past 90 years this phenomenon is called desertification which literally means fertile land turning into desert land the Sahara Desert is now advancing into the semiarid region of Sahel in 1950 this region was home to 31 million people today its population is over 100 million people this rapid population growth has largely contributed to the Sahara’s expansion Farmers that were once Nomads began settling down land usage grew more intense aiding and weakening the soil the demand for food has caused an overcapping of the land so even more of it is turning into the desert now the study also shows that natural climate Cycles can affect rainfall in the Sahara and the Sahel scientists affirm that all deserts fluctuate not only the Sahara a desert’s boundary May expand in the dry winter and contract during the wetter summer south of the Sahara lies the Chad Basin it is a natural body of water that now serves as an indicator of the Sahara’s expansion the Chad Basin is located in the region where the Sahara is advancing Southward an atmospheric and ocean expert from the University of Maryland explains that rainfall has reduced greatly in the entire region due to reduced rainfalls there is less water across the entire Basin and even Chad lake is drying out just like the Sahara the atak desert in Chile deemed the world’s driest is also expanding it is located north of the city of Santiago and its Southern border is expanding toward the Chilean Capital because the climate is getting drier and drier here the city of Santiago risk turning into an arid or semi-arid region itself the once fertile valleys of local rivers that lived on agriculture and livestock for many generations are losing their revenues as Chilean land is turning into a desert since 2010 Santiago has received only a third of its annual rainfall outside of the city Farmers are digging holes in search of blue gold or simply put water the situation here is very similar to that of sahal so tell me this were you as surprised as I was to find out what has been happening in the Sahara region feel free to share in the comments below we’ve all heard of the Sahara sure you have it’s the largest hot desert on the planet a sea of sand covering an area larger than the contiguous United States but have you ever wondered What Lies Beneath the sand dunes to answer this question we must travel deep into the past of our Blue Planet up until some 6,000 years ago the Sahara was grassland humans were around at this time not me spreading agriculture around the planet in the north of Africa the color green dominated plenty of rainfall meant that there were lakes rivers pastures and even forests a completely different image of the Sahara from the barren landscape of today but then the climate started to shift the region became parged and the vegetation started disappearing the wind did the rest it took away the fine set sent after there were no plant roots to hold the ground together give it a couple thousands of years and you get a familiar image of the Sahara sand and rocks stretching as far as the eye can see but when it comes to volume only a quarter of the Sahara is actually sand the yellow Sands of the Sahara are just one part of the story the desert has many other features such as gravel Plains Salt Flats and plateaus makes you think if we understand the word desert correctly for people who study such terrains geologists there is only one condition for defining a desert precipitation if an area gets little or no rain then it’s considered a desert the Sahara certainly fits the bill its average annual rainfall is just 3 in compare that to the nearly 45 Ines a year in New York when we look at precipitation this sandy desert is only the Third larg largest in the world number one and two are Antarctica and the Arctic they are larger than the Sahara by millions of square miles it sounds odd but there is more than one type of desert the first two are polar deserts while the Sahara is a subtropical desert but the difference in air temperature are staggering in Antarctica’s interior temperatures plummet to – 76° F compare that to the highest temperature on record in the Sahara of 136° f but this desert has a cool sign at night the temperature is roughly the same as the average yearly temperature in Denmark this hot and cold roller coaster makes it hard to choose the right outfit when venturing into the Sahara and what about the sand how deep is it actually the depth varies between 70 and 140 ft that’s not too deep if you put the Statue of Liberty in a tall Dune half of it would still stick out of the sand its vast amounts in the Sahara were created by eolian processes as Greek for wind over time it blows and shapes the surface of the Earth in dry areas with sparse vegetation winds erode the ground much faster that’s what happened in North Africa under all that sand is the Bedrock and cracked clay if you started digging you would find the same everywhere on the planet with one important difference there is some type of soil covering the Bedrock this is not the case in the Sahara because of the aid climate and a lack of vegetation sand covers the ground below over the course of thousands of years a lot of interesting finds ended up in the desert sand for example there are petrified tree trunks these are essentially preserved prehistoric trees they date back to the time when the region was lush green in some places the Trees of this fossilized Forest are at least 65 ft tall the wood is so well preserved that you can still see the texture and Knots there are even fossilized pine cones in 1992 scientists found glass fragments in eastern Sahara these canary yellow glass shards were scattered across hundreds of miles they didn’t belong to an ancient civilization although ancient Egyptians used them to make jewelry in fact the breastplate of King Tut had a beautiful scarab beetle centerpiece made from this desert glass for a long time scientists were puzzled about the true origins of these fragments they finally concluded that the glass was around 29 million years old it is an impact tape if that sounds like it has something to do with the word impact you are correct these rocks are formed when a meteorite hits the surface of the Earth this generates a lot of heat scientists estimate that the temperature needed to melt this mineral was close to 3000° F apart from the regular fine grain sand we also have melted sand in the Sahara but the desert conceals other unlikely artifacts shark teeth are a common find in Morocco which sits in the western part of the Sahara what are the fossilized teeth of these Marine Predators doing in the middle of the desert this part of the world looked entirely different millions of years ago there was a sea cutting right through what is now a desert the trans Saharan Seaway ran the length of present day Algeria and mly it was around 165 ft deep that was enough for all sorts of aquatic animals to inhabit it large catfish sea snakes and of course sharks lived in the air British archaeologists even unearth a turtle shell in Molly in the 1980s for centuries there was even an entire city hidden under the desert timad was a Roman Outpost constructed by the emperor Tran around the year 100 in the current ERA for various reasons its residents abandoned it around the year 700 the Sands of the Sahara soon engulfed the city it had remained hidden for nearly a thousand years then in the 1700s a Scottish Explorer started digging out the city his team first uncovered a Sandstone triumphal Arch 40 ft High similar to the ones we can see in Rome and Paris today an Amphitheater soon popped out of the sand and it was followed by well-preserved statues of Roman emperors the scotsman’s find was so impressive that no one believed him at first it took two more centuries for archaeologists to fully excavate the city during the 1950s the site covers a surface as large as 10 Polo Fields the ruins reveal the full Mastery of Roman City Planning all the streets meet at a right angle in what is known as an orthagonal grid you can find the same layouts in modern cities such as New York historians estimate that during its Heyday 10,000 people called timy at home different nationalities lived here from Romans to people of African descent today more than 2 and 1/2 million people live in and around the Sahara they are spread across Ross 11 countries in total and their living space is growing the desert is 10% larger than it was just a century ago this process doesn’t involve sand pouring out of the Sahara the ecosystems on the edges of the desert simply change over time the Wind Blows the soil away and vegetation dwindles the perfect conditions for the formation of a desert landscape these changes are happening in the sahal a region south of the Sahara Desert that’s why the African countries have recently come together for a project called the Great green wall the primary goal is to stop the desertification of the sahal and hold back the Sands of the Sahara their plan is ambitious and involves planting a wall of trees from the West to the east of the African continent the proposed Forest is not only going to be long but wide as well the Sahara and the Sahel share a historic Bond since Antiquity camel Caravans have been making the journey from Africa’s Mediterranean Coast in the North to the savanas in the South the Golden Age of this trade kicked off in the 9th century the perilous Journey took several months to complete the route was 2 and 1/2 times longer than the length of the Grand Canyon explorers still find evidence of these ancient Caravans hidden away under the Sands of the Sahara you plan to spend your summer vacation in Africa the final destination is the Sahara Desert it’s located in Northern Africa stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea you’re excited to ride camels and learn about the Region’s Rich cultures you hop on an extensively long flight and finally you are here you find yourself in the world’s biggest hot desert can you believe is 3 million square miles you’re ready for your first Adventure after drinking liters of cold water the guide gives you a choice you can spend 2 weeks visiting a collection of Oasis or you can help them solve an ongoing local mystery deep into the desert near this Algerian Town lies a mystery begging to be solved a collection of huge spotted circles in the sand there are dozens of them stretching for miles in a straight line the circles were first identified via Google Earth images several years ago people have debated them for years years but no one seems to know the answer the strange thing is that they are so many miles away from any towns roads or human activity the quickest way to discover the truth behind the circles is asking questions you grab your notebook and sit up to talk to locals everyone is helpful in this scenario geographers anthropologists elders and historians the first person you talk to is a map expert you need to understand if those circles were authentic or satellite glitch you end up interviewing the people who take Google Earth’s satellite pictures the circles are really there they appear in multiple pictures from many years then let’s understand why they are there in the first place after 2 days of interviews you have your first lead the circles could be the result of oil activity experts explained why this would make sense Algeria is a rich area for natural resources so this would be a sensible guess usually to find out if there is anything worth extracting companies would undertake seismic surveys seismic surveys are a way of analyzing the Earth’s surface by sending shock waves into the ground depending on how these waves bounce back you’ll know what is located there a special vehicle could have marked the soil that way so did we unravel the mystery not quite so as you know the Sahara Desert is one of the driest areas on the planet the average high temperature tempatures in summer are over 104° F to survive there people need to find ways of accessing water so these circles could be a kind of Ruin or leftovers from ancient water wells again I’d say this is a sensible guess ready for some factchecking some anthropologists agree that these circles could be ancient fageras fera is the name of a 2,500 year old style of irrigation system usually found in Northern Africa it is also known as a canat in other places in Northern Africa locals would dig a deep well at an elevated Point deep enough to tap into underground water they would then dig parallel shafts at regular distances then they would dig an underground channel that connected the city to the well solely with the help of gravity water would run from the well to the city this traditional technology provided water for crops livestock and humans now let’s say these Wells made human-made Oasis possible even the closest municipality name was an indication that this could be true the name foget esoa is actually named after foget these ancient Wells now this lead was proven to be very accurate you decide to travel over there to see for yourself you take a local bus sit back and enjoy the ride the landscape in Northern Algeria is filled with ancient looking towns you even see ruins of Wells along the way on the outskirts of smaller cities opening Google satellite images you can see the Kat’s markings on the ground a series of holes running down several miles but as soon as you arrive you find out you were wrong Dale Lightfoot one of the world’s leading experts on canat said that the circles were definitely not canots even the satellite images confirm this difference uh-oh we were so close apparently canat or fogas would not run down a straight line they wouldn’t be shaped like circles another clue that this wasn’t the case was that there were no Towns at the end the circles were really far away from any human activity and canots were explicitly built to provide water for human settlements well it sure was a good try you almost gave up on this mystery when you decided to take one more field trip it was days of preparation pick up cars Food Equipment also that the mystery of the Sahara circles could be unraveled on the first day you drove over 99 miles into the desert you were always curious to see what this part of the world looked like over there you see nothing but mustard yellow Dunes the night sky is pretty decent though you can see the entire Milky Way with your own eyes you set up camp and sleep under a canopy of stars the next day tension grows there’s no cell recep ception oh dear but thankfully you added the coordinates of the circles to your Google Map and surprise the offline mode works out there you follow the coordinates but it leads you astray you start to get nervous thinking this was all in vain but you and the team get into the car and drive a few more miles past the coordinates on your phone after a very bumpy ride you can’t believe your eyes there it is an enormous crater dug on the sand surrounded by 12 smaller holes from up high it looks like a clock without the pointers of course on the ground they’re very faint so faint you almost missed them searching the area you notice all the holes had something similar metal wires thin wires that you can pull from the ground they’re buried deep so you start digging an object starts to reveal itself uh-oh it looks like old Dynamite this certainly surprises you um better stop digging to avoid any accidents at the end of the survey you feel satisfied but still curious what could all this dynamite mean and who put it there what comes next is the turning point of your adventure walking back to the car you see something shining on the ground you approach the item with curiosity it’s round and Rusty and looks like a sardine can what’s that doing here could this give you more clues about the circle’s mystery just in case you pick it up and put it in the car back in the city the puzzle pieces start to reveal the story behind the Sahara circles you bring photos in the Sardine Can and show them to Local experts they analyze your material and give you an intriguing verdict as it turns out guest number one was the closest one to the truth so what happened to the first guess why do we need to keep digging deeper well because it was only half right the Sahara circles are not a historical footprint of seismic surveying back when the circles were made this technology didn’t even exist but they sure are related to oil exploration the dynamite filled holes were an old method for oil searching the circles are the leftovers of surveyors looking for resources underground and the Sardine cans well they were left by the workers who held explosion works you got to eat right right according to the model of the can this happened more or less around the 1950s and 1960s so these circles aren’t even that ancient more like modern ones if you ask me well well well hope you are glad you tagged along and helped unravel this mystery see you in the next mystery solving Adventure you find yourself in Africa land of unique Wildlife home to a great variety of cultures and languages and first and foremost host to the world’s Lar largest hot desert the Sahara it’s daytime and you are thirsty for some water and shade you’ve been walking for days trying to find one of those precious looking oases you feel you’re near but the Horizon just keeps stretching and stretching your mind is tired and your body is feeling all the heat it’s like you’ve eaten a full plate of hot pepper and then some more judging by how much you’re sweating and when I say hot think 100° F hot on average no wonder this is happening after all you find yourself in the world’s biggest hot desert now I say hot desert since the biggest deserted Landscapes are actually the cold ones located in Antarctica and the Arctic iy Antarctica’s Frozen desert is more or less the size of 1 million lax’s yep the Los Angeles International Airport the Arctic desert is just a bit smaller than that now in case you don’t know the Sahara desert is located in Northern Africa stretching from the Atlantic Ocean all the way over to the Red Sea it occupies an area large enough to place approximately 100,000 Disney World theme parks side by side according to scientists its boundaries are expanding deserts usually form in the subtropics because of what’s called Hadley circulation the air rises at the equator and descends into the subtropics this circulation of air has a drying effect which helps the formation of desert Landscapes since the 1920s the Sahara is considered to have expanded by over 10% how is this happening well let’s start from the beginning you probably know the Sahara Desert as one of the most inhospitable places on Earth today just FYI for a place to be considered a desert it has to receive less than 4 in of rain per year due to the very small precipitation index deserts are usually dry and Aid places there is little humidity in the air and daytime temperatures can go as high as 130° F usually there isn’t that much animal and plant life because of the lack of water but in the Saharas case it wasn’t always like that it may be difficult to imagine Northern Africa without the tons of sand it has today but about 20,000 years ago the Sahara was actually one big Oasis recent discoveries show clear evidence of what the scientists now call the green Sahara in the mid 1800s a German Explorer crossing the Sahara encountered some paintings and Engravings that Nomad artists had left behind what he saw in those paintings looked nothing like his actual surroundings instead of an arid landscape with only camels and desert vegetation The Rock paintings depicted jungle animals like giraffes and hippos there were even images of livestock and grazing animals such as cattle and sheep something that seems impossible for modern day Sahara artists usually draw what they see around them so this finding really intrigued the German Explorer the drawings were so detailed that the artists must have had close contact with those animals you can find this rock art spread out in the northern part of the African continent from Western Sahara to Saudi Arabia geologists soon took a keen interest in this and found the first Clues to what this could mean they have been able to confirm that in fact Northern Africa was once much wetter they found evidence from nearby deep sea sediment off the coast of morania sampled cores of underwater sand and mud known as Saharan dust flux show geologists that indeed a green Sahara was possible the more dust is blowing off of the desert and into the bottom of the ocean the drier the climate in the region the sediment cores show that there was much less dust only half as much coming off Northern Africa during the humid period this period has to do with Earth’s natural cycles normally the Earth rotates at a tilt of 23 1/ 12° but this angle is not consistent and changes over time Earth’s Tilt is responsible for the amount of sunlight each hemisphere receives it affects several ecosystem functions on the planet during the time of the green Sahara the Earth received between 4 and 8% more sunlight than it does today so when the earth tilted about 20,000 years ago the Northern Hemisphere received more direct sunlight which affected hum humidity levels in the region as the Northern Hemisphere got warmer this affected Monsoon activity more specifically the West African Monsoon monsoons are wind systems that affect a Region’s rainfall index and humidity levels as a part of the globe gets warmer it allows for more air to rise it combines with the wind to draw moisture up into the atmosphere little by little Northern Africa also became wetter the increased moisture made the Sahara so wet that there were actual bodies of water in the region as vegetation grew the plants held on to moisture better than bare sand could there is evidence of natural basins throughout the Sahara and lakes so big they would fit all of the US’s Great Lakes inside of them archaeologists uncovered evidence of vibrant Societies in what are now Aid areas it looks like ancient cultures were able to take full advantage of the African humid period according to researchers the human population peaked across the Sahara about 9,000 years ago there are traces of fireplaces hunting tools Fish Hooks and even mounds of Fishbones records show that there have been over 230 green periods over the span of 8 million years solar radiation is always changing due to Natural orbital Cycles that’s why Earth will most certainly see another green Sahara moment it might be thousands of years from now but it will happen the same way the Sahara turns green it turns yellow again let’s put it like that all it takes is a significant axial tilt and a few years of readjusting however another phenomenon is calling the attention of scientists now recent Studies by the National Science Foundation from the University of Maryland show the Sahara has expanded 10% over the past 90 years this phenomenon is called desertification which literally means fertile land turning into desert land the Sahara Desert is now advancing into the semiarid region of Sahel in 1950 this region was home to 31 million people today it’s population is over 100 million people this rapid population growth has largely contributed to the Sahara’s expansion Farmers that were once Nomads began settling down land usage grew more intense aiding and weakening the soil the demand for food has caused an overcapping of the land so even more of it is turning into the desert now the study also shows that natural climate Cycles can affect rainfall in the Sahara and the sahal scientists affirm that all deserts fluctuate not only the Sahara a desert’s boundary May expand in the dry winter and contract during the wetter summer south of the Sahara lies the Chad Basin it is a natural body of water that now serves as an indicator of the Sahara’s expansion the Chad Basin is located in the region where the Sahara is advancing Southward an atmospheric and oce expert from the University of Maryland explains that rainfall has reduced greatly in the entire region due to reduced rainfalls there is less water across the entire Basin and even Chad lake is drying out just