Hidden Unseen

When The Earth Open Up

The ground beneath our feet, our cars, our buildings, appears to be incredibly solid. But, rarely, that solid ground can simply open up without warning, dropping whatever was above into an unpredictably deep.hole. Sinkholes can be anywhere from a few feet wide and deep, to two thousand feet in diameter and depth. An undiscovered cavern or deep mine can collapse, allowing the ground above to crater, or a broken water main or heavy storm can erode a hole from below, until the surface becomes a thin shell that collapses at once. Communities built atop karst formations are very susceptible, where a layer of bedrock is water-soluble, like limestone, and natural processes can wear away caves and fissures, weakening support of the ground above. Gathered here are images of some of these sinkholes, both man-made and natural, around the world.

A car at the bottom of a sinkhole caused by a broken water line in Toledo, Ohio on July 3, 2013. Police say the driver, 60-year-old Pamela Knox of Toledo, was shaken up and didn't appear hurt but was taken to a hospital as a precaution. Fire officials told a local TV station that a water main break caused the large hole. (AP Photo/Lt. Matthew Hertzfeld, Toledo Fire and Rescue)

A Toledo firefighter rescues Pamela Knox after a massive sinkhole opened up underneath her car in Toledo, Ohio, on July 3, 2013. (Reuters/Lt. Matthew Hertzfeld/Toledo Fire and Rescue)

A Los Angeles fireman looks under a fire truck stuck in a sinkhole in the Valley Village neighborhood of Los Angeles, on September 8, 2009. Four firefighters escaped injury early Tuesday after their fire engine sunk into a large hole caused by a burst water main in the San Fernando Valley, authorities said. (AP Photo/Nick Ut)

On the night of November 11, 1957, a huge hole opened up in Seattle's Ravenna neighborhood, caused by the failure of an underlying six-foot diameter sewer pipe. The 60-foot-deep hole affected only the streets, sidewalks and some yards, as seen in this photo taken at 16th Ave. NE and Ravenna Blvd on November 15, 1957. No homes were damaged, and nobody was injured, but the hole took two years to fill and repair. (Courtesy Seattle Municipal Archives)

Aerial view of a huge hole caused after a collapse in the sewage system in the neighborhood of San Antonio, north of Guatemala city, on February 23, 2007. Three people were killed in the collapse, as twelve homes were swallowed up. (Orlando Sierra/AFP/Getty Images)

A hole remains where a structure once stood in Guatemala City, on February 23, 2007. A giant sinkhole swallowed several homes killing at least three people, officials said. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

This aerial view shows a large sinkhole that claimed several sports cars, a house, and the deep end of the city swimming pool, in Winter Park, Florida, on May 11, 1981. (AP Photo)

A man inspects a sinkhole formed in a house on July 19, 2011 in the north of Guatemala City. When neighbors heard a loud boom overnight they thought a gas canister had detonated. Instead they found a deep sinkhole inside a home in a neighborhood just north of Guatemala City. The sinkhole was 12.2 meters (40 feet) deep and 80 centimeters (32 inches) in diameter, an AFP journalist who visited the site reported. Guatemala City, built on volcanic deposits, is especially prone to sinkholes, often blamed on a leaky sewer system or on heavy rain. (Johan Ordonez/AFP/Getty Images)

A truck lies in a sinkhole which occurred overnight on Shiliuzhuang road, in Beijing, on April 26, 2011. A section of the road collapsed beneath the truck, slightly injuring the driver and a passenger, who both jumped out the vehicle before it sank into the hole. (AFP/Getty Images)

Three homes damaged from a sinkhole sit on the edge of a hill whose lower area collapsed onto other homes in the LaJolla section of San Diego, on October 4, 2007. (AP Photo/Chris Park)

A fireman watches a cow being lifted out of a five meter deep hole at Saint Saulve near Valenciennes, northern France, on June 19, 2001. The ground collapsed as two cows crossed over an underground quarry. The cows were unhurt. (Reuters)

Rescuers work at the scene of a landslide in Saint-Jude, Quebec as shown from the air on Tuesday, May 11, 2010. Four people, including two children, are missing after a sinkhole triggered by a landslide swallowed their house northeast of Montreal. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Graham Hughes)

In June of 1994, a huge hole, 106 ft. wide by 185 ft. deep, opened in the center of an IMC-Agrico waste stack near Mulberry, Florida. The sinkhole, shown in this July 13, 1994 photo, released 20.8 million pounds of liquid phosphoric acid into the ground below, and into the Floridan aquifer, which provides 90 percent of the state's drinking water. The company voluntarily spent $6.8 million to plug the sinkhole and control the spread of contaminants in the ground water. (AP Photo/Selbypic)

Police tape surrounds the house of Jeff Bush, who was consumed by a sinkhole while lying in his bed on the night of April 30, 2013 in Seffner, Florida. First responders were not able to reach Bush after he disappeared and were unable to even recover the body. The house and two neighboring houses were later demolished. (Edward Linsmier/Getty Images)

An aerial view of sinkholes created by the drying of the Dead Sea, near Kibbutz Ein Gedi, Israel, on November 10, 2011. (Menahem Kahana/AFP/Getty Images)

The Lassing mining disaster. On July 17, 1998 a Talc mine below the town of Lassing, Austria, experienced a partial collapse, filling with groundwater and opening up a sinkhole in the town above. Shortly after, a rescue crew of 10 men went into the mine to search for a single missing miner, and a massive collapse followed, opening up an even larger crater above. The first missing miner was found alive after ten days, but all ten of the rescue team members were killed. Here, workers examine the crater, on July 22, 1998. (AP Photo/ Martin Gnedt)

