(follow the photo source links for larger pictures)

photo sources, clockwise from top: 1, 2, 3

[above] welcome to ronda (google maps here), a beautiful city in southern spain which is split in two by el tajo gorge. as a result, certain buildings have been perched on the edge of the gorge’s verticall walls, enormous cliffs bridged by the 200 year old peunte neuvo. now, although living on the edge of that gigantic 130m crack would give me the shakes, i’d much rather live there than bonifacio…

photo sources, clockwise from top: 1, 2, 3

[above] this is bonifacio in corsica (google maps here). this fragile looking citadel sits precariously above limestone cliffs which over the years have been battered by the mediterranean sea, a process which is apparent by both the piles of eroded stone at the base and the overhang of the cliff walls. how long before the next building gets swallowed? no idea, but from the look of the first photo it can’t be long.

[update]

photo sources from top: 1, 2

(cheers to qfwfq78) the photos above are of a tiny town by the name of castellfollit de la roca in spain, an incredible looking stretch of houses that all seem to be resting on a single ridge of rock. wow.

[update 2]

photo sources, left to right: 1, 2

[above] many people have suggested the hanging houses (casas colgadas) in cuenca, spain. apparently a large part of the town used to consist of these amazing houses, clinging onto rocks, unfortunately now only a few remain. for more photos just search for ‘casas colgadas’ on flickr or click here.

anyone know of any more frightening clifftop towns?

photo source: ian iong

approximately 3′000 years ago the people of cordillera took on one of mankind’s most impressive landscape modification projects in order to farm effectively on the surrounding mountainsides and slowly transform the region into what some now call the eighth wonder of the world. due to the sheer scale of this farming system it’s hard to disagree: the rice terraces of the philippine cordilleras, if laid out end to end, would stretch halfway round the globe. if this ingenious feat had been accomplished in recent times the clearly enormous task would have seemed more than impressive, however the fact that it was completed thousands of years ago without the use of modern apparatus and machinery takes the terraces and integrated irrigation systems to a whole new level.

photo source: dudz torres

the idea behind field terracing is simple and something not unique to the philippines: carve horizontal ledges into hills, essentially creating thousands of small walled fields from base to peak in which to grow crops and retain much needed water. however, in the cordilleras region this has been applied to an area on an elsewhere unseen scale: approximately 10′360 square kilometres. entire mountains, sometimes thousands of feet high, sculpted like blocks of wood. that itself is incredible. then you have the irrigation system: the natural streams and rivers of each terraced mountain and its forests have been diverted using a huge and complex arrangement of canals, sluices and taps, the same water is then pushed to the highest terraces using miles of wooden piping. when the terraces fill up they overflow and start to fill the terraced field below, and the cycle continues until the entire mini-waterfall covered mountain is carrying an immense weight of water.

photo source: ian iong

the rice terraces are, understandably, a huge tourist attraction and have attracted attention and money from across the world. however the tourism is also thought to be responsible for the start of what could be a slow death of the terraces for a couple of reasons. firstly, the new generation of locals see the hospitality industry created by the terraces as a far more appealing line of work than the constant farming and attention needed to sustain the terraces themselves. secondly, water isn’t as readily available as in the past due to the effects of an earthquake in 1990 and the new demand for water itself from the tourist industry.

for that reason unesco has placed the terraces on a list of world heritage sites it believes to be ‘in danger’ in hope of starting a successful rehabilitation of the world’s most incredible agricultural engineering system.

sources: 1, 2, 3

firstly, the fact that they exist at all was news to me. i naively assumed that avalanches of any substance were pretty much uncontrollable on our part (unless explosives are used), especially when the relatively miniscule and fragile community you’re attempting to defend sits at the base of the mountain in question. so the thought of humans battling angry mountains the world over using fences and angled walls was always going to be a winner for me. secondly, they look great. i’m a sucker for enormous man-made structures anyway and these beasts are fairly huge, the dams especially as they sometimes span the width of entire villages.

so, here a 3 different types of structure actively being used in various regions in the defense against rapid walls of snow. i’m not even going to pretend to be knowledgeable about the subject so if you want any more depth i suggest you follow the links after these photos.

the deflecting dam

deflecting dams exist with one objective in mind: to divert the flow of an oncoming avalanche away from the populated area beneath the shifting snow. this is done using angled walls and one of the most successful examples can be found at flateyri in iceland (see above) where a triangular deflecting dam can be clearly seen above the village. the dam was built following a fatal avalanche in 1995 and since its construction the dam has successfully diverted at least 2 more large avalanches.