like the Sahara the atak desert in Chile deemed the world’s driest is also expanding it is located north of the city of Santiago and its Southern border is expanding toward the Chilean Capital because the climate is getting drier and drier here the city of Santiago risk turning into an arid or semi-arid region itself the once fertile valleys of local rivers that lived on agriculture and livestock for many generations are losing their revenues as Chilean land is turning into a desert since 2010 Santiago has received only a third of its annual rainfall outside of the city Farmers are digging holes in search of blue gold or simply put water the situation here is very similar to that of sahal so tell me this were you as surprised as I was to find out what has been happening in the Sahara region feel free to share in the comments below endless hot deserts seem lifeless at first glance but among these Sands you can meet dangerous and sometimes creepy creatures some of them can only cause health problems but some can stay in your memory forever let’s get to to know them starting with Dangerous Ones and finishing with real nightmares so you’re walking through a desert and see a big teddy bear with Open Hands you understand that it’s probably a mirage but still you come closer you were right it’s not a plush toy but a giant Cactus there’s something strange about it thanks to some strange fluff the branches resemble the arms of a teddy bear however this is not fluff but thousands of thin needles and they are the reason you shouldn’t come closer the cactus is called the jumping choya or teddy bear choya it grows in the desert areas of Arizona and in the northern part of Mexico don’t worry this Cactus won’t attack you but it will cling to your skin or clothes if you touch it such a fur coat protects the cactus from animals creates shade and saves it from heat the lateral branches are the most important parts of the plant as they carry out photosynthesis and accumulate a large amount of moisture inside so despite all the danger the cactus can be helpful for Desert Wanderers and the danger here is needles if you look closer at them you will see they have the shape of hooks one touch and hundreds of thorns are already in your finger it’s pretty difficult to get rid of them and the needles cause unpleasant painful Sensations but the coolest thing about this Cactus is the way it reproduces the plant clones itself in a new place when animals and people pass the jumping choya and touch it the cactus gives them a small piece of itself along with the needles as soon as you throw this piece to the ground it takes root and starts growing the degree of danger is rising the next monster from the desert is running toward us and that is an ostrich many think these animals are cowards hiding their heads in the sand you will most likely change your mind if you’re unlucky enough to meet one usually ostriches are not aggressive but you should run if you come closer to their nest on the other hand you won’t be able to do that because ostriches move at a speed of 43 mph you need a car to get away from them they run and hit their enemy with their chests there have been cases when ostriches attack Vans and caused significant damage to them but the main danger these birds present is their powerful legs with sharp claws they can deliver strong blows with them and even beat a prone opponent so yes if you see an ostrich in the distance go the other way this small spotted lizard lives underground almost all the time in the Arid deserts of the southwestern us and Northwestern Mexico sometimes it goes outside to find lunch it only seems cute but in fact it’s a dangerous Gila monster its thick skin protects the reptile from Hawks coyotes and other Predators but its main protection is its venom snakes and spiders inject their toxins using long needle-like fangs The Gila monster clamps down and chews the prey to spread the Venom and when it bites a person it can keep its jaws closed for for a long time getting rid of the animal is a tricky feat people who have experienced the effects of the Venom say it feels as if Hot magma passes through the veins despite this the lizard turned out to be useful for science doctors used its venom to create medicines for diabetes and obesity the time has come now you’re about to meet one of the creepiest creatures living in the desert be quiet and listen to the silence stand still there’s no one around suddenly you hear some hissing coming from below you lower your head and see it a big yellow spider the size of a human Palm with strong jaws and Long Legs hides in the shadow of your body in horror you run away from this monster but it goes after you it isn’t easy to do it in this situation but try to calm down the creature isn’t interested in in you it wants only your Shadow to hide from the scorching Sun anyway it’s better not to touch it the powerful jaws of the camel spider can cause unpleasant Sensations to put it mildly and by the way this creature isn’t really a spider yeah it belongs to the class of arachnids but it’s a separate species salid it likes to bite it’s fearless and pretty aggressive the spider prays on insects lizards rodents and small birds it can also move at a speed of 10 mph for their small size this is very fast you need to be a professional athlete to run away from it most often you can find camel spiders in the deserts of the Middle East but they also live in Mexico and the southwestern us these Runners are nocturnal and try to avoid the Sun during the day so they are always hunting Your Shadow by the way they got their name because they often hide in the shadows of camels you won’t hide from them during the day but they will also want to come after you at night especially if you make a fire solpugids always run to the light in the hope of eating something some species of these spiders make a hissing sound to scare their enemies away now let’s calm down for a second and leave the hot desert we’re going into the humid Tropics of Tanzania under tree bar dark fallen leaves and in dark caves you can meet one of the most terrifying creatures on earth a tailess whip scorpion imagine a big Scorpion without a tail with a flat body that looks like it has been pressed by something it’s similar to spiders but has no Venom glands and can’t spin a web this monster is silent and fast but the scariest thing is its two front claws twice as long as the creature itself any prey it catches will will never Escape life in a dark cave has spoiled its eyesight so the whip scorpion tries to avoid sunlight during molting it climbs up to the ceiling and slowly comes out of its old skin imagine directing your flashlight there and seeing small cocoons out of which pale spiders with excessively long legs crawl if you really me it be calm and slowly go away as far as possible be careful the flat scorpion can crawl under your clothes in a second and bite you in the stomach and that’s not the worst part okay this is a joke this pretty guy is one of the shiest and most harmless creatures among spiders and scorpions it’s afraid of you and will never attack many consider it beautiful and keep whipped scorpions in glass terrariums if you want such a pet carefully watch it so that it doesn’t run away from its house if it happens it will be pretty challenging to catch it again in a matter of moments it can get under your bed or go through gaps in the floor then it’ll go to your neighbor’s apartment through a ventilation system and scare people there okay how about one more scorpion it’s not as creepy as the other creatures in this video but it’s the most venomous scorpion in the USA this is the Arizona bark scorpion the problem is that you can see it in the desert in your home or in the yard these dangerous venomous beasts crawl into rooms and often sting people one time is enough to cause pain similar to a bee sting but someone with an allergy may experience paralysis breathing problems and other health issues ah the desert welcomes you with challenging conditions of abandoned environments and extreme temperatures hey some of us would prefer dessert chocolate over sand and rocks oh well just like cactuses and camels buildings have had to adapt to these conditions here are some examples of astonishing structures in deserts these structures are called Earth ships they’re located in a New Mexico desert town a large community of like-minded people lives in them what’s even more interesting is that the location of these buildings is registered as dumpsters maybe it’s because all these structures are made out of old tires bottles and cans Earth ships operate using Green Building principles about 40 % of a typical Earth chip is built with natural or recycled materials imagine the walls made up of hundreds of used tires packed with dirt then there are layers of floor to sealing passive solar Windows they gathered the sunlight during winter and reflected in the summer to keep the structures at a reasonable room temperature you can see plants and quarters and glass bottles or aluminum cans stuffed inside walls certainly a distinct house in many ways Mike Reynolds is an architect who noticed the alarm fing waste and consumption levels in the 1970s he designed a fully sustainable home out of cans back then almost 40 years later he becomes the one who brings together all the other Earth shippers Reynolds drove a Mercedes but it ran off of a vegetable oil he picked up at fast food restaurants in town a standard two-bedroom two-b Earth Ship cost about $250,000 in this town yet there are Earth ships like Dobson house that can cost as much as 1. $5 million if you do it yourself you know with family and friends you can eliminate the cost of Labor and it becomes relatively less expensive let’s assume you’re really going to build one where can it be well anywhere Earth ships currently fit in the cold dry air of Canada as well as the hot and humid climate of Haiti this is the Mirage mirror house it’s an installation set in the Southern California Desert Mirage opened in 2017 as part of a contemporary art exhibition it’s composed of mirrors this minimalistic structure blends with the environment around it the doors windows and openings have been removed to create an amazing experience what you have in the landscape is reflected back to you how’s it made with mirrored surfaces at night the distant lights refract from the mirrors in the daytime the sky is transformed into Banks of clouds there’s no fixed scenery in this house how about seeing a futuristic structure in in the Deep desert Architects designed a concept home that pairs perfectly with Elon musk’s cyber truck the house has a postapocalyptic theme I mean when I say post-apocalyptic it’s because I can’t say it anyway the house is designed to survive in a disaster scenario the Cyber house has steel Gates the windows are armored and the exterior walls are made out of super strong material modern house is controlled by an autonomous geothermal heat pump to put it in less sci-fi terms you can keep the internal temperature steady this Sleek house has an entrance that can fit the Cyber truck after all it’s inspired by it in the first place plus the Cyber Tru can be lifted to the second floor to be more secure this is King Abdullah petroleum studies and Research Center in Saudi Arabia basically it’s a laboratory in a desert it was designed to demand minimum energy the architecture has patterns on the walls and ceilings giving reference to the local tradition condition of geometric form the next stop is swartberg House in South Africa this one is located near the swartberg mountains but don’t get too excited it’s on the edge of the great Karu desert it’s a four-bedroom apartment it has a special temperature regulating system the system works like a shield from the heat in the summer and has a sun trap in the winter you’re looking at the Grand Mosque of J in Molly this mosque is 52 ft tall this is impressive because it’s made of only STI mix and a special mix of mud and other natural elements found in the desert Petra is an ancient city hidden in the Jordan desert the structures are carved directly into red white and pink colored Sandstone Cliff faces it’s located among the canyons and mountains near the desert the place was a Trade Center many many years ago you might already see pictures of the impressive facade of the treasury this structure still holds many mysteries in it for starters scientists can’t explain how the naban managed to create such a structure thousands of years ago did you know that there’s another mysterious place in the middle of the desert that has a similar structure to Petra Medallion cay was like a second capital of the nibaran Kingdom yet another secret they left for us to decipher it has over 100 decorated tombs and more than a thousand non-m Monumental grades plus inscriptions and cave drawings are also here again surrounded by Sandstone this wooden Shack was a post office office once the structure is in the Tanger desert of Mongolia it’s surrounded by nothing sand is the only thing that accompanies the lonely structure the building is only 23 Square in as you can guess it didn’t get too many visitors it was abandoned for over 35 years its fate changed one day when a woman discovered the building Mrs Young and her friend came up with an idea they were going to reach businesses and people who wanted to send letters and Postcards From the world’s loneliest post office without actually visiting the place it worked the post office rarely gets visitors in place but it’s busy online over 20,000 letters and postcards were sent from the desert post office in December 2021 alone the place is about 6 M off the nearest Road a post truck picks the letters up and hits the road for delivery eventually they are shipped all over the world a second destination in Saudi Arabia is King abdulaziz Center for world culture the building has an interesting design it took nearly a decade to build this complex structure it’s a 321 ft tall tower which stands out with its look Stone Matter’s Pavilion is a stone structure in Palestine the structure spans a surface area of 93 Square in it has been built entirely out of 300 interlocking stones that mutually support each other the concave roofs and yes they look like giant bowls are designed that way to collect rainwater the structure is in Iran interestingly in Iran the evaporation rate is three times faster than the world average so this bow-like design comes in very handy it captures the water in a way that the water can form a single mass as a whole before it evaporates the outer shell of the roof system collects rain water but it also works as an additional shading it makes air move freely designed like a cooling mechanism for both roofs ecolodge in Egypt is the next stop the project is built in a place that overlooks the desert and is constructed using locally available materials like sunfired bricks and palmwood the building is an example of traditional architecture there’s a water basin that lets in the air to keep the interior cool a worthy mention is the CID interpretation Center in Chile Chile’s ataka desert is among the top tourist destinations in the country to help the tourists Architects designed a visitor center as part of the infrastructure rure for the wind farm here the cold winter months don’t freeze people because the large windows make the most of solar heating what’s even more interesting is that the building is designed to go completely dark at night imagine you somehow bumped into the building by accident Black Desert house is a building respecting the stars at night this house goes completely dark it dissolves into the night so the Stars can appear more prominent now any mysterious desert building you know that aren’t on this list let us know in the comments mirror check you’ve got your beige parka on your chisel is packed and your overnight plane ride to Saudi Arabia is booked you know what this means right unfortunately you weren’t cast in the remake of Dune it just means that you’re ready to go explore the world’s largest desert areas in the hopes of uncovering prehistoric secrets about our ancestors let’s get one thing straight if you ever thought that deserts were empty faces think again they might be filled with sand as far as the eye can see but they also hold a lot of history you know because before humans settled down in cities and towns we were nomadic people and we traveled all around the globe looking for food water and shelter so we had to come up with some interesting stuff to survive like this thing that was found in the desert of Saudi Arabia do you have any idea what this could have been over many years scientists have discussed the origins in use of huge structures such as these ones it seems our Neolithic ancestors were way smarter than we gave them credit for they didn’t spend all their hours around the fire carving weapons out of stone no they were also practicing their architectural skills these huge stone structures are called desert kites because if you look at them from a distance well they sort of look like kites archaeologists have arrived at the consensus that these kites were used to lure animals in this way it would make it easier for our ancestors to guarantee their week’s food but that’s not all take a look at these monolithic structures right here they show us that our ancesters probably Drew on rocks the blueprint of what they were going to build on the ground just like modern-day Architects desert kites could be miles long so they drew out a plan before actually building them the most surprising feature of all is that these kites were built even before things such as Stonehenge we’re talking around 7,000 to 9,000 years ago over the last decade science ssts have been able to identify over 6,000 desert kites spread across the middle east and west and Central Asia if you don’t think this huge try building something this large without the help of any drones it looks like a pretty difficult feat to me and apparently Saudi Arabia’s desert is filled with more amazing things scientists have found mysterious stone structures that are older than the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt so of course you can’t wait to go check that out can we all agree that carrying around heavy rocks to build a pyramid without the help of modern technology sounds absurd I mean how on Earth did they do it now imagine turning back the clock about 2,000 years into the past and finding humans that built similar gigantic structures in isolated areas take a look at these so-call madles they are rectangular structures built from piled up stones found over 77,000 square miles some archaeologists believe that these monuments were used for ritualistic purposes maybe processions of of some kind where people would walk from one end of the plateau to the other I’d be down for that now let’s move on to another deserted area we’re entering the world famous Sahara desert landscape isn’t it beautiful here you’re about to unravel an ancient mystery something that took years for researchers to solve fun fact the Sahara Desert is the world’s largest hot desert it spans over 3 million square miles which would be like putting a thousand times the country of Hawaii next to each other we say it’s the largest hot desert because the world’s largest desert area is Antarctica but we all know temperatures over there are freezing not the typical image of when we think of a desert deep into the desert near the Algerian town of foget edua something strange was found for decades these tiny dots appeared on images of Google Earth but nobody could explain what they were some scientists were sure that these circles are the result of oil activity in the region others guessed that these were ancient fogas or ancient water wells there are dozens of them stretching for miles and miles in a straight line the strange thing is that they are always far away from any Town Road or human activity in general so what was or is their purpose if you had to take a guess what would you say remember we talked about how our ancestors had to be creative in order to survive in the desert let’s try to walk in their shoes for a minute imagine you’re a nomadic hun hunter gatherer living in a desert area you spend your days basking in the hot sun trying to count all the grains of sand around you but you also need to eat and drink water but how on Earth do you get water in a desert sure you can hope to keep running into Oasis every week or so but that seems a bit risky doesn’t it that’s why North African people invented the so-called fogas the fogas are a 2,500-year old irrigation system locals would dig deep wells in elevated areas Wells deep enough to tap into Underground water then they would dig parallel shafts at regular distances this way the water would flow from the main well down into all the shafts and irrigate entire areas Travelers could stop by the shafts and quench their thirst they could also raise livestock and tend to crops pretty clever huh as much as these holes did look like fagaras a little bit of research would show you that they’re not you see these shafts were built in a line and not in a circular shape like the ones we’re looking at now so maybe it has something to do with the second option maybe these desert holes were related to oil activity in the region let’s have a look at the holes up close and personal from Google Earth they don’t seem that big but in real life they are huge craters the tip to uncovering what they are is hidden beneath the sand if you were one of the researchers originally uncovering the truth behind this mystery you would have found something unique hidden in the sand old dynamites and vintage sardine cans putting the the pieces of the puzzle together scientists found that these sardine cans were a model from the 1950s and 1960s it seems that entire teams from that decade would camp out while they surveyed the area for oil and what about the dynamites these were used for seismic surveying this is an old technique used to identify if there is oil and gas beneath the earth’s surface still in North Africa you find out about another desert mystery worth exploring near the city of Tet southw west of algeria’s Capital One runs into 13 peculiar monuments these structures are also called jedar and yes I am aware of how much that may sound like a Star Wars reference they are pyramid-like in their shapes and as far as scientists know they were used as final resting places for the people who lived in the region can you guess who these were most likely the Berber Nomads and since we’re talking about ancient stuff they were probably built between the 4th and 7th centuries CE once scientists began to explore the insides of these monuments they found they were pretty big inside they found large underground vaults Chambers and labyrinth-like corridors that gave way to over 20 compartments it could take you up to 2 hours to walk around in them and apparently our ancestors also used its walls to depict images of animals and hunting scenes there’s no definite proof of what these jars were used for though this is so neat huh I’m sure that our world’s desert is filled with many more mysterious things for us to unravel I guess I’ll see you next time so that we can continue our endless hot deserts seem lifeless at first glance but among these Sands you can meet dangerous and sometimes creepy creatures some of them can only cause health problems but some can stay in your memory forever let’s get to know them start with Dangerous Ones and finishing with real nightmares so you’re walking through a desert and see a big teddy bear with Open Hands you understand that it’s probably a mirage but still you come closer you were right it’s not a plush toy but a giant Cactus there’s something strange about it thanks to some strange fluff the branches resemble the arms of a teddy bear however this is not fluff but thousands of thin needles and they are the reason you shouldn’t come closer the cactus is called the jumping choya or teddy bear choya it grows in the desert areas of Arizona and in the northern