Rare Clouds Pics

1. Nacreous Clouds
These rare clouds, sometimes called mother-of-pearl clouds, are 15 - 25km (9 -16 miles) high in the stratosphere and well above tropospheric clouds.

They have iridescent colors but are higher and much rarer than ordinary iridescent clouds. They are seen mostly but not exclusively in polar regions and in winter at high latitudes, Scandinavia, Alaska, Northern Canada. Lower level iridescent clouds can be seen anywhere.

Nacreous clouds shine brightly in high altitude sunlight up to two hours after ground level sunset or before dawn. Their unbelievably bright iridescent colors and slow movement relative to any lower clouds make them an unmistakable and unforgettable sight.

2. Mammatus Clouds
Mammatus are pouch-like cloud structures and a rare example of clouds in sinking air.

Sometimes very ominous in appearance, mammatus clouds are harmless and do not mean that a tornado is about to form - a commonly held misconception. In fact, mammatus are usually seen after the worst of a thunderstorm has passed.

3. Altocumulus Castelanus
Also known as jellyfish clouds due to their jellyfish-like appearance

These formed around 17,000 ft due to when the rush of moist air comes from the Gulf Stream and gets trapped between layers of dry air. The top of the cloud rises into a jellyfish shape and long tentacles known as “trailing virga” form from rain drops that have evaporated.

4. Noctilucent Clouds
Noctilucent Clouds or Polar Mesopheric Clouds: This is an extraordinarily rare cloud formation that occurs out on the verge of space between 82km to 102 km from the earth’s surface.

Noctilucent clouds appear to be luminous yet they reflect the sunlight from the other side of the earth at night, giving them a glowing appearance

5. Cirrus Kelvin-Helmholtz
Appearing as a slender, horizontal spiral of cloud, cirrus Kelvin-Helmholtz is one of the most distinctive cloud formations. However, it tends to dissipate only a minute or two after forming and, as a result, is rarely observed.

Average height is around 16,500 ft.

6. Lenticular Clouds
Lenticular clouds, technically known as altocumulus standing lenticularis, are stationary lens-shaped clouds that form at high altitudes, normally aligned at right-angles to the wind direction.

Where stable moist air flows over a mountain or a range of mountains, a series of large-scale standing waves may form on the downwind side. Lenticular clouds sometimes form at the crests of these waves. Under certain conditions, long strings of lenticular clouds can form, creating a formation known as a wave cloud.

7. Roll Clouds
A roll cloud is a low, horizontal tube-shaped arcus cloud associated with a thunderstorm gust front, or sometimes a cold front. Roll clouds can also be a sign of possible microburst activity.

Cool air sinking air from a storm cloud’s downdraft spreads out across the surface with the leading edge called a gust front. This outflow undercuts warm air being drawn into the storm’s updraft. As the cool air lifts the warm moist air water condenses creating cloud, which often rolls with the different winds above and below (wind shear).

8. Shelf Clouds
A shelf cloud is a low, horizontal wedge-shaped arcus cloud, associated with a thunderstorm gust front (or occasionally with a cold front, even in the absence of thunderstorms).

Unlike a roll cloud, a shelf cloud is attached to the base of the parent cloud above it (usually a thunderstorm).

Rising cloud motion often can be seen in the leading (outer) part of the shelf cloud, while the underside often appears turbulent, boiling, and wind-torn.

9. Stratocumulus Clouds
According to the Sapporo Meteorological Observatory, these low-altitude stratocumulus clouds were rolled into long, distinctive ribbons after becoming trapped in air currents.

While it is not uncommon for wind to form such patterns in stratocumulus clouds, photos that clearly show the clouds rolled into strips are rare, says the observatory.

Rare soft-shell turtle found in Mekong

The rare soft-shell turtle has been discovered in Cambodia.

A colony of one of the world's largest turtles has been found in a remote stretch of the Mekong in Cambodia, raising hopes the species can be saved from extinction.

Scientists of Conservation International (CI), WWF and Cambodia's fisheries department said today that an 11 kg female Asian giant soft-shell turtle had been caught and freed during a survey of the river in March.

They also found the turtles' nesting ground in a riverbank in the northeastern province of Stung Treng, a former stronghold of the Khmer Rouge guerrillas, around 180 km north of Phnom Penh.

"This incredible discovery means that a unique turtle can be saved from disappearing from our planet," CI biologist David Emmett said in a statement.

"We thought it might be almost gone but found it in abundance in this one pristine stretch of the Mekong, making the area the world's most important site for saving this particular species," he said.

The turtle, which spends 95 per cent of its life hidden in sand or mud with only its eyes and nose showing, can grow up to two metres long and weigh more than 50 kg.

It is thought to exist in India, Bangladesh and south-East Asia, although years of being hunted for its meat means it is now on the same level of the IUCN conservation union's "red list" of threatened species, as tigers and pandas.

REUTERS

Sailing stones

The sailing stones (sliding rocks, moving rocks) are a geological phenomenon where rocks move in long tracks along a smooth valley floor without human or animal intervention. They have been recorded and studied in a number of places around Racetrack Playa, Death Valley, where the number and length of travel grooves are notable.

