10 Strangest Natural Wonders

We’re all familiar with those natural wonders of the world that have gotten tons of publicity, being named on official lists, becoming officially protected heritage sites, and being featured in the background of all of our friends Facebook photos from their trips abroad. However, many of the greatest, and admittedly, strangest, natural wonders are still quite unknown by most of us. While there is no list long enough to go through every weird and wonderful natural site on the planet, since almost every country in the world has something that has formed naturally that would be considered out of the ordinary, the following (sourced from information available at traveandleiesure.com) is just a taste of what is out there. It doesn’t get much stranger than the natural world, and some of the things on this list would never have been imagined if they hadn’t been discovered first.

 

The Luray Caverns, Virginia, USA

 

In a 400-million-year-old cave system in rural Virginia you’ll find the world’s largest musical instrument. Visitors have been coming to the Luray Caverns to see limestone columns, stalactites, and stalagmites since the site’s discovery in 1878, and while the natural beauty of the underground world is its own draw, the main attraction is the Great Stalacpipe Organ, built in 1954. When the keys of the organ are pressed, a rubber mallet taps the cluster of nearby stalactites, producing varying tones that echo throughout the site’s sprawling network of caves.

 

Glowworm Cave, New Zealand

 

Quarter-inch-long bioluminescent glowworms that radiate a tiny blue light dangle from the ceiling of these caves deep in the lush, subtropical hills of New Zealand’s North Island. Visitors ride in an inflatable raft along the underground Waitomo River with Spellbound Glowworm & Cave Tours. Slowly adjusting to the darkness, they admire what looks like a turquoise starscape. Glowworms, which dangle sticky, filamentous “fishing lines”to catch insects, are scattered throughout many other caves, but their densely concentrated numbers here make this grotto unique in the world.

Carrera Lake, Chile

Six thousand years of wave erosion created the undulating patterns that give these caves their marbleized effect, enhanced by the reflection of the blue and green water of Carrera Lake, near Chile’s border with Argentina. Although the area is threatened by a plan to build a dam nearby, for now, visitors can kayak throughout the caves on days when the waters are calm.

Lake Retba, Senegal

It looks as if someone poured a giant bottle of Pepto-Bismol into Lake Retba—that’s how deeply pink these waters are. The color is actually caused by a particular kind of algae called Dunaliella salinathat produces a pigment. The salt content is extremely high, reaching 40 percent in some spots and allowing the algae to thrive (and swimmers to float effortlessly on the surface of the 10-foot-deep lake). Blinding white piles of salt line the shores, and locals work several hours a day harvesting salt from the bright pink water.

 

Sailing Stones, Death Valley, USA

No one has ever seen one of the “sailing stones”on Death Valley’s Racetrack Playa move, but evidence of their travels is visible in the long track marks that trail behind them in the dusty ground. Scientists aren’t sure exactly how the rocks—which can weigh hundreds of pounds—make their way across the dry lake bed. The prevailing theory is that when the rocks are wet or icy, they’re pushed along the flat playa by strong winds. The deep groove marks they leave behind indicate they may travel up to 700 feet from their point of origin.

Caño Cristales, Colombia

Folks make the journey into central Colombia’s Serranéa de la Macarena national park to see why Caño Cristales has inspired nicknames like the River of Five Colors, the Liquid Rainbow, and even the Most Beautiful River in the World. It’s important to get the timing right: when the water reaches the perfect levels (usually between July and December), it becomes a kaleidoscope of pink, green, blue, and yellow as a plant called the Macarenia clavigera, which lives on the river floor, gets the sun it needs to bloom into an explosion of colors.

The Eye of the Sahara, Mauritania

 

This enormous depression, circular in shape and stretching 25 miles wide, is like a bull’s-eye mark in the middle of an otherwise flat and featureless area of Mauritania desert. Visible from space, it has been a landmark for astronauts since the earliest missions. The Eye isn’t the result of any target practice by aliens; rather, it formed as winds eroded the different layers of sediment, quartzite, and other rocks at varying depths.

The Stone Forest, China

 

Many of the trees within the forest in China’s remote Yunnan Province are rock hard, literally. The area, which spans nearly 200 square miles, was underwater 270 million years ago, and the sea floor was covered with limestone sediment. Gradually, the seabed rose and the water dried up. As rain and wind eroded the weaker rock, the stronger limestone spires began to take shape. Now they rise skyward, surrounded by leafy trees.

Blood Falls, Antarctica

 

A shockingly macabre shade of what looks like blood cascades down the pale face of Taylor Glacier. When scientists first discovered these falls in the McMurdo Dry Valleys in 1911, they thought algae colored the dark red water that spewed from a crack in the glacier. It turns out the hue comes from high iron levels in the falls’source, a pool buried 1,300 feet below the ice. In a sinister twist, the landscape is so arid that when seals and penguins wander inland and get lost, they never decompose; their remains are left strewn about.

Puerto Princesa Subterranean River, Philippines

 

The five-mile-long Puerto Princesa Subterranean River on the island of Palawan is the world’s longest navigable underground river. It flows to the South China Sea through a nearly 15-mile-long cave that’s lined with stalactites and stalagmites and contains the largest cave chamber in the world. The surrounding park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site that’s equally impressive and is home to more than 800 plant species, 165 kinds of birds, 30 mammal species, 19 varieties of reptiles, and nine different species of bats.