part of Mexico don’t worry this Cactus won’t attack you but it will cling to your skin or clothes if you touch it such a fur coat protects the cactus from animals creates shade and saves it from heat the lateral branches are the most important important parts of the plant as they carry out photosynthesis and accumulate a large amount of moisture inside so despite all the danger the cactus can be helpful for Desert Wanderers and the danger here is needles if you look closer at them you will see they have the shape of hooks one touch and hundreds of thorns are already in your finger it’s pretty difficult to get rid of them and the needles cause unpleasant painful Sensations but the coolest thing about this cactus is the way it reproduces the plant clones itself in a new place when animals and people pass the jumping choya and touch it the cactus gives them a small piece of itself along with the needles as soon as you throw this piece to the ground it takes root and starts growing the degree of danger is rising the next monster from the desert is running toward us and that is an ostrich many think the these animals are cowards hiding their heads in the sand you will most likely change your mind if you’re unlucky enough to meet one usually ostriches are not aggressive but you should run if you come closer to their nest on the other hand you won’t be able to do that because ostriches move at a speed of 43 mph you need a car to get away from them they run and hit their enemy with their chests there have been cases when ostriches attacked Vans and caused significant damage to them but the main danger these birds present is their powerful legs with sharp claws they can deliver strong blows with them and even beat a prone opponent so yes if you see an ostrich in the distance go the other way this small spotted lizard lives underground almost all the time in the Arid deserts of the southwestern us and Northwestern Mexico sometimes it goes outside to find lunch if only seems cute but in fact it’s a dangerous Gila monster its thick skin protects the reptile from Hawks coyotes and other Predators but its main protection is its venom snakes and spiders inject their toxins using long needle-like fangs The Gila monster clamps down and chews the prey to spread the Venom and when it bites a person it can keep its jaws closed for a long time getting rid of the animal is a tricky feat people who have experienced the effects of the Venom say it feels as if Hot magma passes through the veins despite this the lizard turned out to be useful for science doctors used its venom to create medicines for diabetes and obesity the time has come now you’re about to meet one of the creepiest creatures living in the desert be quiet and listen to The Silence stand still there’s no one around suddenly you hear some hissing coming from below you lower your head and see it a big yellow spider the size of a human Palm with strong jaws and Long Legs hides in the shadow of your body in horror you run away from this monster but it goes after you it isn’t easy to do it in this situation but try to calm down the creature isn’t interested in you it wants it’s only your Shadow to hide from the scorching Sun anyway it’s better not to touch it the powerful jaws of the camel spider can cause unpleasant Sensations to put it mildly and by the way this creature isn’t really a spider yeah it belongs to the class of arachnids but it’s a separate species supid it likes to bite it’s fearless and pretty aggressive the spider prays on in inss lizards rodents and small birds it can also move at a speed of 10 mph for their small size this is very fast you need to be a professional athlete to run away from it most often you can find camel spiders in the deserts of the Middle East but they also live in Mexico and the southwestern us these Runners are nocturnal and try to avoid the Sun during the day so they are always hunting Your Shadow by the way they got their name because they often hide in the shadows of camels you won’t hide from them during the day but they will also want to come after you at night especially if you make a fire salug gids always run to the light in the hope of eating something some species of these spiders make a hissing sound to scare their enemies away now let’s calm down for a second and leave the hot desert we’re going into the humid Tropics of Tanzania under tree bark fallen leaves and in dark caves you can meet one of the most terrifying creatures on earth a tailess whip scorpion imagine a big Scorpion without a tail with a flat body that looks like it has been pressed by something it’s similar to spiders but has no Venom glands and can’t spin a web this monster is silent and fast but the scariest thing is its two front claws twice as long as the creature itself any prey it catches will never Escape life in a dark cave has spoiled its eyesight so the whip scorpion tries to avoid sunlight during molting it climbs up to the ceiling and slowly comes out of its old skin imagine directing your flashlight there and seeing small cocoons out of which pale spiders with excessively long legs crawl if you really meet it be calm and slowly go away as far as possible be careful the flat scorpion can crawl under your clothes in a second and bite you in the stomach and that’s not the worst part okay this is a joke this pretty guy is one of the shiest and most harmless creatures among spiders and scorpions it’s afraid of you and will never attack many consider it beautiful and keep Whi scorpions in glass terrariums if you want such a pet carefully watch it so that it doesn’t run away from its house if it happens it will be pretty challenging in to catch it again in a matter of moments it can get under your bed or go through gaps in the floor then it’ll go to your neighbor’s apartment through a ventilation system and scare people there okay how about one more scorpion it’s not as creepy as the other creatures in this video but it’s the most venomous scorpion in the USA this is the Arizona bark scorpion the problem is that you can see it in the desert in your home or or in the yard these dangerous venomous beasts crawl into rooms and often sting people one time is enough to cause pain similar to a be Ting but someone with an allergy may experience paralysis breathing problems and other health issues ah the desert welcomes you with challenging conditions of abandoned environments and extreme temperatures hey some of us would prefer dessert chocolate over sand and rocks oh well just like cactuses and camels buildings have had to adapt to these conditions here are some examples of astonishing structures in deserts these structures are called Earth ships they’re located in a New Mexico desert town a large community of like-minded people lives in them what’s even more interesting is that the location of these buildings is registered as dumpsters maybe it’s because all these structures are made out of old tires bottles and cans Earth ships operate using Green Building principles about 40% of a typical Earth Ship is built with natural or recycled materials imagine the walls made up of hundreds of used tires packed with dirt then there are layers of floor to seiling passive solar Windows they gather the sunlight during winter and reflected in the summer to keep the structures at a reasonable room temperature you can see plants and quds and glass bottles or aluminum cans stuffed inside walls certainly a distinct house in many ways Mike Reynolds is an architect who noticed the alarming waste and consumption levels in the 1970s he designed a fully sustainable home out of cans back then almost 40 years later he becomes the one who brings together all the other Earth shippers Reynolds drove a Mercedes but it ran off of the vegetable oil he picked up at fast food restaurants in town a standard two-bedroom two-b Earth Ship costs about $250,000 in this town yet there are Earth ships like Dobson house that can cost as much as $1.5 million if you do it yourself you know with family and friends you can eliminate the cost of Labor and it becomes relatively less expensive let’s assume you’re really going to build one where can it be well anywhere Earth ships currently fit in the cold dry air of Canada as well as the hot and humid climate of Haiti this is the Mirage mirror house it’s an installation set in the Southern California Desert Mirage opened in 2017 as part of a contemporary art exhibition it’s comp composed of mirrors this minimalistic structure blends with the environment around it the doors windows and openings have been removed to create an amazing experience what you have in the landscape is reflected back to you how’s it made with mirrored surfaces at night the distant lights refract from the mirrors in the daytime the sky is transformed into Banks of clouds there’s no fix scenery in this house how about seeing a futuristic structure in the Deep desert architect designed a concept home that pairs perfectly with Elon musk’s cyber truck the house has a post-apocalyptic th I mean when I say post-apocalyptic it’s because I can’t say it anyway the house is designed to survive in a disaster scenario the Cyber house has steel Gates the windows are armored and the exterior walls are made out of super strong material modern house is controlled by an autonomous geothermal heat pump to put it in less sci-fi terms you can keep the internal temper temperature studing this Sleek house has an entrance that can fit the Cyber truck after all it’s inspired by it in the first place plus the Cyber truck can be lifted to the second floor to be more secure this is King Abdullah petroleum studies and Research Center in Saudi Arabia basically it’s a laboratory in a desert it was designed to demand minimum energy the architecture has patterns on the walls and ceilings giving reference to the local tradition of geometric form the next stop is swartberg House in South Africa this one is located near the swartberg mountains but don’t get too excited it’s on the edge of the great Karu desert it’s a four-bedroom apartment it has a special temperature regulating system the system works like a shield from the heat in the summer and has a sun trap in the winter you’re looking at the Grand Mosque of J in Molly this mosque is 52 ft tall this is impressive because it’s made of only sticks and a special mix of mud and other natural elements found in the desert Petra is an ancient city hidden in the Jordan desert the structures are carved directly into red white and pink colored Sandstone Cliff faces it’s located among the canyons and mountains near the desert the place was a Trade Center many many years ago you might already see pictures of the impressive facade of the treasury this structure still holds many mysteries in it for starters scientists can’t explain how the neans managed to create such a structure thousands of years ago did you know that there’s another mysterious place in the middle of the desert that has a similar structure to Petra Medallion cay was like a second capital of the nibaran Kingdom yet another secret they left for us to decipher it has over 100 decorated tombs and more than a thousand non-m Monumental grades plus inscriptions and cave drawings are also here again surrounded by Sandstone this wooden Shack was a post office once the is in the Tanger desert of Mongolia it’s surrounded by nothing sand is the only thing that accompanies the lonely structure the building is only 23 Square in as you can guess it didn’t get too many visitors it was abandoned for over 35 years its fate changed one day when a woman discovered the building Mrs Young and her friend came up with an idea they were going to reach businesses and people who wanted to send letters and Postcards From the world’s loneliest post office without actually visiting the place it worked the post office rarely gets visitors in place but it’s busy online over 20,000 letters and postcards were sent from the desert post office in December 2021 alone the place is about 6 M off the nearest Road a post truck picks the letters up and hits the road for delivery eventually they are shipped all over the world a second destination in Saudi Arabia is King abdulaziz Center for World culture the building has has an interesting design it took nearly a decade to build this complex structure it’s a 321 ft tall tower which stands out with its look Stone Matter’s Pavilion is a stone structure in Palestine the structure spans a surface area of 93 Square in it has been built entirely out of 300 interlocking stones that mutually support each other the concave roofs and yes they look like giant bowls are designed that way to collect rainwater the structure is in your eyes interestingly in Iran the evaporation rate is three times faster than the world average so this bow-like design comes in very handy it captures the water in a way that the water can form a single mass as a whole before it evaporates the outer shell of the roof system collects rainwater but it also works as an additional shading it makes air move freely designed like a cooling mechanism for both roofs ecolodge in Egypt is the next stop the project is built in a place that overlooks the desert and is constructed using locally available materials like sunfired bricks and palmwood the building is an example of traditional architecture there’s a water basin that lets in the air to keep the interior cool a worthy mention is the C interpretation Center in Chile Chile’s ataka desert is among the top tourist destinations in the country to help the tourists Architects designed a Visitors Center as part of the infrastructure for the wind farm here the cold winter months don’t freeze people because the large windows make the most of solar heating what’s even more interesting is that the building is designed to go completely dark at night imagine you somehow bumped into the building by accident Black Desert house is a building respecting the stars at night this house goes completely dark it dissolves into the night so the Stars can appear more prominent now any mysterious desert buildings you know that aren’t on this list list let us know in the comments mirror check you’ve got your beige parka on your chisel is packed and your overnight plane ride to Saudi Arabia is booked you know what this means right unfortunately you weren’t cast in the remake of Dune it just means that you’re ready to go explore the world’s largest desert areas in the hopes of uncovering prehistoric secrets about our ancestors let’s get one thing straight if you ever thought that deserts were empty spaces think again they might be filled with sand as far as the eye can see but they also hold a lot of history you know because before humans settled down in cities and towns we were nomadic people and we traveled all around the globe looking for food water and shelter so we had to come up with some interesting stuff to survive like this thing that was found in the desert of Saudi Arabia do you have any idea what this could have been over many years scientists have discussed the origins and use of huge structures such as as these ones it seems our Neolithic ancestors were way smarter than we gave them credit for they didn’t spend all their hours around the fire carving weapons out of stone no they were also practicing their architectural skills these huge stone structures are called desert kites because if you look at them from a distance well they sort of look like kites archaeologists have arrived at the consensus that these kites were used to lure animals in this way it would make it easier for our ancestors to guarantee their week’s food but that’s not all take a look at these monolithic structures right here they show us that our ancestors probably Drew on rocks the blueprint of what they were going to build on the ground just like modern-day Architects desert kites could be miles long so they drew out a plan before actually building them the most surprising feature of all is that these kites were built even before things such as Stonehenge we’re talking around 7,000 to 9,000 years ago over the last decade scientists have been able to identify over 6,000 desert kites spread across the middle east and west and Central Asia if you don’t think this huge try building something this large without the help of any drones it looks like a pretty difficult feat to me and apparently Saudi Arabia’s desert is filled with more amazing things scientists have found mysterious stone structures that are older than the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt so of course you can’t wait to go check that out can we all agree that carrying around heavy rocks to build a pyramid without the help of modern technology sounds absurd I mean how on Earth did they do it now imagine turning back the clock about 2,000 years into the past and finding humans that built similar gigantic structures in isolated areas take a look at these so-called madles they are rectangular structures built from piled up stones found over 77,000 square miles some archaeologists believe that these monuments were used for ritualistic purposes maybe processions of some kind where people would walk from one end of the plateau to the other I’d be down for that now let’s move on to another deserted area we’re entering the world famous Sahara desert landscape isn’t it beautiful here you’re about to unravel an ancient mystery something that took years for researchers to solve fun fact the Sahara Desert is the world’s largest hot desert it spans over 3 million square miles which would be like putting a thousand times the country of Hawaii next to each other we say the largest hot desert because the world’s largest desert area is Antarctica but we all know temperatures over there are freezing not the typical image of when we think of a desert deep into the desert near the Algerian town of fogat UA something strange was found for decades these tiny dots appeared on images of Google Earth but nobody could explain what they were some scientists were sure that these circles are the result of oil activity in the region others guessed that these were ancient fogas or ancient water wells there are dozens of them stretching for miles and miles in a straight line the strange thing is that they are always far away from any Town Road or human activity in general so what was or is their purpose if you had to take a guess what would you say remember we talked about how our ancestors had to be creative in order to survive in the desert let’s try to walk in their shoes for a minute imagine you’re a nomadic hunter gatherer living in a desert area you spend your days basking in the hot sun trying to count all the grains of sand around you but you also need to eat and drink water but how on Earth do you get water in a desert sure you can hope to keep running into Oasis every week or so but that seems a bit risky doesn’t it that’s why North African people invented the so-called fogas the fogas are a 2,500-year old irrigation system locals would dig deep wells in elevated areas Wells deep enough to tap into underground water then they would dig parallel shafts at regular distances this way the water would flow from the main well down into all the shafts and irrigate entire areas Travelers could stop by the shafts and quench their thirst they could also raise livestock and tend to crops pretty clever huh as much as these holes did look like fagaras a little bit of research would show you that they’re not you see these shafts were built in a line and not in a circular shape like the ones we’re looking at now so maybe it has something to do with the second ey option maybe these desert holes were related to oil activity in the region let’s have a look at the holes up close and personal from Google Earth they don’t seem that big but in real life they are huge craters the tip to uncovering what they are is hidden beneath the sand if you were one of the researchers originally uncovering the truth behind this mystery you would have found something unique hidden in the sand old dynamites and vintage sardine cans putting the pieces of the puzzle together scientists found that these sardine cans were a model from the 1950s and 1960s it seems that entire teams from that decade would camp out while they surveyed the area for oil and what about the dynamites these were used for seismic surveying this is an old technique used to identify if there is oil and gas beneath the earth’s surface still in North Africa you find out about another desert mystery worth exploring near the city of tiet southwest of algeria’s capital one runs into 13 peculiar monuments these structures are also called jedar and yes I am aware of how much that may sound like a Star Wars reference they are pyramid-like in their shapes and as far as scientists know they were used as final resting places for the people who lived in the region can you guess who these were most likely the Berber Nomads and since we’re talking about ancient stuff they were probably built between the 4th and 7th centuries CE once scientists began to explore the insides of these monuments they found they were pretty big inside they found large underground vaults Chambers and labyrinth-like corridors that gave way to over 20 compartments it could take you up to 2 hours to walk around in them and apparently our ancestors also used its walls to depict images of animals and hunting scenes there’s no definite proof of what these jars were used for though this is so neat huh I’m sure that our world’s desert is filled with many more mysterious things for us to unravel I guess I’ll see you next time so that we can continue our your geography teacher must have told you there are seven continents in the world in 2017 scientists made an announcement that changed this universal truth the discovery of zelandia they called for a change in world maps and provided us with some proof of course first off let’s take a look at the ocean floor near New Zealand the Continental shell of this mysterious continent are chilling at a depth of around 3,280 Ft below sea level the nearby oceanic crust Dives even deeper at 9,800 FT below that all of that is giving us those continent Vibes with varying altitudes from deep below the ocean to The Majestic Mount Cook Standing Tall at 12,27 FT above sea level Brave geologists have gone deep down to collect rocks from the ocean floor they found that unlike the nearby oceanic crust which is made up of fresh basaltic rocks the crust around New Zealand is one impressive mix we’re talking Granite Limestone sandstone and some ancient rock types that are incredibly ancient all this screams continental crust finally scientists have discovered a narrow strip of oceanic crust that separates Australia from the hidden land of zandia it means these two are separate continents 85 million years ago zelandia decided to break free from the supercontinent gondwana millions of years later the earth’s tectonic plates those puzzle pieces that make up our planet’s crust started throwing a wild party the mighty Pacific Plate the heavyweight champion of tectonic plates decided to take a dive beneath zelia’s continental crust this process is called subduction as a result the rout of zelandia that connection to its continental crust broke off and went into the depths below so you see now that it takes millions of years and a lot of action for a new continent to form but what if the impossible happened and a new continent formed overnight in the Pacific Ocean the next morning you’d probably spill your morning coffee while watching the news for this new found land to be considered a full-fledged continent it needs to have a surface area like zelandia and be a large uninterrupted chunk of land with some water surrounding it and here comes the twist the Pacific Ocean has an average depth of 13,000 ft so if a continent wanted to join the party it would have to push a whole lot of rock upward shaping its way to the surface a new continent emerging overnight would make sea levels Skyrocket we’d have to say goodbye to Geographic L low-lying countries like Bangladesh Sagal and the Netherlands the ocean currents would be