The force behind their movement is not understood and is the subject of research.

Racetrack stones only move every two or three years and most tracks develop over three or four years. Stones with rough bottoms leave straight striated tracks while those with smooth bottoms wander. Stones sometimes turn over, exposing another edge to the ground and leaving a different track in the stone's wake.

Sliding rock trails fluctuate in direction and length. Some rocks which start next to each other start out traveling parallel, but one may abruptly change direction to the left, right, or even back the direction it came from. Length also varies because two similarly sized and shaped rocks could travel uniformly, then one could burst ahead or stop dead in its track.

Speed is an unknown variable. Since these stones are rarely transported and nobody has witnessed the movement, the speeds at which the rocks travel are not known.

Special Thanks And Courtesy To:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailing_stones
http://www.virginmedia.com/science-nature/natural-world/great-mysteries-of-the-world.php
http://geosun.sjsu.edu/paula/rtp/intro.html

Great Blue Hole – Lighthouse Reef Atoll, Belize

You can’t have failed to notice the 40th anniversary of the Moon landings last month, the only time man has set foot on another world and possibly our greatest achievement.

But there are places on earth so remote, so strange, so alien in fact that a visitor could be forgiven for thinking that they had left the safe confines of Planet Earth...

This natural sinkhole lies 60 miles off the coast of the Central American country of Belize. Formed when sea levels were much lower, it was originally a limestone cave.

As sea levels rose, the cave collapsed, leaving a hole more than 300 metres across and 125 metres deep. Jacques Cousteau declared it one of the best dive sites in the world.

Image created by Jesse Allen, using EO-1 ALI data provided courtesy of the NASA EO-1 Team. Caption by Michon Scott.

Surrounded by darker, deeper ocean waters, coral atolls often glow in vibrant hues of turquoise, teal, peacock blue, or aquamarine. Belize’s Lighthouse Reef Atoll fits this description, with its shallow waters covering light-colored coral: the combination of water and pale corals creates varying shades of blue-green. Within this small sea of light colors, however, lies a giant circle of deep blue. Roughly 300 meters (1,000 feet) across and 125 meters (400 feet) deep, the feature is known as the Great Blue Hole.

The Advanced Land Imager (ALI) on NASA’s Earth Observing-1 satellite captured this image of the Great Blue Hole and Lighthouse Reef in the Caribbean Sea on March 24, 2009. The Great Blue Hole appears at the center of the image, surrounded by a ring of lighter color caused by elevated coral. In fact, parts of the ring surrounding this feature actually crest the water surface at low tide, but a layer of shallow water covers most of Lighthouse Reef Atoll. Boats leave tiny white tracks on the nearby water surface, and two boats appear to travel away from the Hole in this image. East of the boats, a broad band of aquamarine indicates an area of especially shallow water along the reef’s margin. Along its easternmost edge, the reef crests the ocean surface, where breaking waves from the Caribbean Sea form a jagged line of white.

Boats traveling to and from the Great Blue Hole attest to its popularity as a diving site. Besides modern-day marine life, this vertical cave contains remnants from its days above water. When much of Earth’s water was sequestered in glaciers, global sea level was lower. During this time, stalactites or “dripstones” formed inside this cave, and those rocks are preserved underwater today.

Believed to be the world’s largest feature of its kind, the Great Blue Hole is part of the larger Belize Barrier Reef Reserve System, a World Heritage site of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

image created by Jesse Allen, using EO-1 ALI data provided courtesy of the NASA EO-1 Team. Caption by Michon Scott.

NASA image created by Jesse Allen, using EO-1 ALI data provided courtesy of the NASA EO-1 Team. Caption by Michon Scott.

Special Thanks And Courtesy To:

Geology.com

World’s Largest Open Pit Mine

Kennecott Copper – the world’s largest open pit mine or to say the world’s largest man-made structure. When you stand on the edge of “The Pit,” you look across two and a half miles to the other side. The bottom is three-fourths of a mile below you. It has taken nearly 100 years to make the mine this big. And it’s hard to believe that this huge pit was once a mountain!

The trucks used in this mine is of the size the size of a House. These trucks have a capacity of 255 ton capacity.

Kennecott’s visitors center open to the public since June 30th, 2006. Tax-deductible entrance fees are $5.00 for passenger cars, $25.00 for mini tour buses and $50.00 for regular tour buses. There is no charge for school buses, veterans’ group tours, scouts in uniform and vans from county-operated, non-profit senior citizen centers. All fees are donated to Utah charities and non-profit organizations that assist the poor and homeless, the disabled, those needing health and nursing care, senior citizen and youth groups.

The Worlds Biggest Hole Is Located In Russia

The worlds biggest hole is located in Russia

The giant hole is actually a diamond mine in Eastern Siberia near the town Mirna.It is 525 m deep, and 1,25 km.in the diameter.

This loader is one of the biggest in the world: length: 13,36 m width: 7,78 m height: 6,65 m
This giant machine appears just a small point in the next image.

The suction above the hole resulted in several helicopter crushes, so all flight above the hole now is prohibited.

A view from a satellite.