Earth still surprises...

[Furtherman]

<p>I thought this was pretty amazing.&nbsp; We're crawling over almost every livable space on this planet, treking over all landscapes, and just recently this cave was discovered in the Venezuelan jungle:</p><p><img height="509" src="http://www.livescience.com/images/060213_new_cave_02.jpg" width="343" border="0" /></p><p>Big deal?&nbsp; A cave.&nbsp; But see those two objects on the ground floor?&nbsp; Those are helicopters.&nbsp; </p><p>And the cave is filled with new poison fogs.</p><p>And it's called &quot;Cueva del Fantasma&quot;&nbsp;- &quot;Cave of the Ghost&quot;.</p><p>I don't know... pretty f'n cool - think of it what you will.</p><a href="http://www.livescience.com/animalworld/060221_ghost_cave.html" target="_blank">Explorers Discover Huge Cave and New Poison Frogs</a>

<span class=post_edited>This message was edited by Furtherman on 2-23-06 @ 1:22 PM</span>

[Tall_James]

It looks like a giant vagina.

<span class=post_edited>This message was edited by Tall_James on 2-23-06 @ 1:35 PM</span>

[suggums]

you sure do james, you sure do<br />

[bobrobot]

<font color="#000099"><strong><font color="#000000">And the cave is filled with new poison frogs.</font><strong> </strong></strong></font><p>&nbsp;</p><p><strong><font color="#000099">Lick those frogs and get high for 1,000 years...</font></strong></p><p><img title="Psychedelic frog" height="131" alt="Psychedelic frog" src="http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/pickover/frog1.jpg" width="179" border="0" /></p><p><span class="post_edited">It looks like a giant vagina.</span></p><p><span class="post_edited"><strong><font color="#000099">Where is &quot;the man in the boat?&quot;</font></strong></span></p>

<span class=post_edited>This message was edited by bobogolem on 2-23-06 @ 1:23 PM</span>

[A.J.]

<strong>Tall_James</strong> wrote:<br />I looks like a giant vagina. <p>The inside probably smells like one too.</p>

[Sheeplovr]

I think it would be a good place for a super villain Head quarters<br />

[mendyweiss]

<strong>Tall_James</strong> wrote:<br />I looks like a giant vagina. <p>I thought we were getting away from ebonics.</p>

[Tall_James]

<strong>mendyweiss</strong> wrote:<br /><strong>Tall_James</strong> wrote:<br />I looks like a giant vagina. <p>I thought we were getting away from ebonics.</p><p>Kids, this is why you should always proofread your responses before posting.&nbsp; </p>

[bobrobot]

<p><strong>Popeye</strong> wrote:<br />I looks like a giant vagina. </p><p><img height="200" src="http://membres.lycos.fr/go2bed/DA/popeye.jpg" width="179" border="0" /></p>

[walking joint]

am i the only one who doesn't see the helicopters?

[EliSnow]

<strong>walking joint</strong> wrote:<br />am i the only one who doesn't see the helicopters? <p><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">Yes.</font></p>

[Furtherman]

<strong>walking joint</strong> wrote:<br />am i the only one who doesn't see the helicopters? <p>There are two of them on the vagin.... er... cave floor.</p>

[FUNKMAN]

i love caves, thanks...&nbsp; went to Howe caverns once. in jersey city all we had was 'dead man's tunnel'...

[ChildofFez]

<p>we now go live to one of poison frogs</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p><img src="http://www.futurama-madhouse.com.ar/animated/toad_animate.gif" border="0" /></p>

[sr71blackbird]

How do you not see the helicopters?&nbsp; They are small, because the cave is big.&nbsp; The cave is big, so they seem small.&nbsp;

[mikeyboy]

<strong>walking joint</strong> wrote:<br />am i the only one who doesn't see the helicopters? <p>They are easier to see in this pic:</p><p><img height="635" src="http://www.livescience.com/images/060213_new_cave_02.jpg" width="450" border="0" /></p>

[SatCam]

Here's an even better picture of the helicopters:

http://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Dictionary/helicopter/DI27G1.jpg

[fezident]

Bobo, that Popeye reference was f'cking brilliant.