in for a wild ride too the North Pacific subtropical gy a vibrant hot spot for marine life would be thrown off balance those poor Marine creatures who rely on the currents for their Journeys would need some new source of navigation plus the creatures that live permanently in one place could lose their main food source oceans are like Global freealls but with a new continent in play the countes situated nearby would be willing to stake their claim on this unexpected landmass this new continent would be a blank canvas no Lush Landscapes or freshwater sources just rock and more rock so if you are dreaming of relocating to this novelty you have to wait for some serious terraforming to make it habitable but for now let’s go back to the real new continent of zelandia it’s actually a microcontinent which is an official word for a land mass that has separated from a main continent in our case it was Antarctica and then Australia you could say zelandia is a bit shy with only up to 7% of its size peaking above the water surface but it’s nearly 70% as large as Australia in total and proudly boasts of two major islands we know and love as New Zealand the North Island and the South Island plus there are many small isets the largest Islands have glaciers like the famous tasmin Glacier on the south island thanks to some glacial action in the past zeelandia can show off its fjords and valleys New Caledonia has a tropical Vibe with its Oceania and South Pacific connections The Unofficial eighth continent is a hot spot for geological action part of it belongs to the Australian plate while the rest rides the Pacific Plate it has six major areas with active volcanoes and don’t forget the geothermal treats geysers and hot springs are scattered all over the place courtesy of the Australian and Pacific plates having a steamy interaction the underwater world of zeelandia is a treasure chest of mineral deposits and natural gas Fields it’s also a scientific playground during those icy glacial periods sea levels dropped and more of zelandia emerged from the depths the fossils this process Left Behind are like an encyclopedia of valuable clues about the life that thrived here during ancient times the search for zeelandia lasted for 375 years it all started in 1642 when Dutch Seafarer and Explorer Abel Tasman set on a mission from Jakarta Indonesia back in the day Europeans were sure that there had to be a massive land down under to balance out their own continent up north they even had a fancy name for it terara Australis tasmin was determined to become the first to find it he went West then South then East all the way to the south island of New Zealand but here’s where things took a turn for the worst the local Maui people who had been living there for centuries didn’t exactly roll out the red carpet they rammed one of tasmin small boats and sadly four of the Europeans met their ends what happened next remain a mystery but a few weeks later tasmin sailed back home without ever stepping foot on this mysterious land he believed to be the Great Southern continent he never came back the Explorer didn’t even realize that he was actually right all along about the existence of a missing continent and you already know it only became official in 2017 another lost and found continent isn’t hiding in the ocean but under Europe it’s called the greater Adria and it collided with Europe and started to sink under it around 140 million years ago today it Lies Beneath Italy Greece and the baltics its size and even shape match that of Greenland the world’s largest island greater Adria is no longer visible but it left some Clues parts of it were embedded in the Alps other Chucks were incorporated into present-day Italy and Croatia on the other side of the Adriatic SE limestone rocks from the former continent started to change once they were under the European land mass tremendous heat and pressure spread over tens of millions of years changed their structure out goes the limestone in comes the marble all the Greek and Roman temples you admired on your summer vacation were constructed using this marble it was sort of a going away gift from a long lost continent you don’t notice this but our planet never stops moving and it happens deep beneath our feet 120 million years ago Australia and Antarctica were a single piece of land they went their separate ways but Antarctica didn’t leave empty-handed today there is an oceanic plateau in the Indian Ocean long ago it was connected to another Lost Continent the kgu Elan micro continent scientists believe that it made a land bridge between India and Antarctica to find out what it was like we can look at a tiny archipelago in the southern Indian Ocean these islands are all that is left of the ancient land mass they have a cold climate and feature glaciers because they’re so close to Antarctica but in the past the climate must have been temperate with plenty of rainfall the animals and plants would have been similar to those that we find in tropical regions today the Lost Continent landscape was probably much like that of New Zealand our planet keeps changing and at some point all the continents will reconnect with each other forming one super continent again and maybe then future humans will wonder what if our continent broke into pieces tomorrow scientists claim that icelandia was a region between Greenland and Scandinavia that was more than 230,000 square miles but is now underwater the Earth was once a large pizza pie with all the continents connected to each other millions of years ago otherwise known as Pangia the North Atlantic region we know today was dry land from about 335 million to 175 million years ago for many years scientists and geologists assumed that the North Atlantic Ocean was birthed as Pangia began to split apart roughly 200 million years ago with volcanoes in the region where Iceland is the country came to be just 60 million years ago as it broke off and and sailed away from all the other lands and since the Earth was like a large pizza pie it divided like one many of the lands split up into many large and small pieces creating the continents we know today but this new Theory suggests that the result of Pangia splitting left out some land that stretched for around 200 miles and just about 10 million years ago that piece of land submerged in the waters on the eastern and western side leaving the tip of the land which is now Iceland when plate tectonics moved they grind on each other which gave shape to our current landscape all thanks to the mantle this new radical Theory goes against everything written in history books and what scientists have been studying they began shaking heads drawing lots of skepticism and criticism but by analyzing the ocean floor under Iceland and the Earth’s crust we can assume that this idea isn’t far-fetched the crust beneath Iceland happens to be a lot thicker than the typical ones oceanic crust is made up of unique melted rocks compared to the land crusts where we walk and live on and is a lot more denser the thinnest layer on Earth is the crust where life takes place it’s essential for water growing food Gathering natural resources and minerals and breathing in oxygen it sinks below to the bottom but right above the Earth’s mantle it also refreshes itself since it constantly gets recycled into the mantle and back up this is why the rocks in the oceanic crust are around 25 M thick compared to just 5 mies anywhere else this is also reasonable given that it’s in a hot spot for volcanos magnetic surveys of the ocean floor showed layers of molten crust in striped patterns also given the fact that the Earth’s magnetic field changed its polarity over millions of years it played a role in shaping the foundation of our landscape but there isn’t any concrete evidence to prove this new Theory just yet one of the first steps is to start digging the ocean floor near Iceland ziron is a very sturdy mineral that can last for billions of years despite erosion in the Earth’s crust by taking samples and studying them researchers can estimate the geological age of the continents this will make sure the crust is oceanic which is thicker or Continental which is the regular crust we walk on this isn’t an overnight project and would come with a hefty cost another way is to do seismic surveys that can measure Echoes conducted on Research ships drilling holes miles deep in the crust can also help with the research but this would cost more than studying the ziron minerals some fossilized plants unique to both Scandinavia and Greenland might prove that Islandia was once on the surface and possibly scattered with trees it wasn’t a cold land as it is today so it may have had forests but scientists still haven’t found fossil evidence of animals common in both lands to suggest anything but maybe time will tell the theory goes deeper which suggests that there was a greater icelandia with Iceland Ireland Britain Scandinavia and Greenland all in one microcontinent it could be a destination of winter enthusiasts and great for skiing it could be possible to connect Canada to Greater icelandia by train over the ocean which would open up the economy even more Iceland is around 40,000 square miles which is already quite big and if the greater icelandia was present today then Europe would be a completely different continent many theories are circulating about other possible hidden microcontinents around the world scientists aren’t certain of the possibility of icelandia existence but if all the studies conducted were done correctly then the theory could change everything we know about Iceland and the North Atlantic Ocean and this could pave the way for other sunken microc continents around the world another theory out there is that New Zealand was the tip of a lost subcontinent even bigger than icelandia called zeelandia studies show that it’s separated from the supercontinent gandana between 79 to 83 million years ago scientists claim that it’s the thinnest and youngest continent discovered underwater kraton is a core rock that acts as the main foundation for most continents it’s at least a billion years old but the continental crust that makes up xandia is just half of that which makes it quite young that means some Craton is missing even though it holds some leftovers of older rocks and parts of the mantle they’re estimated to be as old as 2.7 billion years old scientists did some studies on the ziron crystals from New Zealand and found out that they’re as old as 1.3 billion years old the rest of the continents are more than 3 billion years old scientists studied the composition of the rocks in the bottom of the ocean around New Zealand they’re made up of silica and granite which are found in continental crusts the Ocean Floors mainly have magnesium and iron rich rocks they’re also thicker and higher than regular ocean crusts surround it they conducted some studies and collected magnetic and topographic data to see the link between the tasmin and coral seas in the K trough region this is the narrow strip between zeelandia and and Australia satellite data tracked tiny faults in the Earth’s gravity to map out the crust of the ocean floor surrounding the area they saw the mass that makes up zealandia quite visible and almost the size of Australia even though the signs are there this doesn’t prove anything it’s possible that there are a bunch of microc continents which all split apart when Australia Broke Free of gondwana back then the supercontinent was made up of South America and anarctica Australia zealandia Arabia and the Indian subcontinent New Zealand is already not the biggest country out there but if the theories are correct then zeelandia will be six times its original size maius is a young Island that’s only a few million years old just 1200 M off the coast of Africa it’s believed that the tiny Island came to life around 9 million years ago the underwater volcanoes in the region spewed out so much lava that it formed the land today but scientists found ziron rocks that are more than 3 billion years old it may also be part of a continent submerged underwater called morisha which is just a quarter of the size of Madagascar the zircons they found were embedded in solid rocks and not just in the sand which may rule out that they just washed up on shore from another continent some scientists are still not convinced they suggest that discovering rocks that stand out from the other typical ones brought by an eruption could skew the scientific Community to this Theory but just like how icelandia could be part of Greater icelandia morisha was once called rodinia which consisted of India and Madagascar theories suggest that Marisha was covered in water when India broke away from Madagascar something like 85 million years ago in November 1922 a boy walked through the desert mountains of Egypt and discovered some ancient steps carved into the Rock subsequently this find became one of the world’s largest and most significant archaeological discoveries this step was part of toon Common’s untouched tomb archaeologists found about 5,000 ancient objects including jewelry Fabrics painted vases and funeral masks you’ve probably seen one of them it has become one of the most recognizable attributes of ancient Egypt more than 100 years have passed since then and now Humanity has finally become close to another large- scale Discovery the tomb of Cleopatra this queen was the last active ruler of the toic Kingdom of Egypt who sat on the throne from 51 to 30 bcee there are many ancient records about Cleopatra her Reign and her unusual personality but until now no one has discovered the secrets about her passing away in the burial place so one archaeologist Dr Kathleen Martinez has been studying ancient records and temples around Alexandria for decades and concluded that the Tomb of the queen should be located under the ancient city of taposiris Magna founded in 280 [Music] BCE it was a big city on the northern coast of Egypt where tens of thousands of people were engaged in TR in industry and it seems that Dr Martinez’s guesses turned out to be correct she and a group of archaeologists have discovered a secret underground tunnel near Alexandria with a length of about 0.8 Mi it was cut into the Rock under taposiris magna’s Temple during further excavations they found many things that indicate Cleopatra’s tomb lies in the tunnel’s depths it’s also possible that she is buried there together with the Roman Commander Mark Anthony according to ancient records Cleopatra and Mark anony loved each other and together opposed the Roman senate which declared Anthony a traitor the fact that natural disasters have occurred on the territory of taposiris Magna for thousands of years can complicate the excavations earthquakes and floods destroyed the city and possibly flooded its underground tunnels but archaeologists hope the ancient tomb remains untouched and that it hides many treasures and Records about the Royal life of ancient Egypt during the reign of the last Dynasty there’s a chance that excavations will go underwater and in the mud this will require much time and funding but archaeologists are sure it’s worth it anyway it’s too early to say that Cleopatra is really buried there but scientists have found many things in the tunnel that confirm this including clay pots dozens of coins with the image of Cleopatra and Alexander the Great as well as a bust with the image of the Egyptian queen Cleopatra is still one of the most popular Personalities in Egypt on an equal footing with rameses III and tutankamon she inspired many films paintings and books but what made her so popular she became famous for her inconsistency she was a beautiful intelligent ruler who pulled Egypt out of the crisis and made it a prosperous power medieval Arabic texts say she knew chemistry mathematics and philosophy and may have written WR several scientific books she knew several languages and had excellent diplomatic skills at the same time there are many legends that she was a fem fatal who drove many men crazy however there’s no evidence that her beauty was incomparable the image of a stunning model was created by Hollywood when it made several films where famous actresses performed the role of Cleopatra and the Roman Emperor Octavian the adopted son of jul Julius Caesar specially created the image of Cleopatra as an Insidious seductress because he was her enemy even though she was born in Egypt Cleopatra wasn’t an Egyptian her ancestors were Greeks among whom was one of the generals of Alexander the Great however the people of Egypt loved her she learned the language and was very sensitive to the traditions of this country she knew the history mentality and customs of ancient Egypt well she raised the level of its economy and strengthened its status as a world power much of this was made possible thanks to her cunning and impressiveness she loved theatrical performances and lavish celebrations she knew how to surprise people and put on a show but behind the exterior image of a luxury lover was an intelligent and calculating ruler ancient Egypt was a rich luxurious country and Cleopatra did everything to increase its wealth and strengthen its position in the international Arena for example she was once in conflict with her brother tmy the 13th odd the queen knew that she wouldn’t be able to resist him so she decided to attract Julius Caesar to their side the Roman Emperor arrived in Alexandria where Cleopatra wanted to meet him but tmy knew about her plans and was about to prevent her from coming to Caesar then instead of a rich and noisy arrival Cleopatra decided to make her visit inconspicuous she wrapped herself in a carpet or linen bag bag the emperor’s servants carried into Caesar’s private Chambers Cleopatra emerged from the carpet and impressed the Roman Emperor with her beauty and determination as a result they fell in love with each other and became close allies after some time she impressed another influential Roman for diplomatic purposes she arrived to meet Mark Anthony on a golden barge with purple sails and silver ores Cleopatra was dressed in the image of Aphrodite and sat under a magnificent canopy her servants dressed like C s and were blowing her fan and burning incense but Cleopatra created such a show for a reason she knew that Anthony revered Greek mythology and considered himself the embodiment of dionisis as a result he was so impressed with this woman that he ended up marrying her Cleopatra defended her crown strengthened her alliance with Rome and bore Anthony three children in Egypt they threw big parties and enjoyed wealth with power however the relation ship of a high-ranking official with the Egyptian queen caused a scandal in Rome Octavian was Anthony’s Primary opponent in the struggle for power so he exploited the situation to darken the competitor’s reputation he used propaganda to make Cleopatra an Insidious seductress in the eyes of Roman citizens he accused Anthony of succumbing to her charms the Roman senate supported Octavian and declared Cleopatra an enemy in 33 BCE this conflict reached a high point when Antony’s Navy clashed with Octavian Fleet the latter won and forced his enemy to flee to Egypt with Cleopatra According to some records they took Refuge near Alexandria pursued by the Romans they hid in one of Cleopatra’s palaces and met their end some Legends say that Cleopatra was an expert in poisons she provoked a venomous snake a Viper or an Egyptian Cobra to bite her also according to another Legend she pricked herself with a poisonous needle there’s a theory that Cleopatra always carries an ampule with poison inside her hairbrush and when she was cornered she soaked the needle with this poison and pricked herself none of this can be said for sure scientists are still trying to find out the truth perhaps when they reach Cleopatra’s tomb the world will get more answers about her tragic fate she is considered the last ruler of Egypt after her passing Octavian plundered her palaces and temples and returned to Rome where he became the main Emperor he successfully ruled the country and expanded its borders his Reign ended when he turned 75 world history would have looked different if Cleopatra and Mark Anthony hadn’t lost that naval battle by the way did you know that more time has passed between Cleopatra’s Reign and Neil Armstrong’s flight to the Moon then between the reign of the Egyptian queen and the construction of the Great Pyramid of Giza Armstrong took a step on the Earth satellite in 1969 2038 years after the birth of Cleopatra and the construction of the pyramid took place in 2560 BCE imagine how long the history of ancient Egypt is Cleopatra is closer to us in time than to the pyramids let me take you to a place that seems to be out of this world life inside this cave has been isolated from the outside world for about 5.5 million years and it does show see for yourself due to such a long isolation the conditions inside the Moville cave are like nowhere else on our Planet a unique ecosystem is flourishing there even though there is a severe lack of sunlight inside the cave and the air is toxic the cave located a few miles west of the Black Sea in Romania was first discovered in 1986 nowadays you can only visit it if you have special permission plus the central Caverns are guarded Naturally by narrow Limestone tunnels and vertical shafts so if you’re no stranger to claustrophobia you’d probably better not enter this place in the depth of the Cave the air has twice less oxygen than the air outside instead it contains a lot of carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide so not the freshest air you can breathe it’s also pitch black inside the cavern but despite or should I say thanks to this cocktail of extremely harsh conditions the site is a true gold mine for biologists shockingly life seems to be booming here in a 1996 study scientists identifi ified 48 species and 33 of them were unique to the cave most of the creatures inhabiting the cave are tiny with long Limbs and antenna that help them navigate in the dark they have no vision and lack pigment and it makes sense why would you need to be able to see if you live in total darkness and why would you need to be pretty and colorful with no one to see you now I’m going to take you to another cave it’s no less amazing but looks very different this is the giant Crystal Cave AKA The Cave of the crystals in Mexico these ginormous crystals were found in 2000 by a mining company after the water was pumped out of the cave two miners then saw the crystals after entering the dry cave on foot these awe inspiring crystals are actually massive gypsum pillars hidden 984 ft underground they’re anchored to the walls and the floor of the scorching hot cave scientists estimate that the crystals could have been already growing for half a million years that’s why many of them are so long and wide that you can walk across them unfortunately visiting this Wonder of nature is impossible at the moment but maybe it’s for the better since the giant Crystal Cave is a dangerous place that can easily turn into a trap for tens of thousands of years it was filled with groundwater which was originally pushed upward into the opening by a magma chamber located in the depths of our planet the magma under the cave kept the water hot but eventually the temperature of the water dipped below below 136° f as a result the Water started to fill with calcium and sulfate whose particles began to recombine into gypsum and then white tinted crystals took over the cave and since they stayed underwater they were able to keep growing you don’t have to fly to space to take a closer look at a black hole scientists have found something very similar to black holes in the southern Atlantic Ocean a black hole has such an enormous gravitational pull that once something gets pulled inside it doesn’t have any chance to escape even light can’t get out of a black hole but ocean black holes seem to be almost as powerful as their space relatives but instead of catching the light they do the same with water ocean Eddies are massive whirlpools that