Watch Big E - Evan Doherty's latest skate footage from the streets and parks of Kansas City - shot over a period of 2 weeks in September 2011.
via youtube.com
Eclectic Perambulations in the Noosphere
"The mysterious “Relámpago del Catatumbo” (Catatumbo lightning) is a unique natural phenomenon in the world. Located on the mouth of the Catatumbo river at Lake Maracaibo (Venezuela), the phenomenon is a cloud-to-cloud lightning that forms a voltage arc more than five kilometre high during 140 to 160 nights a year, 10 hours a night, and as many as 280 times an hour."
via mytechnologyworld9.blogspot.com
“Ringing Rocks” (20 miles east of Butte, Montana) is one of the most unusual rock formations in the country. A similar "ringing rock" formation exists in Pennsylvania. Folks from all over travel the three-mile gravel road north of I-90 just to pound on Montana's version of "Ringing Rocks" with hammers.
Nobody knows for sure exactly why the rocks ring like bells when struck with a hammer. The rocks do contain a significant amount of iron, which might be part of the explanation. However, the high iron content doesn’t explain two other strange qualities that the rocks possess . . . Not all of the rocks ring when struck, and they don’t ring when they are removed from the site, suggesting that the ringing has something to do with the way the rocks lay against one another. Larger flat ones seem to produce an especially impressive sound when struck.
Photographer : Hector Fabian Garrido
"The photo above showing a sensational display of lenticular clouds was snapped near La Rioja, Argentina, at the base of the Andes Mountains, on September 9, 2011. I was doing seismic testing just after sunrise and was taken aback by the gold and tawny wave clouds that appeared across much of the sky. These lenticulars took shape to the lee (east) of the Andes, just west of my location -- the Sun was behind the camera. Lenticular clouds are generally orographic in origin, forming in lee waves when air is forced to rise over elevated terrain. On this early spring morning, the smooth structure of the waves, the illumination by the low Sun, and the absence of other types of clouds, gave the sky a surreal look."
An eared grebe in need of rescuing, after it crash-landed onto the snow-covered ground in St. George, UT, mistaking it for a lake. Credit: Utah Division of Wildlife, Lynn Chamberlain
"Thousands of migrating birds crash-landed onto parking lots and other thinly snow-covered surfaces in St. George, Utah, Monday night (Dec. 12), apparently mistaking the glinting open spaces for lakes. Community members and state wildlife officials are working together to clean up from the disaster, rescuing survivors and disposing of the casualties."
A bizarre underwater "icicle of death" has been filmed by a BBC crew.
With timelapse cameras, specialists recorded salt water being excluded from the sea ice and sinking.
The temperature of this sinking brine, which was well below 0C, caused the water to freeze in an icy sheath around it.
Where the so-called "brinicle" met the sea bed, a web of ice formed that froze everything it touched, including sea urchins and starfish.
"Seeing crepuscular rays on Earth is a somewhat rare event, as conditions have to be just right at either sunset or sunrise for the Sun’s rays to appear as though they are diverging outward from the Sun. But seeing them from space is even more rare.
This picture taken by an astronaut on the International Space Station provides an unusual viewing perspective from above of crepuscular rays. Why are they parallel in this picture instead of radiating in an outward fashion like they appear to us on Earth? This image shows the true nature of crepuscular rays: they really are parallel !"