[torker]

<img height="635" src="http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y201/torker1313/buillyyy.jpg" width="450" border="0" />

[suggums]

props torker.&nbsp; seriously though, pretty fucking amazing cave and photograph.&nbsp; i hope this is a year of discoveries, so far we're 2 for 2<br />

[ADF]

I didn't know poison frogs could fly helicopters.<br />

[FUNKMAN]

<p>additional image captured other strange creatures not yet classified...</p><p><img height="470" src="http://www.batmannews.de/gotham_multimedia/bat_art/pics_big/Batcave.jpg" width="428" border="0" /></p>

[bobrobot]

<p><img src="http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y46/bobogolem/teenageCaveman1.jpg" border="0" /></p>

<span class=post_edited>This message was edited by bobogolem on 2-23-06 @ 10:56 PM</span>

[Ghey_Fez]

<font size="3" face="courier new,courier,monospace" color="#cc00ff">hmmmmmmmm</font>

[Fallon]

<p>They are easier to see in this pic</p><p>If you look real close you can see some cool shit.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p><img border="0" src="http://home.comcast.net/~bob80/cave08883.gif" />&nbsp;</p>

[bobrobot]

<strong>Ghey_Fez</strong> wrote:<br /><font face="courier new,courier,monospace" color="#cc00ff" size="3">hmmmmmmmm</font> <p><strong><font color="#000099">Is this&nbsp;an attempt&nbsp;at a hummer, or to&nbsp;&quot;yodel in the canyon?&quot;</font></strong></p><p><strong><font color="#ffffff" size="2">yodel in the canyon is slang for cunnalingus!</font></strong></p><p><strong><img src="http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y46/bobogolem/yodel.jpg" border="0" /></strong></p>

[A.J.]

<strong>Fallon</strong> wrote:<br /><p>&nbsp;</p>They are easier to see in this pic <p>&nbsp;</p><p>If you look real close you can see some cool shit.&nbsp;</p><p>Guano?</p>

[nevnut]

<strong>Fallon</strong> wrote:<br /><p>&nbsp;</p>They are easier to see in this pic <p>&nbsp;</p><p>If you look real close you can see some cool shit.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>OK, I'm awake now with coffee all over my keyboardddddddddddd</p>

[Furtherman]

<p>GREAT NEWS EVERYONE!</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p><a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/03/images/060309_rodent_big.jpg" target="_blank">The RAT-SQUIRREL is NOT extinct!</a></p><p>&nbsp;</p><p><img height="199" src="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/03/images/060309_rodent_big.jpg" width="228" border="0" /></p>

[FUNKMAN]

<strong>Furtherman</strong> wrote:<br /><p>GREAT NEWS EVERYONE!</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p><a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/03/images/060309_rodent_big.jpg" target="_blank">The RAT-SQUIRREL is NOT extinct!</a></p><p>&nbsp;</p><p><img height="199" src="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/03/images/060309_rodent_big.jpg" width="228" border="0" /></p><p>it's preferred diet&nbsp;are cheesey nuts...</p>

[Patches]

<strong>FUNKMAN</strong> wrote:<br /><strong>Furtherman</strong> wrote:<br /><p>GREAT NEWS EVERYONE!</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p><a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/03/images/060309_rodent_big.jpg" target="_blank">The RAT-SQUIRREL is NOT extinct!</a></p><p>&nbsp;</p><p><img height="199" src="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/03/images/060309_rodent_big.jpg" width="228" border="0" /></p><p>it's preferred diet&nbsp;are cheesey nuts...</p><p>Haven't showered in a while either, eh?</p>

[FUNKMAN]

<p>Haven't showered in a while either, eh?</p><p>don't be thinking about my nuts...</p><p>it's just wierd</p>

[Patches]

I don't know.... <em>Funk</em>man?&nbsp; Cheezy nuts?&nbsp; gotta wonder there&nbsp; <img src="http://www.ronfez.net/messageboard/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/images/dry.gif" border="0" />

[Furtherman]

Gigantic River Cave Revealed in Laos (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/10/photogalleries/river-caves-photos/index.html/)

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/10/photogalleries/river-caves-photos/index.html/images/primary/01-pollack-laos-461sp101608.jpg

An expedition in February 2008, co-led by veteran caver John Pollack, comprehensively mapped and photographed the 5.9-mile (9.5-kilometer) length of the little-known cavern for the first time.

The spelunking team encountered some of the largest rooms and most impressive structures of any river cave on Earth, Pollack said.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/10/photogalleries/river-caves-photos/index.html/images/primary/06-pollack-laos-461sp101608.jpg

Cave explorers nicknamed this large room "the Cathedral" for its high, vaulted ceiling.

Explorer John Pollack calls the Xe Bang Fai River cave "an underground K2," which, based on the volume of water that passes through the cave and the size of its passages, is likely one of the largest river caves on Earth.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/10/photogalleries/river-caves-photos/index.html/images/primary/02-pollack-laos-461sp101608.jpg

[~Katja~]

Gigantic River Cave Revealed in Laos (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/10/photogalleries/river-caves-photos/index.html/)

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/10/photogalleries/river-caves-photos/index.html/images/primary/01-pollack-laos-461sp101608.jpg



http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/10/photogalleries/river-caves-photos/index.html/images/primary/06-pollack-laos-461sp101608.jpg




http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/10/photogalleries/river-caves-photos/index.html/images/primary/02-pollack-laos-461sp101608.jpg

that's amazing looking. would love to go there

[topless_mike]

so i say "gee you have a nice pussy gee you have a nice pussy"
and my wife says, why did you say it twice, and i say i didnt...

get it?