spin against the main current they usually swirl billions of tons of water and most of them are larger than a city these whirlpools are so powerful that nothing trapped by them can escape but the scariest thing is that you might not even notice heading into one of them these things are so huge that you won’t spot their boundaries until it’s too late when scientists started exploring ocean vortices with the help of satellites they discovered the borders of several edes after that they managed to prove that mathematically these whirlpools are the same as mysterious black holes in space massive Eddies are surrounded by super tight barriers where fluid moves in closed Loops even water can’t get out out from the inside of these Loops that’s why tight ocean vortices play the role of enormous containers water inside them can be totally different from the ocean surrounding an Eddy and I’m not only talking about its temperature the salt content inside and outside a Whirlpool often differs as well on the thin curonian spit splitting the Baltic Sea from the curonian Lagoon there is one of the most bizarre places on Earth locals call this area the dancing Forest because Pine trees in this Forest have shockingly unusual shapes they twist in Spirals and circles along the ground there are some theories why it could be happening of course some people claim that huge amounts of positive and negative energies once clashed in that spot more down toe individuals believe that the reason is geological sandy soil in the area is too unstable to hold trees growing upright the most popular is the idea that strong winds blowing from the water influence the shape of the trees in any case experts haven’t come to the final conclusion yet look at these underwater crop circles for the first time they were spotted in 1995 close to Southern Japan’s Coast local divers called these 7 ft wide structures mystery circles the Enigma had been plaguing many mines for almost 16 years until the culprit was finally caught imagine the researcher’s surprise when it turned out to be a male puffer fish the fish needs a bit more more than a week to build one Circle and the Aesthetics are obviously crucial a male is swimming inside the circle digging valleys in the sand with its fins but that’s not all the fish also use shells and corals to decorate particular parts of their circles this whole build a circle thing has a practical purpose as well the way a male fish swims pushes the sand toward the center of the circle and creates a mound which later serves as a nest the next mystery on our list is in the Caribbean just off the coast of Biz there’s a giant sink hole that’s the Great Blue Hole it’s about 1,000 ft across and more than 400 ft deep once a long long time ago this hole was a cave but then Rising Waters filled it making it collapse in on itself the deeper you’ll descend into the great hole’s crystalline Waters the darker it will become you’ll see tons of stalactite filled caves there but entering them is extremely dangerous unless you want to get hopelessly lost once you reach a depth of 50 ft you’ll notice that the water is shimmering that’s the invisible line dividing the sinkhole salty top from the freshwater Abyss you might want to turn back right now who knows what you might come across in the murky depths there was an old Amazonian legend that told about the river that was so hot that it boiled and it was believed to be just a legend until Peruvian geoscientist Andres ruso questioned if the river could be real all experts denied such a possibility after all hot Rivers do exist but only in the areas where there are volcanoes as for the part of the country mentioned in the legend there are no volcanoes in that region but Andres Russo was too dedicated to give up and in 2011 he finally located the River from the Legends the water in it was indeed steaming hot its temperature was 186° F not boiling but pretty close to this point but what shocked the researcher the most was the size of the river one could think that the almost boiling water was the result of the activity of an underwater hot spring the thermal pools are always small while the river is 20 ft deep and flows for almost 4 miles this is the only River of its kind on our planet Legend has it that in the 17th century Sir Isaac Newton noticed an apple fall from a tree and began wondering why the fruit had fallen to the ground and not upward or sideways well that would be freaky after years of studying he concluded that gravity must be the culprit the scientists called it a force of attraction that existed between all objects but it was Albert Einstein many years later that revolutionized these ideas about gravity Legend also has it that he wasn’t completely satisfied with Newton’s findings something just didn’t seem right as a young scientist Einstein had some trouble formulating his theories trying to explain the behavior of moving objects when an experiment came to to his mind he called it the happiest of thoughts gravity feels like the sensation of riding in an ascending elevator he called it general relativity Einstein began working tirelessly trying to prove this idea at one point he even complained he was on the brink of losing his mind now in the simplest terms general relativity claims that gravity is the curvature or warping of space the greater mass an object has the more it warps the space around it imagine a heavy ball resting on a trampoline the rubber sheet under it gets warped under its weight it’s the same with our sun it’s big enough to twist space across the entire solar system that’s why our planet as well as all the others orbit around the star this warping also impacts how we measure time if you look at your watch time seems to go by at the same rate every day but if you hike to the top of a mountain and your friend wanders through a valley at the bottom of this mountain you’ll see that your watches will calculate time differently one watch will tick faster while the hands of the second one which is traveling through the valley will move more slowly that’s because gravity affects how fast time goes by with these experiments in mind Einstein concluded that gravity was not a force of attraction but rather a curvature in the fabric of SpaceTime we feel gravity as a force for simply because we’re placed on some surface if there was no surface and no attraction between us and this surface we would become weightless if you don’t mind getting some weird looks try this experiment you’ll need a bathroom scale and an elevator to ride you’ll soon see that your weight fluctuates As you move up and down in the building in the elevator the gravitational force is the same but your weight is different because the elevator speeds up and slows down or board the internet National Space Station astronauts literally move along with the station so there’s nothing to push them against the side of the station so that they have some weight even if we still think of gravity as a force it’s the weakest one we know first of all it only attracts there’s no negative counterpart that could push things away and weirdly even though this force is strong enough to keep galaxies together we still overcome it every day every time you lift an object off the floor you overcome the force of gravity produced by the entire Earth ooh just to paint a better picture Earth’s gravitational pull is weaker than the power of a refrigerator magnet the fact that our planet has gravity also affects the way we look and add all creatures on Earth are limited in growth by the height of their skeleton and by how much weight it can carry which is directly proportional to gravity that’s why some Marine creatures can grow bigger the largest animal on our planet right now is the Antarctic blue whale it’s about the size of two school buses combined that’s because sea creatures can float which slightly counteracts Gravity the effects of gravity can be seen in people too we are taller in the morning than we are in the evening our everyday activities and the added effect of gravity make the cartilage in our ankles knees hips back and neck compress once you have overnight rest the cartilage swells back back to normal gravity might also affect your shower routine that is if you’re an astronaut they have to rely on the old fashioned way of bathing up there on the space station they can’t take a shower since the force of gravity up there is different and water doesn’t flow as it should instead they use liquid soap water and no rinch shampoo they first squeeze some liquid soap and water from pre-made water pouches onto their skin next they open the no rinse shampoo and and add a little water to wash their hair towels are then used to wipe off the excess water which is really precious in space to make sure they recycle it an air flow system quickly evaporates excess water gravity and weight shouldn’t be confused astronauts on the space station do float and you may sometimes hear that they are in the state of zero gravity it’s far from the truth though since gravity up there is about 90% of its value on our planet but astronauts look in feel weightless since weight is the force a certain object exerts on them back on Earth most creatures have evolved a sense and adapt to Earth’s gravitational pole in the sea for instance some fish have floating calcium carbonate deposits in their heads scientists call them ear stones and they’re pulled down by gravity they act like a fish’s internal Compass now plants have evolved to grow starch grains in the tips of their Roots they use this amazing feature to force their Roots deep down into the soil as little as we seem to understand it these days we do need gravity for way more things that we can imagine for instance some bacteria become even more dangerous in space where there’s little to no gravity salmonella for example the type of bacteria that is known to cause food poisoning becomes three times nastier in the condition of microgravity so you really got to cook your chicken our own Moon stays where it is because because of the effects of gravity too if it weren’t for this Force our satellite would have floated Away by now but it’s held in place by Earth’s gravitational pole objects with the biggest gravitational poles in the universe are black holes thankfully our planet is really far away from any of them nothing can escape the gravitational pull of a black hole not even light itself similarly gravity is different on each planet and because of that things weigh differently depending depending on which planet they’re on take Earth for example an object that weighs 100 lb here would only be 38 lb on Mercury but if you’re planning on losing weight fast try booking a trip to Pluto someone who weighs 150 lbs on Earth would weigh no more than 10 lbs on Pluto the same person would weigh considerably more on Jupiter which is the planet with the most powerful gravity 150 lbs on Earth would turn into more than 3 54 lb there no thanks remember that experiment with watches ticking at different levels of elevation it turns out that gravity isn’t spread evenly on the surface of Earth why because our planet isn’t a perfect sphere the mass of Earth isn’t evenly distributed either that’s why you get variations in gravity in different locations more so gravity is weaker at the equator because of the centrifugal forces produced by the planet’s rotation since we’ve always perceived gravity as a force we seem to believe that it has somewhat of a suction motion but it’s not exactly true back in 1998 scientists were baffled to see that the expansion of the universe was speeding up so they linked this to the repulsive gravity of mysterious Dark Energy we now know that dark energy makes up for more than 60% of the mass energy of our whole universe but since nobody knows what it actually is we can only make assumptions and one that’s largely accepted is quantum theory which seems to claim that gravity pushes rather than pulls things in you got all that I may need to watch this one again the Earth has three main layers two parts of the core the dense hot inner core and the molten outer core then comes the mantle and then follows the thin crust the surface that’s supports life as we know it at least that’s what we thought because now scientists found a new mysterious layer located deep within the solid inner core Earth’s inner core is approximately 2/3 the size of the Moon and made of nickel and solid iron it’s burning hot the temperature at the center of our planet is the same as at the surface of the Sun the outer core can reach almost 10,000 de F it’s difficult to explore it because we can’t go there and it’s like looking through a really dirty window of 3200 Mi of molten metal and rocks but we can rely on laboratory experiments on heated pressurized rocks signals from seismic waves and computer models when an earthquake hits it sends out seismic shock waves those waves travel through layers at a different speed depending on the direction they go and the material they move through in the new study a team of scientists set a data set of 100,000 deep earthquakes some of them went over 60 Mi below the surface when an earthquake happens on one side of our planet scientists track its waves all along to the other side waves change when they come to the other side so scientists try to understand the materials these waves have passed through they found a new layer in the core of our planet thanks to earthquakes normally shock waves travel along the Equator but down below they digress and go into different directions about 60° to the side when waves pass through the inner core going from north to south they will travel more quickly than waves going through the core parallel to the equator it’s important to understand the core because it creates our magnetic field which in turn protects the planet from things like solar winds that are charged particles coming from the Sun in the 1960s we discovered the Earth pulsates every 26 seconds it’s like clockwork a giant heartbeat the ground is slightly shaking but we mostly don’t feel it researchers can still track it some of them think the continental shelf comes as a huge wave break under the oceans for example the highest part of the North American continent falls off into a deep Abyssal plane one Theory says waves hit this spot producing regular pulses it’s like having all kinds of drums you hit them with with your hands and accidentally slam that one spot that produces the right harmonic bang to Rattle our entire planet if this theory is true we’re lucky there are no more spots like this that can shake the Earth other scientists believe the pulsation happens because there’s a volcano near the critical spot the island of saome in the bite of Bonnie you’re walking running and jumping but when you stop it always feels like you’re standing still in reality you’re moving even when you’re perfectly still because our planet is always on the Move depending on where you’re at you could be spinning through the universe at more than 1,000 mph if you’re on the equator you’ll move the fastest let’s say you have a basketball spinning on your finger check the ball’s equator a random point on it has farther to go in just one spin than any point near your finger that means the point on the equator is moving more quickly the Earth is a planet that recycles all the time the ground we’re walking on is recycled our planet’s rock cycle turns rocks of one type into another that’s a cycle that goes on and on the depths of our planet are filled with Magma as magma is going out onto the surface it hardens into rock tectonic processes like volcanic activity earthquakes mountain building and all of the other processes that shape the surface of our planet bring that rock to the Earth’s surface when the rock is on the surface erosion shapes it and shaves its bits off those small particles then get deposited all the pressure coming from above compacts the particles into sedimentary rocks like for example Sandstone sedimentary rocks can also end up deeper and deeper under the Earth’s surface since there’s a lot of heat and pressure they get cooked into metamorphic rocks they can go back to the surface once again or even end up being re eroded sometimes the crust plates are pushing one under another and this way rocks can transform into magma once again we’ve explored only 5% of the ocean so far the ocean itself as well as Life below the seaf Flor is still a mystery the sediments that are underlying our oceans are home to different micro organisms that exist even at depths of 1.5 M beneath the sea floor there are microbes hidden deep inside volcanic rocks below the seafloor off of the parts of the Pacific hidden under 870 ft of sediment the biosphere under the seafloor is growing extremely slowly compared to life on the surface cell division happens every 10 to 1,000 years something’s different about the Earth’s axis climate changes and melting glaciers mostly in the regions like the Himalayas and Alaska made the axis shift our planet has two kinds of poles are the south and north magnetic poles they affect they affect things such as drift and navigation the axis that the Earth is spinning around is another kind of pole it shifted a little bit over time but we don’t know exactly why researchers realized there are moving masses of water pushing the Earth’s axis Eastward take a basin of water as an example if you’re moving it back and forth sloshing makes the water move its weight all around a similar thing is happening on a planetary level no matter how large an earthquake is no human could ever feel an earthquake on the opposite side of the earth although some people claim they did in 2013 there was one near the kurl island with a magnitude of 8.5 it went around 400 m deep it was so strong people in Australia reported they could feel the ground shaking the strongest earthquake happened in Chile in 1960 with a magnitude of 9.5 the rupture Zone stretched from 311 Mi to almost 620 Mi along the country’s Coast earthquakes with a magnitude of 10 or higher can’t happen the magnitude depends on the length of the fault where it occurs the longer the fault the bigger the earthquake a fault is a break in a part of the planet’s crust it has rocks on both sides and they move past each other we haven’t found a fault long enough to generate earthquakes with a magnitude of 10 or more if it happened it would extend around most of our planet an earthquake with a magnitude of 12 would require a fault larger than our planet one side of our planet is getting colder than the other the Earth has a system that keeps it warm from the inside a red hot liquid interior deep below the surface it spins and at the same time generates a magnetic field and gravity that way the Earth’s core holds the atmosphere closer to the planet’s surface the Earth also absorbs heat from the Sun mostly on the surface the heat doesn’t spread equally on all parts of of the earth one side of the planet the Pacific hemisphere is losing heat more quickly than another the African hemisphere this happens because land traps more heat than the surface under the ocean the seafloor is way thinner than the land mask also the temperature caused by the heat coming from inside the earth is getting lower because of huge amounts of cold water above it clouds are not just like some fluffy distant pieces of cotton they weigh more than a million PBS and help regulate our planet’s temperature if you take all the water droplets and clouds and bring them to the surface you could cover the planet with a liquid layer as thin as a human hair it doesn’t seem like a lot but this water is crucially important for climate we’d have warmer temperatures if it weren’t for the [Music] clouds endless hot deserts seem lifeless at first glance but among these Sands you can meet dangerous and sometimes creepy creatures some of them can only cause health problems but some can stay in your memory forever let’s get to know them starting with Dangerous Ones and finishing with real nightmares so you’re walking through a desert and see a big teddy bear with Open Hands you understand that it’s probably a mirage but still you come closer you were right it’s it’s not a plush toy but a giant Cactus there’s something strange about it thanks to some strange fluff the branches resemble the arms of a teddy bear however this is not fluff but thousands of thin needles and they are the reason you shouldn’t come closer the cactus is called the jumping choya or teddy bear choya it grows in the desert areas of Arizona and in the northern part of Mexico don’t worry this Cactus won’t attack you but it will cling to your skin or clothes if you touch it such a fur coat protects the cactus from animals creates shade and saves it from heat the lateral branches are the most important parts of the plant as they carry out photosynthesis and accumulate a large amount of moisture inside so despite all the danger the cactus can be helpful for Desert Wanderers and the danger here is needles if you look closer at them you will see they have the shape of hooks one touch and hundreds of thorns are already in your finger it’s pretty difficult to get rid of them and the needles cause unpleasant painful Sensations but the coolest thing about this Cactus is the way it reproduces the plant clones itself in a new place when animals and people pass the jumping choya and touch it the cactus gives them a small piece of itself along with the needles as soon as you throw this piece to the ground it takes root and starts growing the degree of danger is rising the next monster from the desert is running toward us and that is an ostrich many think these animals are cowards hiding their heads in the sand you will most likely change your mind if you’re unlucky enough to meet one usually ostriches are not aggressive but you should run if you come closer to their nest on the other hand you won’t be able to do do that because ostriches move at a speed of 43 mph you need a car to get away from them they run and hit their enemy with their chests there have been cases when ostriches attacked Vans and caused significant damage to them but the main danger these birds present is their powerful legs with sharp claws they can deliver strong blows with them and even beat a prone opponent so yes if you see an ostrich in the distance go the other way this small spotted lizard lives underground almost all the time in the Arid deserts of the southwestern us and Northwestern Mexico sometimes it goes outside to find lunch it only seems cute but in fact it’s a dangerous Gila monster its thick skin protects the reptile from Hawks coyotes and other Predators but its main protection is its venom snakes and spiders inject their toxins using long needle-like fangs The Gila monster clamps down and chews the prey to spread the Venom and when it bites a person it can keep its jaws closed for a long time getting rid of the animal is a tricky feat people who have experienced the effects of the Venom say it feels as if Hot magma passes through the veins despite this the lizard turned out to be useful for science doctors used its venom to create create medicines for diabetes and obesity the time has come now you’re about to meet one of the creepiest creatures living in the desert be quiet and listen to The Silence stand still there’s no one around suddenly you hear some hissing coming from below you lower your head and see it a big yellow spider the size of a human Palm with strong jaws and Long Legs hides in the shadow of your body in horror you run away from this monster but it goes after you it isn’t easy to do it in this situation but try to calm down the creature isn’t interested in you it wants only your Shadow to hide from the scorching Sun anyway it’s better not to touch it the powerful jaws of the camel spider can cause unpleasant Sensations to put it mildly and by the way this creature isn’t really a SP sper yeah it belongs to the class of arachnids but it’s a separate species supid it likes to bite it’s fearless and pretty aggressive the spider prays on insects lizards rodents and small birds it can also move at a speed