the catching dam

in areas where a diversion isn’t possible you will often find a catching dam, a structure built purely to stop an avalanche in its tracks, hopefully preventing any major movement beyond that point. the main part of a catching dam is the long, curved wall immediately above the community. further up you’ll sometimes find a series of huge earth mounds, strategically placed in order to suck some energy from the flow before it hits the main wall and renders it useless. the photos above show the catching dam protecting drangagil, also in iceland.

below is video of a simulation of the taconnaz catching dam in action, the yellow areas being the part of the flow with highest energy…

supporting structures

steel supporting structures are the most common type of avalanche control system and can be found at the top of avalanche-prone mountains. huge horizontal lines of (usually) steel angled supports are built into the side of avalanche starting zones for a number of reasons: 1. to give support to the snow, therefore reducing the likelihood of an avalanche in the first place, 2. to remove the momentum of any small avalanches, 3. to prevent ’slab formation’ by divding the snow into sections.

for more info, check out the source links below. you can also go here to read parts of the extremely interesting and useful (if you live or holiday amongst unstable mountains) ‘avalanche handbook’ - not all of it is readable through google books but it can be bought through amazon here.

sources: 1, 2, 3 (pdf), 4

1. the spotted lake

the spotted lake (kliluk), situated in osoyoos, canada, contains one of the highest concentrations of minerals in the world (mainly epsom salts, calcium and sodium sulphates). the lake’s healing waters were used by native indians to alleviate aches and pains and during the first world war the salts were skimmed from the surface in huge amounts to be transported to eastern american munitions factories - sometimes as much as a ton per day.

the pattern you see below appears during hot sunny days as the water evaporates and the minerals crystallize to form hundreds of incredible yellow pools.

photo credit: liembo

2. red tide

red tide, the common name for ‘algal bloom’, is caused by high levels of phytoplankton accumulating to form dense, visible clouds near the surface of the water. due to the varying colouring of the phytoplankton’s pigments, these algae blooms range in colour too. although aesthetically stunning, this naturally occuring phenomena sometimes results in a high death rate amongst certain marine life due to an increase in karenia brevis algae.

3. penitentes

these amazing ice spikes (generally known as penitentes due to their resemblence to processions of white-hooded monks) can be found on mountain glaciers and vary in size dramatically: from a few centimetres to 5 metres in height.

‘initially, the sun’s rays cause random dimples on the surface of the snow. once such a dimple is formed, sunlight can be reflected within the dimple, increasing the localised sublimation. as this accelerates, deep troughs are formed, leaving peaks of ice standing between them’ - new scientist

sources: 1, 2, 3

1. meoto iwa

situated just off the coast of mie, japan, meoto iwa (wedded rocks) are meant to signify marriage, the larger being male and the smaller female. the rope connecting the rocks (the shimenawa) weighs over a ton and is replaced throughout the year during various ceremonies.

2. kjeragbolten

wedged between the walls of a mountain crevice in norway is a rock called kjeragbolten. the rock is often stood on by tourists for a crafty photograph whilst attempting not to look down at the 3000ft+ drop. i’m assuming the sheep/goat in the picture below was a local.

3. the idol rock

this precarious little bugger is a member of the brimham rocks family in north yorkshire, 50 acres of strange rock formations visited regularly by members of the public. the idol rock pictured weighs 200 tonnes and balances on a rock a fraction of its size.

4. kyaiktiyo pagoda

situated in burma, the rock at this incredible buddhist pilgrimage site was (according to locals) placed on the cliff edge by spirits and the pagoda resting on top apparently contains a hair belonging to the buddha.

5. mushroom rock

this brilliantly eroded mushroom rock formation resides in the aptly named mushroom rock state park in kansas. the park doesn’t just contain rocks shaped like mushrooms though, apparently there’s one that resembles a giant shoe.

6. rockall

rockall is an unsurprisingly uninhabited sea-rock in the north atlantic ocean and is also the most isolated part of the british isles. numerous landings have been made on the rock and various disputes have arisen over its ownership, a matter which is still unresolved.

7. piedra del peñol

i couldn’t find much information on the intertubes about this beast so forgive me. all i know is that you have to pay to get to the top and that the stairway that sits in the rock’s crevice must’ve been an absolute ball-ache to construct. click on the pic for a larger version and you’ll realise just how mental it is.

sources: 1, 2, 3, 4

click on all pictures for humongous versions.