[Furtherman]

Fortress of Solitude found!

http://s.ngm.com/2008/11/crystal-giants/img/crystal-cave-615.jpg

Crystal Palace (http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/11/crystal-giants/shea-text/1)

This remote part of northern Mexico, an hour or so south of Chihuahua, is famous for crystals, and paychecks at the local lead and silver mine, where almost everyone works, are meager enough to inspire a black market. "Thirty dollars." He leans in. "Ten." It's hard to take him seriously. Earlier in the day, in a cave deep below the bar, I crawled among the world's largest crystals, a forest of them, broad and thick, some more than 30 feet long and half a million years old. So clear, so luminous, they seemed extraterrestrial. They make the chunk on the pool table seem dull as a paperweight.

Nothing compares with the giants found in Cueva de los Cristales, or Cave of Crystals. The limestone cavern and its glittering beams were discovered in 2000 by a pair of brothers drilling nearly a thousand feet below ground in the Naica mine, one of Mexico's most productive, yielding tons of lead and silver each year.

[Aggie]

Awesome! It really looks like the FOS. If it was found in 2000 I wonder why we're just hearing about it. Either way it's very cool. I just checked out the photo gallery.

[ahhdurr]

so i say "gee you have a nice pussy gee you have a nice pussy"
and my wife says, why did you say it twice, and i say i didnt...

get it?

and the finish (http://www.instantrimshot.com/)

McDonald's, keenly interested in this area since its discovery, has now opened a location here. The area's new name? - "McCave".http://www.geocities.com/paperbag3/conan.jpg

http://www.geocities.com/paperbag3/mccave.jpg

[Furtherman]

Indeed, the world reproduces itself not only in the course of several gyrations, but at several different heights. At ground level, one can only imagine the sheer beauty of mountain ranges, deserts and deltas seen high up from NASA’s satellites. One can imagine - yes - however, they wouldn’t be quite prepared for the fact that from 400 miles away, the earth transforms into abstract art. The global landscape is impressionist, cubist and pointillist. Mother Nature is an abstract artist. The images you see below were taken at the turn of the Millennium, when NASA’s scientists had a brilliant idea: to scan through 400,000 images taken by the Landsat 7 satellite and display only the most the most beautiful. A handful of the best were painstakingly chosen and then displayed at the Library of Congress in 2000. We thought that it, in case you missed the exhibition, it would be amazing to dig up these images and provide some wallpapers for you to download. All images are used courtesy of NASA.

http://www.magazine13.com/img/nature/30-abstract-satellite-images-of-earth/30-abstract-satellite-images-of-earth03.jpg
Home to the largest zoological facility in Kansas, Garden City is known for its depiction in Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood.The croplands surrounding the city are irrigated by a vast underground aquifer, creating bands of bright red healthy vegetation that dot the image.

http://www.magazine13.com/img/nature/30-abstract-satellite-images-of-earth/30-abstract-satellite-images-of-earth07.jpg
This image of the once vast carpet of rainforest in the Amazon basin is reminiscent of the cubist masters. Fanning out from the large blocks of land cleared by ranchers and loggers radiate arrangements of fields and farms, the remaining healthy vegetation appearing in bright red.

http://www.magazine13.com/img/nature/30-abstract-satellite-images-of-earth/30-abstract-satellite-images-of-earth09.jpg
From afar, this could look like an abstract painting, however this spectacular satellite image is of the dunes of sand and seaweed, sculpted by the ocean currents. The fluted, underwater dunes are formed in much the same way as sand dunes in deserts.

More here. (http://www.magazine13.com/nature/30-abstract-satellite-images-of-earth.html)

[Furtherman]

Staring in to the abyss, these British explorers appear like ants in this giant underground cave. (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1164778/Spectacular-underground-caverns-big-British-scientists-look-like-ants.html)

Venturing deep inside the mammoth Clearwater Cave System under Mount Api on the island of Borneo, the 18-man team of cave explorers and geologists, discovered an extra 20km of cave passages.


http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/03/25/article-1164778-04163B20000005DC-147_634x398.jpg

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/03/25/article-1164778-041640EC000005DC-5_634x862.jpg

[topless_mike]

Staring in to the abyss, these British explorers appear like ants in this giant underground cave. (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1164778/Spectacular-underground-caverns-big-British-scientists-look-like-ants.html)

Venturing deep inside the mammoth Clearwater Cave System under Mount Api on the island of Borneo, the 18-man team of cave explorers and geologists, discovered an extra 20km of cave passages.



i heard about this.
facisnating stuff.