of 10 mph for their small size this is very fast you need to be a professional athlete to run away from it most often you can find camel spiders in the deserts of the Middle East but they also live in Mexico and the southwestern us these Runners are nocturnal and try to avoid the Sun during the day so they are always hunting Your Shadow by the way they got their name because they often hide in the shadows of camels you won’t hide from them during the day but they will also want to come after you at night especially if you make a fire salug gids always run to the light in the hope of eating something some species of these spiders make a hissing sound to scare their enemies away now let’s calm down for a second and leave the hot desert we’re going into the humid Tropics of Tanzania under tree bark fallen leaves and in dark caves you can meet one of the most terrifying creatures on earth a tailess whip scorpion imagine a big Scorpion without a tail with a flat body that looks like it has been pressed by something it’s similar to spiders but has no Venom glands and can’t spin a web this monster is silent and fast but the scariest thing is its two front claws twice as long as the creature itself any prey it catches will never Escape life in a dark cave has spoiled its eyesight so the whip scorpion tries to avoid sunlight during molting it climbs up to the ceiling and slowly comes out of its old skin imagine directing your flashlight there and seeing small cocoons out of which pale spiders with excessively long legs crawl if you really meet it be calm and slowly go away as far as possible be careful the flat scorpion can crawl under your clothes in a second and bite you in the stomach and that’s not the worst part okay this is a joke this pretty guy is one of the shiest and most harmless creatures among spiders and scorpions it’s afraid of you and will never attack many consider it beautiful and keep Whi scorpions in glass terrariums if you want such a pet carefully watch it so that it doesn’t run away from its house if it happens it will be pretty challenging to catch it again in a matter of moments it can get under your bed or go through gaps in the floor then it’ll go to your neighbor’s apartment through a ventilation system and scare people there okay how about one more scorpion it’s not as creepy as the other creatures in this video but it’s the most venomous scorpion in the USA this is the Arizona bark scorpion the problem is that you can see it in the desert in your home or in the yard these dangerous venomous beasts crawl into rooms and often sting people one time is enough to cause pain similar to a bee sting but someone with an allergy may experience paralysis breathing problems and other health issues mirror check you’ve got your beige parka on your chisel is packed and your overnight plane ride to Saudi Arabia is booked you know what this means right unfortunately you weren’t cast in the remake of Dune it just means that you’re ready to go explore the world’s largest desert areas in the hopes of uncovering prehistoric secrets about our ancestors let’s get one thing straight if you ever thought that deserts were empty spaces think again they might be filled with sand as far as the eye can see but they also hold a lot of history you know because before humans settled down in cities and towns we were nomadic people and we traveled all around the globe looking for food water and shelter so we had to come up with some interesting stuff to survive like this thing that was found in the desert of Saudi Arabia do you have any idea what this could have been over many years scientists have discussed the origins and use of huge structures such as these ones it seems our Neolithic ancestors were way smarter than we gave them credit for they didn’t spend all their hours around the fire carving weapons out of stone no they were also practicing their architectural skills these huge stone structures are called desert kites because if you look at them from a distance well they sort of look like kites archaeologists have arrived at the consensus that these kites were used to lure animals in this way it would make it easier for our ancestors to guarantee their week’s food but that’s not all take a look at these monolithic structures right here they show us that our ancestors probably Drew on rocks the blueprint of what they were going to build on the ground just like modern-day Architects desert kites could be miles long so they drew out a plan before actually building them the most surprising feature of all is that these kites were built even before things such as Stonehenge we’re talking around 7,000 to 9,000 years ago over the last decade scientists have been able to identify over 6,000 desert kites spread across the Middle East and West and Central Asia if you don’t think this huge try building something this large without the help of any drones it looks like a pretty difficult feat to me and apparently Saudi Arabia’s desert is filled with more amazing things scientists have found mysterious stone structures that are older than the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt so of course you can’t wait to go check that out can we all agree that carrying around heavy rocks to build a pyramid without the help of modern technology sounds absurd I mean how on Earth did they do it now imagine turning back the clock about 2,000 years into the past and finding humans that built similar gigantic structures in isolated areas take a look at these so-called madles they are rectangular structures built from piled up stones found over 77,000 square miles some archaeologists believe that these monuments were used for ritualistic purposes maybe processions of some kind where people would walk from one end of the plateau to the other I I’d be down for that now let’s move on to another deserted area we’re entering the world famous Sahara desert landscape isn’t it beautiful here you’re about to unravel an ancient mystery something that took years for researchers to solve fun fact the Sahara Desert is the world’s largest hot desert it spans over 3 million square miles which would be like putting a thousand times the country of Hawaii next to each other we say it’s the largest hot desert because the world’s largest desert area is antar Artica but we all know temperatures over there are freezing not the typical image of when we think of a desert deep into the desert near the Algerian town of foget edua something strange was found for decades these tiny dots appeared on images of Google Earth but nobody could explain what they were some scientists were sure that these circles are the result of oil activity in the region others guessed that these were ancient fogas or ancient water wells there are dozens of them stretching for miles and miles in a straight line the strange thing is that they are always far away from any Town Road or human activity in general so what was or is their purpose if you had to take a guess what would you say remember we talked about how our ancestors had to be creative in order to survive in the desert let’s try to walk in their shoes for a minute imagine you’re a nomadic hunter gatherer living in a desert area you spend your days basking in the hot sun trying to count all the grains of sand around you but you also need to eat and drink water but how on Earth do you get water in a desert sure you can hope to keep running into Oasis every week or so but that seems a bit risky doesn’t it that’s why North African people invented the so-called fogas the fogas are a 2,500-year old irrigation system locals would dig deep wells in elevated areas Wells deep enough to tap into underground water then they would dig parallel shafts at regular distances this way the water would flow from the main well down into all the shafts and irrigate entire areas Travelers could stop by the shafts and quench their thirst they could also raise livestock and tend to crops pretty clever huh as much as these holes did look like fagaras a little bit of research would show you that they’re not you see these shafts were built in a line and not in a circular shape like the ones we’re looking at now so maybe it has something to do with the second option maybe these desert holes were related to oil activity in the the region let’s have a look at the holes up close and personal from Google Earth they don’t seem that big but in real life they are huge craters the tip to uncovering what they are is hidden beneath the sand if you were one of the researchers originally uncovering the truth behind this mystery you would have found something unique hidden in the sand old dynamites and vintage sardine cans putting the pieces of the puzzle together scientists found that these sardine cans were a model from the 1950s and 1960s it seems that entire teams from that decade would camp out while they surveyed the area for oil and what about the dynamites these were used for seismic surveying this is an old technique used to identify if there is oil in gas beneath the earth’s surface still in North Africa you find out about another desert mystery worth exploring near the city of tiet southwest of algeria’s Capital One runs into 13 peculiar monuments these structures are also called jedar and yes I am aware of how much that may sound like a Star Wars reference they are pyramid-like in their shapes and as far as scientists know they were used as final resting places for the people who lived in the region can you guess who these were most likely the Berber Nomads and since we’re talking about ancient stuff they were probably built between the 4th and 7th centuries CE once scientists began to explore the insides of these monuments they found they were pretty big inside they found large underground vaults Chambers and labyrinth-like corridors that gave way to over 20 compartments it could take you up to 2 hours to walk around in them and apparently our ancestors also used its walls to depict images of animals and hunting scenes there’s no definite proof of what these jars were used for though this is so neat huh I’m sure that our world’s desert is filled with many more mysterious things for us to unravel I guess I’ll see you next time so that we can continue our the Earth has three main layers two parts of the core the dense hot inner core and the molten outer core then comes the mantle and then follows the thin crust the surface that supports life as we know it at least that’s what we thought because now scientists found a new mysterious layer located deep within the solid inner core Earth’s inner core is approximately 2/3 the size of the Moon and made of nickel and solid iron it’s burning hot the temperature at the center of our planet is the same as at the surface of the Sun the outer core can reach almost 10,000 de F it’s difficult to explore it because we can’t go there and it’s like looking through a really dirty window of 3,200 mil of molten metal and rocks but we can rely on laboratory experiments on heated pressurized rocks signals from seismic waves and computer models when an earthquake hits it sends out seismic shock waves those waves travel through layers at a different speed depending on the direction they go and the material they move through in the new study a team of scientists set a data set of 100,000 deep earthquakes some of them went over 60 Mi below the surface when an earthquake happens on one side of our planet scientists track its waves all along to the other side waves change when they come to the other side so scientists try to understand the materials these waves have passed through they found a new layer in the core of our planet thanks to earthquakes normally shock waves travel along the Equator but down below they digress and go into different directions about 60° to the side when waves pass through the inner core going from north to south they will travel more quickly than waves going through the core parallel to the equator it’s important to understand the core because it creates our magnetic field which in turn protects the planet from things like solar winds that are charged particles coming from the Sun in the 1960s we discovered the Earth pulsates every 26 seconds it’s like clockwork a giant heartbeat the ground is slightly shaking but we mostly don’t feel it researchers can still track it some of them think the continental shelf comes as a huge wave break under the oceans for example the highest part of the North American continent falls off into a deep Abyssal plane one Theory says waves hit this spot producing regular pulses it’s like having all kinds of drums you hit them with your hands and accidentally slam that one spot that produces the right harmonic bang to Rattle our entire planet if this theory is true we’re lucky there are no more spots like this that can shake the Earth other scientists believe the pulsation happens because there’s a volcano near the critical spot the island of sa in the bite of Bonnie you’re walking running and jumping but when you stop it always feels like you’re standing still in reality you’re moving even when you’re perfectly still because our planet is always on the Move depending on where you’re at you could be spinning through the universe at more than 1,000 m per hour if you’re on the equator you’ll move the fastest let’s say you have a basketball spinning on your finger check the ball’s equator a random point on it has farther to go in just one spin than any point near your finger that means the point on the equator is moving more quickly the Earth is a planet that recycles all the time the ground we’re walking on is recycled our planet’s rock cycle turns rocks of one type into to another that’s a cycle that goes on and on the depths of our planet are filled with Magma as magma is going out onto the surface it hardens into rock tectonic processes like volcanic activity earthquakes mountain building and all of the other processes that shape the surface of our planet bring that rock to the Earth’s surface when the rock is on the surface erosion shapes it and shaves its bits off those small particles then get deposited all the pressure coming from above compacts the particles into sedimentary rocks like for example Sandstone sedimentary rocks can also end up deeper and deeper under the Earth’s surface since there’s a lot of heat and pressure they get cooked into metamorphic rocks they can go back to the surface once again or even end up being reer ODed sometimes the crust plates are pushing one under another and this way rocks can transform into magma once again we’ve explored only 5% of the ocean so far the ocean itself as well as Life below the seafloor is still a mystery the sediments that are underlying our oceans are home to different microorganisms that exist even at depths of 1.5 Mi beneath the sea floor there are microbes hidden deep inside volcanic rocks below the seafloor off of the parts of the Pacific hidden under 870 ft of sediment the biosphere under the seafloor is growing extremely slowly compared to life on the surface cell division happens every 10 to 1,000 years something’s different about the Earth’s axis climate changes and melting glaciers mostly in the regions like the Himalayas and Alaska made the axis shift our planet has two kinds of poles are the south and north magnetic poles they affect they affect things such as drift and navigation the axis that the Earth is spinning around is another kind of pole it shifted a little bit over time but we don’t know exactly why researchers realize there are moving masses of water pushing the Earth’s axis Eastward take a basin of water as an example if you’re moving it back and forth sloshing makes the water move its weight all around a similar thing is happening on a planetary level no matter how large an earthquake is no human could ever feel an earthquake on the opposite side of the earth although some people claim they did in 2013 there was one near the kurl islands with a magnitude of 8.5 it went around 400 m deep it was so strong people in Australia reported they could feel the ground shaking the strongest earthquake happened in Chile in 1960 with a magnitude of 9.5 the rupture Zone stretched from 311 Mi to almost 620 Mi along the country’s Coast earthquakes with a magnitude of 10 or higher can’t happen the magnitude depends on the length of the fault where it occurs the longer the fault the bigger the earthquake a fault is a break in a part of the planet’s crust it has rocks on both sides and they move past each other we haven’t found a fault long enough to generate earthquakes with a magnitude of 10 or more if it happened it would extend around most of our planet an earthquake with a magnitude of 12 would require a fault larger than our planet one side of our planet is getting colder than the other the Earth has a system that keeps it warm from the inside a red hot liquid interior deep below the surface it spins and at the same time generates a magnetic field and gravity that way the Earth’s core holds the atmosphere closer to the planet’s surface the Earth also absorbs heat from the Sun mostly on the surface the heat doesn’t spread equally on all parts of the earth one side of the planet the Pacific hemisphere is losing heat more quickly than another the African hemisphere this happens because land traps more heat than the surface under the the ocean the seafloor is way thinner than the land mass also the temperature caused by the heat coming from inside the earth is getting lower because of huge amounts of cold water above it clouds are not just like some fluffy distant pieces of cotton they weigh more than a million PB and help regulate our planet’s temperature if you take all the water droplets and clouds and bring them to the surface you could cover the planet with a liquid layer as thin as a human hair it doesn’t seem like a lot but this water is crucially important for climate we’d have warmer temperatures if it weren’t for the clouds your geography teacher must have told you there are seven continents in the world in 2017 scientists made an announcement that changed this universal truth the discovery of zelandia they called for a change in world maps and provided us with some proof of course first off let’s take a look at the ocean floor near New Zealand the Continental shelves of this mysterious continent are chilling at a depth of around 3,280 Ft below sea level the nearby oceanic crust Dives even deeper at 9,800 FT below that all of that is giving us those continent Vibes with varying altitudes from deep below the ocean to The Majestic Mount Cook Standing Tall at 12,27 FT above sea level Brave geologists have gone deep down to collect rocks from the ocean floor they found that unlike the nearby oceanic crust which is made up of fresh basaltic rocks the crust around New Zealand is one impressive mix we’re talking Granite Limestone sandstone and some ancient rock types that are incredibly ancient all this screams continental crust finally scientists have discovered a narrow strip of oceanic crust trust that separates Australia from the hidden land of zandia it means these two are separate continents 85 million years ago zelandia decided to break free from the supercontinent gondwana millions of years later the earth’s tectonic plates those puzzle pieces that make up our planet’s crust started throwing a wild party the mighty Pacific Plate the heavyweight champion of tectonic plates decided to take a dive beneath zelia’s continental crust this process is called subduction as a result the root of zelandia that connection to its continental crust broke off and went into the depths below so you see now that it takes millions of years and a lot of action for a new continent to form but what if the impossible happened and a new continent formed overnight in the Pacific Ocean the next morning you’d probably spill your morning coffee while watching the news for this new new found land to be considered a full-fledged continent it needs to have a surface area like zelandia and be a large uninterrupted chunk of land with some water surrounding it and here comes the twist the Pacific Ocean has an average depth of 13,000 ft so if a continent wanted to join the party it would have to push a whole lot of rock upward shaping its way to the surface a new continent emerging overnight would make sea levels SC Skyrocket we’d have to say goodbye to geographically low-lying countries like Bangladesh Sagal and the Netherlands the ocean currents would be in for a wild ride too the North Pacific subtropical gyant a vibrant hot spot for marine life would be thrown off balance those poor Marine creatures who rely on the currents for their Journeys would need some new source of navigation plus the creatures that live permanently in one place could lose their main food source oceans are like Global freealls but with a new continent in play the country situated nearby would be willing to stake their claim on this unexpected landmass this new continent would be a blank canvas no Lush Landscapes or freshwater sources just rock and more rock so if you were dreaming of relocating to this novelty you have to wait for some serious terraforming to make it habitable but for now let’s go back to the the real new continent of zelandia it’s actually a micro continent which is an official word for a land mass that has separated from a main continent in our case it was Antarctica and then Australia you could say zeelandia is a bit shy with only up to 7% of its size peaking above the water surface but it’s nearly 70% as large as Australia in total and proudly boasts of two major islands we know and love as New Zealand the North Island and and the South Island plus there are many smaller Islands the largest Islands have glaciers like the famous tasmin Glacier on the south island thanks to some glacial action in the past zelandia can show off its fjords and valleys new calonia has a tropical Vibe with its Oceania and South Pacific connections The Unofficial e8th continent is a hot spot for geological action part of it belongs to the Australian plate while the rest rides the Pacific Plate it has six major areas with active volcanoes and don’t forget the geothermal treats geysers and hot springs are scattered all over the place courtesy of the Australian and Pacific plates having a steamy interaction the underwater world of zelandia is a treasure chest of mineral deposits and natural gas Fields it’s also a scientific playground during those icy glacial periods sea levels dropped and more of landia emerged from the depths the fossils this process Left Behind are like an encyclopedia of valuable clues about the life that thrived here during ancient times the search for zeelandia lasted for 375 years it all started in 1642 when Dutch seaf farer and Explorer Abel Tasman set on a mission from Jakarta Indonesia back in the day Europeans were sure that there had to be a massive land down under to balance out their own continent up north they even had a fancy name for it Tera Australis tazman was determined to become the first to find it he went West then South then East all the way to the south island of New Zealand but here’s where things took a turn for the worst the local Maui people who had been living there for centuries didn’t exactly roll out the red carpet they rammed one of tasman’s small boats and sadly four of the European met their ends what happened next remains a mystery but a few weeks later tasmin sailed back home without ever stepping foot on this mysterious land he believed to be the Great Southern continent he never came back the Explorer didn’t even realized that he was actually right all along about the existence of a missing continent and you already know it only became official in 2017 another lost and found continent isn’t hi in in the ocean but under Europe it’s called the greater Adria and it collided with Europe and started to sink under it around 140 million years ago today it Lies Beneath Italy Greece and the baltics its size and even shape match that of Greenland the world’s largest island greater Adria is no longer visible but it left some Clues parts of it were embedded in the