1. sri lankan coast, 26th december 2004

(above) the ocean rapidly retreats 400 metres on the south-western coast of sri lanka, just 5 minutes prior to the arrival of a devastating tsunami.

(above) the swirling waters continue to batter the coast just moments after the main wall of water has hit.

2. an alluvial fan, xinjiang province, china

(above) covering an area 56.6 x 61.3 km and taken on may 2nd, 2002, this photo shows an alluvial fan that formed on the southern border of the taklimakan desert in china. an alluvial fan usually forms as water leaves a canyon, each new stream eventually closing up due to sediment - the result being a triangle of active and inactive channels. the blue ones on the left are currently active.

3. retreating glaciers in the bhutan-himalaya

(above) a beautiful but clear sign that glaciers are slowly melting due to global warming. easily visible are the ends of most of these glacial valleys’ surfaces turning to water to form lakes, a trend which has been noticed only in the last few decades.

4. hurricane isabel, 2003

(above) this terrifying photo of hurricane isabel was taken on the international space station in 2003 and illustrates the immense size of the hurricane’s eye. this particular hurricane was the deadliest of 2003 and winds reached 165 mph at its peak.

5. greenland’s eastern coast, august 21st, 2003

(above) the fractal coastline of greenland and its numerous fjords as seen from space.

‘little spots of white in the water seem to be ice originating from the deeper fjords that reach all the way to the icecap covering most of the island.’ link

6. aurora borealis

(above) an astounding and spooky photo of the natural phenomenon known as aurora borealis, taken on-board space shuttle atlantis during the sts-117 mission.

7. a total solar eclipse from space, 1999

(above) the shadow of the moon covers part of earth on august 11th, 1999 in this photo taken from mir space station. this shadow raced across earth at 2000 km/h, all areas under the centre of it plunged into darkness during a total solar eclipse. this was apparently one the final photos taken from mir.

8. egmont national park, new zealand

(above) mt. egmont volcano last erupted in 1755 and is now situated at the centre of egmont national park. park regulations have ensured the survival of a forest which extends at a 9.5 km radius from the summit of the volcano, the result of which can be seen from space in the form of huge dark green disc. this photo was taken during the sts-110 mission, april 2002.

9. mt. etna eruption, october 2001

(above) taken from the international space station in 2001, this is a photo of a particularly violent eruption on the island of sicily which produced a cloud of ash that travelled as far as libya. on the humongous version of the photo lighter coloured smoke can be seen near the volcano - this was caused by lava igniting nearby forests.

10. richat structure, mauritania

(above) the cause of the richat structure in the sahara desert of mauritania has been debated for many years. at first it was thought to be a meteor impact crater due to its circularity but this has since been disproven due to the lack of shock-altered rock in its vicinity. this massive (30 mile diameter) oddity is now believed to have been a rock dome sculpted over time by erosion. this incredible image was taken by the advanced spaceborne thermal emission and reflection radiometer (aster) on october 7th, 2000.

sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

it was built on the last available green space in the city so the design needed to keep as much of that greenery as possible whilst still delivering a building big enough to hold the necessary facilities.

the result is an amazing building which from the back end appears to be a normal glass fronted construction. it’s only when you approach the other side that you see the huge sloping front, home to around 35′000 plants and 76 different species. the roof also enables the building’s energy consumption to be lower than other buildings of a similar size as the greenery keeps the inside temperature at a comfortable level.

google maps link here.

there’s a seemingly unreadable vegitation map here.

any photos i found on flickr are linked to the account.

1. barringer crater, arizona, united states (google maps)

age - 49′000 yrs
diameter - 1.2 km

it’s hard to believe that the photo above is actually of our planet.

probably the most famous crater on earth and also the first on the planet to be recognized as an impact crater, barringer crater in arizona is actually one of the smaller examples with a piddly diameter of 1.2km and depth of 570ft. the impact occured 49′000 years ago.

here’s a flyby of the crater…

2. gosses bluff, northern territory, australia (google maps)

age - 142.5 million yrs
diameter - 5 km

around 142.5 million years ago gosses bluff crater was formed by an object thought to be around 600 metres in diameter. the crater you see today is actually a lot smaller than the original depression due to erosion. its diameter currently stands at 5km, the original diameter thought to have been closer to 20km.

3. vredefort crater, johannesburg, south africa (google maps)

age - 2 billion yrs
diameter - 300 km

with an astounding diameter of around 300km, vredefort basin in south africa is currently the largest confirmed impact crater on earth and also one of the oldest at 2 billion years. the crater was the result of an extreme impact with an object whose diameter was 10km.