[Aggie]

You're slacking, Ferdinand. I figured you'd be all over this...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/sep/07/discovery-species-papua-new-guinea

Lost world of fanged frogs and giant rats discovered in Papua New Guinea

A team of scientists from Britain, the United States and Papua New Guinea found more than 40 previously unidentified species when they climbed into the kilometre-deep crater of Mount Bosavi and explored a pristine jungle habitat teeming with life that has evolved in isolation since the volcano last erupted 200,000 years ago. In a remarkably rich haul from just five weeks of exploration, the biologists discovered 16 frogs which have never before been recorded by science, at least three new fish, a new bat and a giant rat, which may turn out to be the biggest in the world.

[Furtherman]

HA! I actually did see that headline but hadn't read it yet. Well done, Aggie.

Every year it seems there are so many incredible discoveries on Papua New Guinea, that they'll probably come across a dinosaur sooner or later.

If only they could avoid those pesky cannibals.

[spoon]

http://www.magazine13.com/img/nature/30-abstract-satellite-images-of-earth/30-abstract-satellite-images-of-earth09.jpg
From afar, this could look like an abstract painting, however this spectacular satellite image is of the dunes of sand and seaweed, sculpted by the ocean currents. The fluted, underwater dunes are formed in much the same way as sand dunes in deserts.

More here. (http://www.magazine13.com/nature/30-abstract-satellite-images-of-earth.html)

First off, awesome thread. I believe a few of those caves, including the crystal filled one or as some put it the FOS, were covered in the Planet Earth series.

I absolutely love the photo/art above, anyone have a fresh link to these photos and if they are available to the public?

[Ocho Cinco]

i can't wait the Planet Earth documentaries are done on these, that'll be awesome. if not just to hear sigourney weaver talk about the new rats tree kangaroos

[Furtherman]

Have you ever heard of the Manpupuner rock formation of the Komi Republic in Russia?



Neither did I.


http://englishrussia.com/images/wind_poles/2.jpg

There is guy at the bottom there for scale.

http://englishrussia.com/images/wind_poles/1.jpg

http://englishrussia.com/images/wind_poles/5.jpg

http://englishrussia.com/images/wind_poles/15.jpg

More amazing pics here. (http://englishrussia.com/?p=1911)

There isn't much information on them...

Manpupuner and the 7 Strong Men Rock Formations
Deemed one of the Seven Wonders of Russia, Komi Republic is home to Manpupuner (Man-Pupu-Nyer), a mysterious site in the northern Ural mountains, in the Troitsko-Pechorsky District, made out of seven rock towers bursting out of the flat plateau known as the “7 strong men“. Manpupuner is a very popular attraction in Russia, but not on an international level and information regarding its origin is scarce. We know however that their height and abnormal shapes make the top of these rock giants inaccessible even to experienced rock-climbers. Manpupuner is very hard to reach, it lies in a very harsh environment, but once there you’ll be able to enjoy a view unique in the whole world.

[boosterp]

Have you ever heard of the Manpupuner rock formation of the Komi Republic in Russia?



Neither did I.


http://englishrussia.com/images/wind_poles/2.jpg

There is guy at the bottom there for scale.

http://englishrussia.com/images/wind_poles/1.jpg

http://englishrussia.com/images/wind_poles/5.jpg

http://englishrussia.com/images/wind_poles/15.jpg

More amazing pics here. (http://englishrussia.com/?p=1911)

There isn't much information on them...
That's cool, kinda like a Russian Stonehenge meets mountain climber's wet dream.

[hanso]

The natives kmow its there.
They keep their helicopters parked up front.

[Aggie]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100315/ap_on_sc/us_sci_antarctica_sea_life

pretty cool...found tiny animals under 600 feet of ice!

[Crossweird]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100315/ap_on_sc/us_sci_antarctica_sea_life

pretty cool...found tiny animals under 600 feet of ice!

Looking forward to this new challenge for David Blaine.....

[TripleSkeet]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100315/ap_on_sc/us_sci_antarctica_sea_life

pretty cool...found tiny animals under 600 feet of ice!

The best part is, if 2 weeks ago you wouldve told someone "I bet sea creatures live all the way down there under that ice." people wouldve called you a moron and said theres no way anything could survive those elements. It goes to show how little man truly "knows" about just the Earth, never mind the actual universe.

[Chigworthy]

I bet 600ft ice shrimp are delicious.