elps other Chucks were incorporated into present day Italy and Croatia on the other side of the Adriatic Sea limestone rocks from the former continent started to change once they were under the European landmass tremendous heat and pressure spread over tens of millions of years changed their structure out goes the limestone in comes the marble all the Greek and Roman temples you admired on your summer vacation were constructed using this marble it was sort of a going away gift from a long lost continent you don’t notice this but our planet never stops moving and it happens deep beneath our feet 120 million years ago Australia and Antarctica were a single piece of land they went their separate ways but Antarctica didn’t leave empty-handed today there is an oceanic plateau in the Indian Ocean long ago it was connected to another Lost Continent the kgu and microc continent scientists believe that it made a land bridge between India and Antarctica to find out what it was like we can look at a tiny archipelago in the southern Indian Ocean these islands are all that is left of the ancient land mass they have a cold climate and feature glaciers because they’re so close to Antarctica but in the past the climate must have been temperate with plenty of rainfall the animals and plants would have been similar to those that we find in tropical regions today the Lost Continent landscape was probably much like that of New Zealand our planet keeps changing and at some point all the continents will reconnect with each other forming one super conent again and maybe then future humans will wonder what if our continent broke into pieces tomorrow Legend has it that in the 17th century Sir Isaac Newton noticed an apple fall from a tree and began wondering why the fruit had fallen to the ground and not upward or sideways well that would be freaky after years of studying he concluded that gravity must be the culprit the scientist called it a force of attraction that existed between all objects but it was Albert Einstein many years later that revolutionized these ideas about gravity Legend also has it that he wasn’t completely satisfied with Newton’s findings something just didn’t seem right as a young scientist Einstein had some trouble formulating his theories trying to explain the behavior of moving objects when an experiment came to his mind he called it the happiest of thoughts gravity feels like the sensation of riding in an ascending elevator he called it general relativity Einstein began working tirelessly trying to prove this idea at one point he even complained he was on the brink of losing his mind now in the simplest terms general relativity claims that gravity is the curvature or warping of space the greater mass an object has the more it warps the space around it imagine a heavy ball resting on a trampoline the rubber sheet under it gets warped under its weight it’s the same with our sun it’s big enough to twist space across the entire solar system that’s why our planet as well as all the others orbit around the star this warping also impacts how we measure time if you look at your watch time seems to go by at the same rate every day but if you hike to the top of a mountain and your friend wanders through a valley at the bottom of this mountain you’ll see that your watches will calculate time differently one watch will tick faster while the hands of the second one which is traveling through the valley will move more slowly that’s because gravity affects how fast time goes by with these experiments in mind Einstein concluded that gravity was not a force of attraction but rather a curvature in the fabric of SpaceTime time we feel gravity as a force simply because we’re placed on some surface if there was no surface and no attraction between us and the surface we would become weightless if you don’t mind getting some weird looks try this experiment you’ll need a bathroom scale and an elevator to ride you’ll soon see that your weight fluctuates As you move up and down in the building in the elevator the gravitational force is the same but your weight is different because the elevator speeds up and slows down aboard the International Space Station astronauts literally move along with the station so there’s nothing to push them against the side of the station so that they have some weight even if we still think of gravity as a force it’s the weakest one we know first of all it only attracts there’s no negative counterpart that could push things away and weirdly even though this force is strong enough to keep galaxies together we still overcome it every day every time you lift an object off the floor you overcome the force of gravity produced by the entire Earth ooh just to paint a better picture Earth’s gravitational pull is weaker than the power of a refrigerator magnet the fact that our planet has gravity also affects the way we look and act all creatures on Earth are limited in growth by the height of their skeleton and by how much weight it can carry which is directly proportional to gravity that’s why some Marine creatures can grow bigger the largest animal on our planet right now is the Antarctic blue whale it’s about the size of two school buses combined that’s because sea creatures can float which slightly counteracts Gravity the effects of gravity can be seen in people too we are taller in the morning than we are in the evening our everyday activities and the added effect of gravity make the cartilage in our ankles knees hips back and neck compress once you have a overnight rest the cartilage swells back to normal gravity might also affect your shower routine that is if you’re an astronaut they have to rely on the oldfashioned way of bathing up there on the space station they can’t take a shower since the force of gravity up there is different and water doesn’t flow as it should instead they use liquid soap water and no rench shampoo they first squeeze some liquid soap and water from pre-made water pouches onto their skin next next they open the no rinse shampoo and add a little water to wash their hair towels are then used to wipe off the excess water which is really precious in space to make sure they recycle it an airflow system quickly evaporates excess water gravity and weight shouldn’t be confused astronauts on the space station do float and you may sometimes hear that they are in the state of zero gravity it’s far from the truth though since gravity up there is about 90% of its value on our planet but astronauts look and feel weightless since weight is the force a certain object exerts on them back on Earth most creatures have evolved to sense and adapt to Earth’s gravitational pole in the sea for instance some fish have floating calcium carbonate deposits in their heads scientists call them ear stones and they’re pulled down by gravity they act like a fish’s internal Compass now plants have evolved to grow starch grains in the tips of their roots they use this amazing feature to force their Roots deep down into the soil as little as we seem to understand it these days we do need gravity for way more things than we can imagine for instance some bacteria become even more dangerous in space where there’s little to no gravity salmonella for example the type of bacteria that is known to cause food poisoning becomes three times nastier in the condition of microgravity so you really got to cook your chicken our own Moon stays where it is because of the effects of gravity too if it weren’t for this Force our satellite would have floated Away by now but it’s held in place by Earth’s gravitational pole objects with the biggest gravitational poles in the universe are black holes thankfully our planet is really far away from any of them nothing can escape the gravitational pull of a black hole not even light itself similarly gravity is different on each planet and because of that things weigh differently depending on which planet they’re on take Earth for example an object that weighs 100 lb here would only be 38 lb on Mercury but if you’re planning on losing weight fast try booking a trip to Pluto someone who weighs 150 lb on Earth would weigh no more than 10 lb on Pluto the same person would weigh considerably more on Jupiter which is the planet with the most powerful gravity 150 lb on Earth Earth would turn into more than 354 lb there no thanks remember that experiment with watches ticking at different levels of elevation it turns out that gravity isn’t spread evenly on the surface of Earth why because our planet isn’t a perfect sphere the mass of Earth isn’t evenly distributed either that’s why you get variations in gravity and different locations more so gravity is weaker at the equator because of the centrifugal forces produced Us by the planet’s rotation since we’ve always perceived gravity as a force we seem to believe that it has somewhat of a suction motion but it’s not exactly true back in 1998 scientists were baffled to see that the expansion of the universe was speeding up so they linked this to the repulsive gravity of mysterious Dark Energy we now know that dark energy makes up for more than 60% of the mass energy of our whole universe but but since nobody knows what it actually is we can only make assumptions and one that’s largely accepted is quantum theory which seems to claim that gravity pushes rather than pulls things in you got all that I may need to watch this one again let me take you to a place that seems to be out of this world life inside this cave has been isolated from the outside world for about 5.5 million years and it does show see for yourself due to such a long isolation the conditions inside the movel cave are like nowhere else on our planet a unique ecosystem is flourishing there even though there is a severe lack of sunlight inside the cave and the air is toxic the cave located a few miles west of the Black Sea in Romania was first discovered in 1986 nowadays you can only visit it if you have special permission plus the central Caverns are guarded Naturally by narrow Limestone tunnels and vertical shafts so if you’re no stranger to claustrophobia you’d probably better not enter this place in the depth of the Cave the air has twice less oxygen than the air outside instead it contains a lot of carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide so not the freshest air you can breathe it’s also pitch black inside the cavern but despite or should I say thanks to this cocktail of extremely harsh conditions the site is a true gold mine for biologists shockingly life seems to be booming here in a 1996 study scientists identified 48 species and 33 of them were unique to the cave most of the creatures inhabiting the cave are tiny with long Limbs and antenna that help them navigate in the dark they have no vision and lack pigment and it makes sense why would you need to be able to see if you live in total darkness and why would you need to be pretty and colorful with no one to see you now I’m going to take you to another cave it’s no less amazing but looks very different this is the giant Crystal Cave AKA The Cave of the crystals in Mexico these ginormous crystals were found in 2000 by a mining company after the water was pumped out of the cave two miners then saw the crystals after entering the dry cave on foot these awe inspiring crystals are actually massive gypsum pillars hidden 984 ft underground they’re anchored to the walls and the floor of the the scorching hot cave scientists estimate that the crystals could have been already growing for half a million years that’s why many of them are so long and wide that you can walk across them unfortunately visiting this Wonder of nature is impossible at the moment but maybe it’s for the better since the giant Crystal Cave is a dangerous place that can easily turn into a trap for tens of thousands of years it was filled with groundwater which was originally pushed upward into the opening by a magma chamber located in the depths of our planet the magma under the cave kept the water hot but eventually the temperature of the water dipped below 136° f as a result the Water started to fill with calcium and sulfate whose particles began to recombine into gypsum and then white tinted crystals took over the cave and since they stayed underwater they were able to keep growing you don’t have to fly to space to take a closer look at a black hole scientists have found found something very similar to black holes in the southern Atlantic Ocean a black hole has such an enormous gravitational pull that once something gets pulled inside it doesn’t have any chance to escape even light can’t get out of a black hole but ocean black holes seem to be almost as powerful as their space relatives but instead of catching the light they do the same with water ocean Eddies are massive whirl pools that spin against the main current they usually swirl billions of tons of water and most of them are large ler than a city these whirlpools are so powerful that nothing trapped by them can escape but the scariest thing is that you might not even notice heading into one of them these things are so huge that you won’t spot their boundaries until it’s too late when scientists started exploring ocean vortices with the help of satellites they discovered the borders of several edies after that they managed to prove that mathematically these whirlpools are the same as mysterious black holes in space massive Eddies are surrounded by super tight barriers where fluid moves en closed Loops even water can’t get out from the inside of these Loops that’s why tight ocean vortices play the role of enormous containers water inside them can be totally different from the ocean surrounding an Eddy and I’m not only talking about its temperature the salt content inside and outside a Whirlpool often differs as well on the thin curonian spit splitting the Baltic Sea from the curonian Lagoon there is one of the most most bizarre places on Earth locals call this area the dancing Forest because pine trees in this Forest have shockingly unusual shapes they twist in Spirals and circles along the ground there are some theories why it could be happening of course some people claim that huge amounts of positive and negative energies once clashed in that spot more downto Earth individuals believe that the reason is geological sandy soil in the area is too unstable to hold trees growing upright the most popular is the idea that strong winds blowing from the water influence the shape of the trees in any case experts haven’t come to the final conclusion yet look at these underwater crop circles for the first time they were spotted in 1995 close to Southern Japan’s Coast local divers called these 7 ft wide structures mystery circles the Enigma had been plaguing many mines for almost 16 years until the culprit was finally caught IM imagine the researcher’s surprise when it turned out to be a male puffer fish the fish needs a bit more than a week to build one Circle and the Aesthetics are obviously crucial a male is swimming inside the circle digging valleys in the sand with its fins but that’s not all the fish also use shells and corals to decorate particular parts of their circles this whole builda circle thing has a practical purpose as well the way a male fish swims pushes the sand toward the center of the circle and creates a Mound which later serves as a nest the next mystery on our list is in the Caribbean just off the coast of Biz there’s a giant sink hole that’s the Great Blue Hole it’s about 1,000 ft across and more than 400 ft deep once a long long time ago this hole was a cave but then Rising Waters filled it making it collapse in on itself the deeper you’ll descend into the great hole’s crystalline Waters the darker it will become you’ll see tons of stalactite fil caves there but entering them is extremely dangerous unless you want to get hopelessly lost once you reach a depth of 50 ft you’ll notice that the water is shimmering that’s the invisible line dividing the sinkhole salty top from the freshwater Abyss you might want to turn back right now who knows what you might come across in the murky depths there was an old Amazonian legend that told about the river that was so hot that it boiled and it was believed to be just a legend until Peruvian geoscientist Andres ruso questioned if the river could be real all experts denied such a possibility after all hot Rivers do exist but only in the areas where there are volcanoes as for the part of the country mentioned in the legend there are no volcanoes in that region but Andress Russo was too dedicated to give up and in 2011 he finally located the River from the Legends the water in it was indeed steaming hot its temperature was 186° F not boiling but pretty clear close to this point but what shocked the researcher the most was the size of the river one could think that the almost boiling water was the result of the activity of an underwater hot spring the thermal pools are always small while the river is 20 ft deep and flows for almost 4 miles this is the only River of its kind on our planet scientists claim that icelandia was a region between Greenland and Scandinavia that was more than 230,000 square miles but is now underwater the Earth was once a large pizza pie with all the continents connected to each other millions of years ago otherwise known as Pangia the North Atlantic region we know today was dry land from about 335 million to 175 million years ago for many years scientists and geologists assumed that the North Atlantic Ocean was birthed as Pia began to split apart roughly 200 million years ago with volcanoes in the region where Iceland is the country came to be just 60 million years ago as it broke off and sailed away from all the other lands and since the Earth was like a large pizza pie it divided like one many of the lands split up into many large and small pieces creating the continents we know today but this new Theory suggests that the result of Pangia splitting left out some land that stretched for around 200 mil miles and just about 10 million years ago that piece of land submerged in the waters on the eastern and western side leaving the tip of the land which is now Iceland when plate tectonics moved they grind on each other which gave shape to our current landscape all thanks to the mantle this new radical Theory goes against everything written in history books and what scientists have been studying they began shaking heads drawing lots of skepticism and criticism but by analyzing the ocean floor under Iceland and the Earth’s crust we can assume that this idea isn’t far-fetched the crust beneath Iceland happens to be a lot thicker than the typical ones oceanic crust is made up of unique melted rocks compared to the land crusts where we walk and live on and is a lot more denser the thinnest layer on Earth is the crust where life takes place it’s essential for water growing food Gathering natural resources and minerals and breathing in oxygen it sinks below to the bottom but right above the Earth’s mantle it also refreshes itself since it constantly gets recycled into the mantle and back up this is why the rocks in the oceanic crust are around 25 Mi thick compared to just 5 mes anywhere else this is also reasonable given that it’s in a hot spot for vol volcano magnetic surveys of the ocean floor showed layers of molten crust in stripe patterns also given the fact that the Earth’s magnetic field changed its polarity over millions of years it played a role in shaping the foundation of our landscape but there isn’t any concrete evidence to prove this new Theory just yet one of the first steps is to start digging the ocean floor near Iceland ziron is a very sturdy mineral that can last last for billions of years despite erosion in the Earth’s crust by taking samples and studying them researchers can estimate the geological age of the continents this will make sure the crust is oceanic which is thicker or Continental which is the regular crust we walk on this isn’t an overnight project and would come with a hefty cost another way is to do seismic surveys that can measure Echoes conducted on Research ships Drilling holes miles deep in the crust can also help with the research but this would cost more than studying the ziron minerals some fossilized plants unique to both Scandinavia and Greenland might prove that icelandia was once on the surface and possibly scattered with trees it wasn’t a cold land as it is today so it may have had forests but scientists still haven’t found fossil evidence of animals common in both lands to suggest anything but maybe time will tell the theory goes deeper which suggests that there was a greater icelandia with Iceland Ireland Britain Scandinavia and Greenland all in one microc continent it could be a destination of winter enthusiasts and great for skiing it could be possible to connect Canada to Greater icelandia by train over the ocean which would open up the economy even more Iceland is around 40 th000 square miles which is already quite big and if the greater icelandia was present today then Europe would be a completely different continent many theories are circulating about other possible hidden micro continents around the world scientists aren’t certain of the possibility of icelandia existence but if all the studies conducted were done correctly then the theory could change everything we know about Iceland and the North Atlantic Ocean and this could pave the way for other sunken microc continents around the world another theory out there is that New Zealand was the tip of a lost subcontinent even bigger than icelandia called zeelandia studies show that it’s separated from the supercontinent gandana between 79 to 83 million years ago scientists claim that it’s the thinnest and youngest continent discovered underwater kraton is a core rock that acts as the the main foundation for most continents it’s at least a billion years old but the continental crust that makes up xandia is just half of that which makes it quite young that means some kraton is missing even though it holds some leftovers of older rocks and parts of the mantle they’re estimated to be as old as 2.7 billion years old scientists did some studies on the ziron crystals from New Zealand and found out that they’re as old as 1.3 billion years old the rest of the continents are more than 3 billion years old scientists studied the composition of the rocks in the bottom of the ocean around New Zealand they’re made up of silica and granite which are found in continental crusts the Ocean Floors mainly have magnesium and iron rich rocks they’re also thicker and higher than regular ocean crusts surround it they conducted some studies and collected magnetic and topographic data to see the link between between the tasmin and coral seas in the KO trough region this is the narrow strip between zeelandia and Australia satellite data tracked tiny faults in the Earth’s gravity to map out the crust of the Ocean Floors surrounding the area they saw the mass that makes up zelandia quite visible and almost the size of Australia even though the signs are there this doesn’t prove anything it’s possible that there are a bunch of microc continents which all split apart when Australia Broke Free of gondwana back then the supercontinent was made up of South America Antarctica Australia zealandia Arabia and the Indian subcontinent New Zealand is already not the biggest country out there but if the theories are correct then zeelandia will be six times its original size macius is a young Island that’s only a few million years old just 1200 Mi off the coast of Africa it’s believed that the tiny Island came to life around 9 million years ago the underwater volcanoes in the region spewed out so much lava that it formed the land today but scientists found ziron rocks that are more than 3 billion years old it may also be part of a continent submerged underwater called morisha which is just a quarter of the size of Madagascar the zircons they found were embedded in solid rocks and not just in the sand which may rule out that they just walked up on shore from another continent some scientists are still not convinced they suggest