4. manicouagan reservoir, quebec, canada (google maps)

age - 212 million yrs
diameter - 72 km

this incredible 72km wide impact crater in quebec has slowly transformed into its current state, what was originally the rim of the crater has since eroded away due to glaciation. the impact occured around 212 million years ago and the diameter of the asteroid is estimated to have been approximately 5km.

you can clearly see the reservoir in the amazing photo below, taken from the international space station during the sts-100 mission.

5. bosomtwe crater, lake bosomtwe, ghana (google maps)

age - 1.2 million yrs
diameter - 10.5 km

the actual impact crater which holds lake bosomtwe is 10.5km in diameter, the lake itself 7km. the impact took place 1 million years ago and since then, due to heavy rainfall, the water level has sometimes spilled over the rim and flooded surrounding areas.

sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

1. (exodus 7:14-25) rivers and other water sources turned to blood (’dam’)

for his first trick, god, in a roundabout way, caused the water in the nile to turn to blood. this in turn caused all the fish to die and a powerful stench to fill the air.

these days we’ve got mass pollution of rivers all over the world, the effects of which are pretty similar to the scenario above, sometimes exactly the same (but without the magic, or blood).

the photo above is of the yellow river in china, 2006 (the official news agency in china said this particular accident had caused the river to ‘turn red and smelly‘), the red colouring caused by a leak from a heating factory. china has some of the most polluted in the world with an estimated 21′000 chemical factories positioned along the country’s rivers and coastline.

as for dead fish caused by river pollution…

another red polluted river can be seen here.

2. (exodus 7:26-8:11) reptiles (commonly believed to be frogs) (’tsfardeia’)

next on the big man’s list was frogs. he ’simply’ caused hordes of them to swamp egypt for a day, probably causing hell.

these days a group of frogs is known as an ‘army’ of frogs and it seems that’s apt in hawaii.

(pic: one of the troublemakers - name witheld)

it’s not widely known but back in 1994 the mayor of hawaii declared war on the local frog population whilst officially declaring a ‘civil defense national emergency‘ due to the ever-growing infestation of hopping amphibians. specifically, the unarmed culprits were, and still are, coqui frogs: these frogs are so-called due to the extremely high pitched sound (”ko-kee!, ko-kee!”) the males constantly emit during the night and only moved onto the island at the beginning of the 1990s. due to the lack of any notable predators on the island, it’s possible for tens of thousands of the little singers to inhabit just an acre of land and local real estate experts believe the frogs will eventually drive down property prices.

(pic: the hard facts. the locals don’t seem to be very effective killers)

i found an old anti-coqui blog started by what seems to be a local of the area here. it hasn’t been updated for a while (perhaps the frogs caught wind of the blog and snapped) but you can still read the informative section entitled ‘how to kill invasive coqui tree frogs’ here.

3. (exodus 8:12-15) lice or gnats (’kinim’)

after lunch god told moses to instruct aaron (that’s delegation for you) to turn the dust into a mass of gnats, presumably to cause a bit of havoc with the egyptians.

in modern times? i’ve never known of dust transforming into gnats, through magic or otherwise, but i do know of a gnat that’s been causing immense problems for a huge amount of time…

mosquitoes are responsible for one of the biggest killers on earth: malaria.

in africa, where 90% of the world’s malaria cases occur, nearly a million people die from the disease every year, or around 2700 per day. i reckon that constitutes a plague.

4. (exodus 8:16-28) either flies, wild animals or beetles (’arov’)

beetle plagues occur all through the year in different parts of the world and the shiny-backed monsters are some of the most destructive creatures in the world.

just as an example, last year in colorado bark beetles destroyed 4.8 million of the area’s pine trees. in 2005 the toll was 3.8 million and they’re steadily getting worse: boffins believe they could wipe out 90% of colorado’s pines pretty soon. in the western us and canada combined the beetles have apparently affected ‘36′000 square miles of forest’.

i’ll really start to worry when a plague of these hit manchester…

more photos of the beast (thankfully the biggest beetle in the world) are here.

5. (exodus 9:1-7) disease on livestock (’dever’)

the next plague was aimed at livestock, the aim quite cruelly to destroy all that belonged to the egyptians.

there are a huge amount of diseases which affect livestock these days but the most damaging in recent memory has to be foot and mouth disease, an extremely contagious viral disease which affects most livestock (and hedgehogs for some reason) and on very rare occasions humans (that’s us). this little bastard of a disease had quite a low profile until 2001 (the year, not film) when the uk became the naughty kid of the school and experienced an enormous outbreak. the result was a staggering 11 million slaughtered livestock and a british meat ban pretty much everywhere before you could say “moo”.