that discovering rocks that stand out from the other typical ones brought by an eruption could skew the scientific Community to this Theory but just like how icelandia could be part of Greater icelandia morisha was once called rodinia which consisted of India and Madagascar theories suggest that Maisha was covered in water when India broke away from Madagascar something like 85 million years ago ah the desert welcomes you with challenging conditions of abandoned environments and extreme temperatures hey some of us would prefer dessert chocolate over sand and rocks oh well just like cactuses and camels buildings have had to adapt to these conditions here are some examples of astonishing structures in deserts these structures are called Earth ships they’re located in a New Mexico desert town a large community of like-minded people lives in them what’s even more interesting is that the location of these buildings is registered as dumpsters maybe it’s because all these structures are made out of old tires bottles and cans Earth ships operate using Green Building principles about 40% of a typical Earth Ship is built with natural or recycled materials imagine the walls made up of hundreds of used tires packed with dirt then there are layers of floor to ceiling passive solar Windows they gathered the sunlight during winter and reflected in the summer to keep the structures at a reasonable room temperature you can see plants and quds and glass bottles or aluminum cans stuffed inside walls certainly a distinct house in many ways Mike Reynolds is an architect who noticed the alarming waste and consumption levels in the 1970s he designed a fully sustainable home out of cans back then almost 40 years later he becomes the one who brings together all the other Earth shippers Reynolds drove a Mercedes but it ran off of the vegetable oil he picked up at fast food restaurants in town a standard two-bedroom two-b Earth Ship cost about $250,000 in this town yet there are Earth ships like Dobson house that can cost as much as $1.5 million if you do it yourself you know with family and friends you can eliminate the cost of Labor and it becomes relatively less expensive let’s assume you’re really going to build one where can it be well anywhere Earth ships currently fit in the cold dry air of Canada as well as the hot and humid climate of Haiti this is the Mirage mirror house it’s an installation set in the Southern California Desert Mirage opened in 2017 as part of a contemporary art exhibition it’s composed of mirrors this minimalistic structure blends with the environment around it the doors windows and openings have been removed to create an amazing experience what you have in the landscap Cape is reflected back to you how’s it made with mirrored surfaces at night the distant lights refract from the mirrors in the daytime the sky is transformed into Banks of clouds there’s no fixed scenery in this house how about seeing a futuristic structure in the Deep desert architect designed a concept home that pairs perfectly with Elon musk’s cyber truck the house has a post-apocalyptic thinge I mean when I say post-apocalyptic it’s because I can’t say it anyway the house is designed to survive in a disaster scenario the Cyber house has steel Gates the windows are armored and the exterior walls are made out of super strong material modern house is controlled by an autonomous geothermal heat pump to put it in less sci-fi terms you can keep the internal temperature steady this Sleek house has an entrance that can fit the Cyber truck after all it’s inspired by it in the first place plus the Cyber truck can be lifted to the second floor to be more secure Europe This is King Abdullah petroleum studies and Research Center in Saudi Arabia basically it’s a laboratory in a desert it was designed to demand minimum energy the architecture has patterns on the walls and ceilings giving reference to the local tradition of geometric form the next stop is swartberg House in South Africa this one is located near the swartberg mountains but don’t get too excited it’s on the edge of the great Karu desert it’s a four bedroom apartment it has a special temperature regulating system the system works like a shield from the heat in the summer and has a sun trap in the winter you’re looking at the Grand Mosque of J in mly this mosque is 52 ft tall this is impressive because it’s made of only sticks and a special mix of mud and other natural elements found in the desert Petra is an ancient city hidden in the Jordan desert the structures are carved directly into red white and pink colored Sandstone cliff faces it’s located among the canyons and mountains near the desert the place was a Trade Center many many years ago you might already see pictures of the impressive facade of the treasury this structure still holds many mysteries in it for starters scientists can’t explain how the neans managed to create such a structure thousands of years ago did you know that there’s another mysterious place in the middle of the desert that has a similar structure to Petra Medan and cay was like a second capital of the N Kingdom yet another secret they left for us to decipher it has over 100 decorated tombs and more than a th000 non Monumental grades plus inscriptions and cave drawings are also here again surrounded by Sandstone this wooden Shack was a post office once the structure is in the Tanger desert of Mongolia it’s surrounded by nothing sand is the only thing that accompanies the lonely structure the building is only 23 Square in as you can get yes it didn’t get too many visitors it was abandoned for over 35 years its fate changed one day when a woman discovered the building Mrs Young and her friend came up with an idea they were going to reach businesses and people who wanted to send letters and Postcards From the world’s loneliest post office without actually visiting the place it worked the post office rarely gets visitors in place but it’s busy online over 20,000 letters and postcards were sent from the desert post office in December 2021 alone the place is about 6 M off the nearest Road a post truck picks the letters up and hits the road for delivery eventually they are shipped all over the world a second destination in Saudi Arabia is King Abdul aiz Center for World culture the building has an interesting design it took nearly a decade to build this complex structure it’s a 321 ft tall tower which stands out with its look Stone Matter’s Pavilion is a stone structure in Palestine the structure spans a surface area of 93 Square in it has been built entirely out of 300 interlocking stones that mutually support each other the concave roofs and yes they look like giant bowls are designed that way to collect rainwater the structure is in Iran interestingly in Iran the evaporation rate is three times faster than the world average so this bow-like design comes in very handy it captures the water in a way that the the water can form a single mass as a whole before it evaporates the outer shell of the roof system collects rain water but it also works as an additional shading it makes air move freely designed like a cooling mechanism for both roofs ecolodge and Egypt is the next stop the project is built in a place that overlooks the desert and is constructed using locally available materials like sunfired bricks and palmwood the building is an example of traditional architecture there’s a water basin that lets in the air to keep the interior cool a worthy mention is the C interpretation Center in Chile Chile’s ATA desert is among the top tourist destinations in the country to help the tourists architect infrastructure for the wind farm here the cold winter months don’t freeze people because the large windows make the most of solar heating what’s even more interesting is that the building is designed to go completely dark at night imagine you somehow bumped into the building by accident Black Desert house is a building respecting the stars at night this house goes completely dark it dissolves into the night so the Stars can appear more prominent now any mysterious desert buildings you know that aren’t on this list let us know in the comments welcome to ever City it’s a Megapolis built inside a relatively young mountain Everest is only about 55 million years old but it’s already the highest mountain in the world 29,000 ft picture the Statue of Liberty now imagine she had 83 twin brothers and sisters and they were all standing on top of each other if you wanted to get there back in the day you had to pass some serious Fitness tests train for months have perfect health and spend a lot of money oh and be a little crazy now that Mount Everest has been turned into a city though you don’t need any of that stuff well except money Apartments here don’t come cheap it’s easy to navigate around ever city the whole thing’s basically six circles it looks like a finger with six rings on it the lowest and largest circle is the residential area the highest and smallest ones near the top is where the richest people live below that is the meditation Circle then a circle for hotels and two Circles of pure entertainment ever City isn’t built like an ordinary City you won’t find tall houses or six Lane highways here almost all buildings are built inside the mountain at first people were building ordinary houses but strong icy winds and avalanches kept knocking them down then Engineers decided to build houses inside the mountain they’re connected by underground tunnels from the inside the mountain looks like a system of labyrinths the entrance to ever city is located at the foot of the mountain every day hundreds of thousands of cars enter and leave the city there’s no factories or power stations inside electricity gas food everything comes from the outside world that’s why all the stuff in ever city is so insanely expensive people want to keep the mountain covered in snow that’s another reason why there’s no factories and stuff there’s almost no Heating in the houses people live here like they do in those ice hotels but you don’t need to go around wearing a bunch of layers designers created special thermal pants socks and t-shirts that go under your regular clothes wo all that plus jeans and a t-shirt is totally enough to keep you toasty warm to keep your face fresh they’ve come up with a special cream it warms and moisturizes your skin and it’s SPF 100 which is about what you’d need if you liked walking around on the top of Everest want to stop by at coffee shop then grab a double bacon cheeseburger and maybe a slice the cheesecake that’ll set you back about $500 a movie ticket costs at least 10000 and internet’s so expensive you’d have to pay about a dollar just to watch this video even so more and more people are moving to ever City every year it’s peaceful and quiet you feel Harmony and unity with nature there’s also a world famous Meditation Center on its own special Circle people from all over the world come here to get their body and mind back into harmony but the greatest draw is that you can visit the summit whenever you want like it’s your daily walk in the park before ever City conquering this mountain was extremely dangerous there’s three times less oxygen up there than in almost any other city if your body doesn’t get enough oxygen you can find yourself in big problems climbers used to take oxygen tanks with them which slowed them down and made everything more complicated it’s hard to get out of the way of an avalanche with huge metal cylinders on your back strong winds are a big problem too at the top the wind can blow at 100 m an hour try to nail one of those jumping selfies and you’ll be blown clean off the mountain it’s so cold that icicles form on your hair and your skin gets covered with a thin crust of ice and when you’re up there you have a special terrible superpower a loud scream could cause an avalanche but now everything’s chill to get to the top of Everest you just need to sit in a comfortable snowmobile capsule it’ll protect you from any bad weather or the odd Avalanche if you get covered with too much snow you just turn on a powerful heater wait a few for the snow to melt and continue on your journey oxygen cylinders inside the cabin let you breathe normally the new road to the top is well lit and there are signs everywhere so you never get lost the only problem is traffic every day thousands of people want to to visit the highest point on the planet you might have to wait in line for several hours but don’t worry all ever City capsules are equipped with high-speed internet an 8K screen and game consoles and if you get hungry you can always order food delivered by the latest AI robot snowmobile you made it so quickly find a parking spot leave your capsule there and head to the ski lift that will take you straight to the top now all you have to do is put on an oxygen mask and enjoy the view while you’re up there you notice an ad inviting you to dine at the highest restaurant in the world just 100 ft below the summit it’ll set you back around $10,000 tempting but you’re not hungry feel like the king of the world Dy with us at best food Ever Rest pretty good ads but you already feel like the king of the world you scream with the light and well unfortunately you just can’t stay up there forever there’s not that much space at the top so they only give you about a minute to enjoy the view but it’s okay you can come back tomorrow there are two ways back down the mountain you can get in your capsule and drive home or grab a snowboard and ride down but before you rent some skis or snowboard you need to show your Everest driver’s license it says if you’ve passed the special snowboard and skiing test you take a snowboard and Jet down a lit track you zoom past the top of some houses sticking out just below the summit that’s where the wealthiest people live they can just walk out their front doors and take a special elevator up to the top you’d need to be a billionaire to have one of those houses but there are over 2,000 of them right now about half of them from the USA and China unfortunately you live much lower down the mountain but that has its advantages the lower you live the less you pay for food entertainment and electricity you Glide in Into The Meditation Center for a bit a special ventilation system delivers air directly from the top of the mountain plus a little added oxygen you breathe in pure Harmony all six rings of ever City have 360° views and from way up there all you can see is peaceful Snowy Mountains mixing with wispy clouds after meditation you head down to the entertainment Rings they’ve got it all coffee shops any meal you can think of shows bowling arcades even an ice skating rink that’s half inside half outside the mountain there are different gyms but they all have curtains slide apart above your head the sun shines through the sealed windows and you get a full dose of the purest sunlight on Earth just 5 minutes and you’re ready for the rest of your day if you don’t want to go outside anymore you can get home through the tunnels they’re not dark and cold if that’s what you’re thinking ever City tunnels look like Ice Caves lit up by hundreds of Lights it feels like a snowy fairy tale after a short walk you get to your apartment it’s compact but cozy to save money on electricity you chose to go without a fridge no problem you keep your food in a little box just outside your window the snow will keep it cold with the help of a heating and filtration system you get all the water you need from the millions of tons of snow on Everest it’s the cleanest water around in the evening you go down and watch a movie there’s an outdoor cinema at the foot of the Mountain at night a huge machine projects movies directly onto the snowy surface of Everest you watch the movie in capsules either alone or in groups kind of like a drive-in come on over visit ever City any time of the year you find yourself in Africa land of unique Wildlife home to a great variety of cultures and languages and first and foremost host to the world’s largest hot desert the Sahara it’s daytime and you are thirsty for some water in shade you’ve been walking for days trying to find one of those precious looking oases you feel you’re near but the Horizon just keeps stretching and stretching your mind is tired and your body is feeling all the heat it’s like you’ve eaten a full plate of hot pepper and then some more judging by how much you’re sweating and when I say hot think 100° fahrenheit hot on average no wonder this is happening after all you find yourself in the world’s biggest hot desert now I say hot desert since the biggest deserted Landscapes are actually the cold ones located in Antarctica and the Arctic I see Antarctica’s Frozen desert is more or less the size of 1 million lax’s yep the Los Angeles International Airport the Arctic desert is just a bit smaller than that now in case you don’t know the Sahara desert is located in Northern Africa stretching from the Atlantic Ocean all the way over to the Red Sea it occupies an area large enough to place approximately 100,000 Disney World theme parks side by side according to scientists its boundaries are expanding deserts usually form in the subtropics because of what’s called Hadley circulation the air rises at the equator and descends into the subtropics this circul ation of air has a drying effect which helps the formation of desert Landscapes since the 1920s the Sahara is considered to have expanded by over 10% how is this happening well let’s start from the beginning you probably know the Sahara Desert as one of the most inhospitable places on Earth today just FYI for a place to be considered a desert it has to receive less than 4 in of rain per year due to the very small precipitation index deserts are us usually dry and Aid places there is little humidity in the air and daytime temperatures can go as high as 130° F usually there isn’t that much animal and plant life because of the lack of water but in the Sahara’s case it wasn’t always like that it may be difficult to imagine Northern Africa without the tons of sand it has today but about 20,000 years ago the Sahara was actually one big Oasis recent discoveries show clear evidence of what the scientists now call the green Sahara in the mid 1800s a German Explorer crossing the Sahara encountered some paintings and Engravings that Nomad artists had left behind what he saw in those paintings looked nothing like his actual surroundings instead of an arid landscape with only camels and desert vegetation The Rock paintings depicted jungle animals like giraffes and hippos there were even images of livestock and grazing animals such as cattle and sheep something that seems impossible for modern day Sahara artists usually draw what they see around them so this finding really intrigued the German Explorer the drawings were so detailed that the artists must have had close contact with those animals you can find this rock art spread out in the northern part of the African continent from Western Sahara to Saudi Arabia geologists soon took a keen interest in this and found the first Clues to what this could mean they have been able to confirm that in fact Norther Africa was once much wetter they found evidence from nearby deep sea sediment off the coast of morania sample cores of underwater sand and mud known as Saharan dust flux show geologists that indeed a green Sahara was possible the more dust is blowing off of the desert and into the bottom of the ocean the drier the climate in the region the sediment cores show that there was much less dust only half as much coming off Northern Africa during the humid period this period has to do with Earth’s natural cycles normally the Earth rotates at a tilt of 23 and A2 degrees but this angle is not consistent and changes over time Earth’s Tilt is responsible for the amount of sunlight each hemisphere receives it affects several ecosystem functions on the planet during the time of the green Sahara the Earth received between 4 and 8% more sunlight than it does today so when the earth tilted about 20,000 years ago the northern hemisphere received more direct sunlight which affected humidity levels in the region as the Northern Hemisphere got warmer this affected Monsoon activity more specifically the West African Monsoon monsoons are wind systems that affect a Region’s rainfall index and humidity levels as a part of the globe gets warmer it allows for more air to rise it combines with the wind to draw moisture up into the atmosphere little by little Northern Africa also became weter the increased moisture made the Sahara so wet that there were actual bodies of water in the region as vegetation grew the plants held on to moisture better than bare sand could there is evidence of natural basins throughout the Sahara and lakes so big they would fit all of the US’s Great Lakes inside of them archaeologists uncovered evidence of vibrant Societies in what are now Aid areas it looks like ancient cultures were able to take full advantage of the African humid period according to research the human population peaked across the Sahara about 9,000 years ago there are traces of fireplaces hunting tools Fish Hooks and even mounds of Fishbones records show that there have been over 230 green periods over the span of 8 million years solar radiation is always changing due to Natural orbital Cycles that’s why Earth will most certainly see another green Sahara moment it might be thousands of years from now but it will happen the same way that Sahara turns green it turns yellow again let’s put it like that all it takes is a significant axial tilt and a few years of readjusting however another phenomenon is calling the attention of scientists now recent Studies by the National Science Foundation from the University of Maryland show the Sahara has expanded 10% over the past 90 years this phenomenon is called desertification which literally means fertile land turning into desert land the Sahara Desert is now advancing into the semiarid region of Sahel in 1950 this region was home to 31 million people today its population is over 100 million people this rapid population growth has largely contributed to the Sahara’s expansion Farmers that were once Nomads began settling down land usage grew more intense aiding and weakening the soil the demand for food has caused an O is turning into the desert now the study also shows that natural climate Cycles can affect rainfall in the Sahara and the sahal scientists affirm that all deserts fluctuate not only the Sahara a desert’s boundary May expand in the dry winter and contract during the wetter summer south of the Sahara lies the Chad Basin it is a natural body of water that now serves as an indicator of the Sahara’s expansion the Chad Basin is located in the region where the Sahara is advancing Southward and mospheric and ocean expert from the University of Maryland explains that rainfall has reduced greatly in the entire region due to reduced rainfalls there is less water across the entire Basin and even Chad lake is drying out just like the Sahara the atakama desert in Chile deemed the world’s driest is also expanding it is located north of the city of Santiago and its Southern border is expanding toward the Chilean Capital because the climate is getting drier and drier here the city of Santiago RIS turning into an arid or semi-arid region itself the once fertile valleys of local rivers that lived on agriculture and livestock for many generations are losing their revenues as Chilean land is turning into a desert since 2010 Santiago has received only a third of its annual rainfall outside of the city Farmers are digging holes in search of blue gold or simply put water the situation here is very similar to that of sahal so tell me this were you as surprised as I was to find out what has been
Our planet’s largest desert, the Sahara, seems to be changing. Is this a natural cycle or a sign of something more serious? This video explores the science behind the Sahara’s shift, its impact on surrounding regions, and why it matters for all of us.
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