6. (exodus 9:8-12) unhealable boils (’shkhin’)

next up was a splattering of boils. all men were given a skin disease, the symtpom of which was a large number of boils on the flesh.

from what i’ve read, the place that seems to suffer from boil epidemics the most is alaska. in 1996 in a village in alaska, the local doctor alerted the authorities after he treated 80 boil outbreaks in quick succession. and this wasn’t the first time. whilst not as extreme as the entire male population of egypt being affected it’s still pretty grim.

turns out the outbreak was caused by locals not sitting on their own towels whilst at the communal steambath.

consider yourself warned.

if for some reason you want to look at pictures of extreme boils, go here.

7. (exodus 9:13-35) hail mixed with fire (’barad’)

this plague was quite a feat. god managed to cause a storm that combined hail and fire, the damage to crops, humans and livestock extreme.

believe it or not i couldn’t find an instance of this or anything similar happening anywhere so i have to admit defeat. i will now present some extremely tenuously linked events which have actually happened.
i found orange snow that fell in russia in february (it looks like it could be hot)…

as for scary rainfall, there’s obviously acid rain which whilst not being immediately damaging can reach the same acidity as vinegar (ph 2.4) and very rarely as low as ph 2.2 (the acidity of lemon) and can definitely harm crops and wildlife.

there’s also the radioactive rain that still falls on parts of europe as a result of the chernobyl disaster over 20 years ago. from new scientist…

‘clouds of tiny sand grains are sucked high up into the atmosphere during periods of low pressure over the desert. they are blown over europe and then washed out by the rain. scientists from aristotle university of thessaloniki, greece, sampled the sand that fell in the city in april last year. they found that it contained 26.6 becquerels of caesium-137 per kilogram, which could only have come from the explosion at chernobyl’.

8. (exodus 10:1-20) locusts (’arbeh’)

next, god commanded moses to summon a strong wind which brought with it a swarm of locusts. the locusts ate all the egyptians’ crops.

this one’s easy. locust swarms occur throughout the year in different parts of the world.

in 1954, a desert locust swarm covered an area of 200 km2 in kenya and estimates have since put the number of locusts within that swarm at 10 billion. during that year, 50 locust swarms were recorded in kenya and some experts have somehow worked out that the weight of all the locusts in all 50 swarms would have come to around 100′000 tonnes.

holy shit. that’s more than the weight of 13 eiffel towers.

also bear in mind that a locust can, and will, eat its own body weight in food during a single day.

the video below is planet earth - deserts, narrated by david attenbourgh. if you don’t have time to watch the whole thing (nearly 50 mins) fast forward to about 44 mins to watch some great footage of swarming locusts in action.

9. (exodus 10:21-29) darkness (’choshech’)

after the locusts had disappeared god decided to plunge egypt into complete darkness for 3 days.

in modern times it’s pretty impossible to find somewhere that suffers a complete blackout for more than a few minutes. if your main power source goes off you might have a backup generator, failing that you use matches and light a candle. there’s a solar eclipse but that only lasts for minutes too. anyway, i searched for the longest power blackout in history and it seems to be the auckland blackout of 1998 that wins.

things started turning on january 20th when one of only 4 cables that supplied the whole of downtown auckland failed. by february 19th, all 4 cables had given up and no-one had power for 5 weeks.

there’s an old cnn report from february 24th 1998 here.

10. (exodus 11:1-12:36) death of the firstborn (’makat bechorot’)

for his worst and final trick, god killed all male firstborns.

thankfully i couldn’t find much to compare with a whole nation of male babies suddenly dying and i didin’t want to to spend too much time searching deeper.

one of the biggest killers of babies however is sudden infant death syndrome (sids), also known as crib death and cot death.

conclusion

i’m not a scientist (decieving huh?) but i’m pretty sure the only one we’re never even going to get close to experiencing is the hail and fire storm, unless you’re standing in the path of a volcanic eruption just as hailstones start pelting you and your cattle.

this documentary is extremely hard to get hold of and has just (9th july) been uploaded to google video. it’s a 1979 documentary about plants and was one of the very few at the time to use time-lapse photography. on top of that, there’s a soundtrack by stevie wonder.

imdb entry is here.