A giant sinkhole caused by the rains of tropical storm Agatha, in Guatemala City, on June 1, 2010. The hole swallowed at least one three-story building. (Reuters/Daniel LeClair)

Neighbors gather near the site of a huge sinkhole in Guatemala City, on May 30, 2010. (Reuters/Daniel LeClair)

A giant sinkhole in Guatemala City, on May 31, 2010. More than 94,000 were evacuated as the storm buried homes under mud, swept away a highway bridge near Guatemala City and opened up several sinkholes in the capital. (Reuters/Casa Presidencial)

Workers use machinery to fill in a sinkhole that buildings collapsed into near a subway construction site in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, China, on January 28, 2013. The hole measured about 1,000 square feet, and was around 30 feet deep, but no one was killed, according to a state media report. (AFP/Getty Images)

A bus, after falling into a pit created by an underground explosion in Rui'an, Zhejiang province, on January 16, 2011. An explosion on a road in east China's Zhejiang Province tossed a bus without passengers four meters into the air, injuring the driver and a 6-year-old boy on the roadside, local fire fighters said on Sunday. The cause of the explosion was under investigation, Xinhua News Agency reported. (Reuters/China Daily)

People stand next to a 24.9 meter (82 feet) diameter pit at a village in Guangyuan, Sichuan province, on February 28, 2013. According to local media the pit formed on a karst landform last year after the ground surface kept sinking for six days in September. The investigators said the pit may face further sinking after rains due to its geological conditions. (Reuters/Stringer)

A campsite is sucked underground by the opening of cavernous sinkholes near the Ein Gedi Spa on the shores of the Dead Sea, on September 10, 2008. (Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP/Getty Images)

A large crater that appeared in the early hours in the German town of Schmalkalden, on November 1, 2010. (Reuters/Alex Domanski)

A man walks past a cement truck which fell into a pit after the road caved in, in Xi'an, Shaanxi province, on September 28, 2012. (Reuters/China Daily)

A stranded car is hoisted from a collapsed road surface in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, on September 7, 2008. (Reuters/China Daily)

Local residents look at a sinkhole near Qingquan primary school in Dachegnqiao town of Ningxiang, Hunan province, on June 15, 2010. The hole, 150 meters (492 feet) wide and 50 meters (164 feet) deep, first appeared in January and has destroyed 20 houses so far. (Reuters/Stringer)

A local resident throws a stone into a sinkhole near Qingquan primary school in Dachegnqiao town, Hunan province, on June 15, 2010. No causalities had been reported and the reason for the appearance of the hole remains unclear. (Reuters/Stringer)

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Langkawi Sky Bridge

Langkawi Sky Bridge is a 125 meters curved pedestrian cable-stayed bridge, located at the peak of Gunung Mat Chinchang mountain, on Pulau Langkawi, an island in the Langkawi archipelago in Kedah, Malaysia. Completed in 2004, this suspended bridge is located at the ‘end’ of a cable car ride which begins at the Oriental Village at the foot hill of the Machincang mountain range. The bridge is suspended from a 82 meter high single pylon and hangs at about 100 meter above ground. It swings out over the landscape to give visitors a unique spatial experience and spectacular views. The 1.8 meters wide bridge has two triangular platforms that act as ‘stops’ where you can admire the view and rest your feet.

Langkawi Sky Bridge ranks among the world’s strangest suspension bridge and constructing it was not an easy feat. The entire bridge, in all its elements had to be lifted to the top of the mountain by helicopter and was later assembled to its current position.

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Volcanic Eruptions as Seen from Space

A volcano is an opening, or rupture, in a planet’s surface or crust, which allows hot magma, volcanic ash and gases to escape from the magma chamber below the surface.

They are generally found where tectonic plates are diverging or converging. A mid-oceanic ridge, for example the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, has examples of volcanoes caused by divergent tectonic plates pulling apart; the Pacific Ring of Fire has examples of volcanoes caused by convergent tectonic plates coming together. Volcanoes can also form where there is stretching and thinning of the Earth’s crust in the interiors of plates.

There is no consensus among volcanologists on how to define an “active” volcano. The lifespan of a volcano can vary from months to several million years, making such a distinction sometimes meaningless when compared to the lifespans of humans or even civilizations.

Scientists usually consider a volcano to be erupting or likely to erupt if it is currently erupting, or showing signs of unrest such as unusual earthquake activity or significant new gas emissions. Most scientists consider a volcano active if it has erupted in the last 10,000 years (Holocene times). There are about 1500 active volcanoes in the world – the majority along the Pacific Ring of Fire – and around 50 of these erupt each year. An estimated 500 million people live near active volcanoes.

In the gallery below we look at a selection of Earth’s volcanoes from above. These stunning images were captured from various satellites as well as crew members aboard the International Space Station (ISS). The views from space offer a unique perspective of one of nature’s most awesome and terrifying events.

1. Sarychev Volcano, Russia

A fortuitous orbit of the International Space Station allowed the astronauts this striking view of Sarychev volcano (Russia’s Kuril Islands, northeast of Japan) in an early stage of eruption on June 12, 2009. Sarychev Peak is one of the most active volcanoes in the Kuril Island chain and is located on the northwestern end of Matua Island.

Prior to June 12, the last explosive eruption had occurred in 1989 with eruptions in 1986, 1976, 1954 and 1946 also producing lava flows. Commercial airline flights were diverted from the region to minimize the danger of engine failures from ash intake. This detailed photograph is exciting to volcanologists because it captures several phenomena that occur during the earliest stages of an explosive volcanic eruption.

The main column is one of a series of plumes that rose above Matua Island (48.1 degrees north latitude and 153.2 degrees east longitude) on June 12. The plume appears to be a combination of brown ash and white steam. The vigorously rising plume gives the steam a bubble-like appearance; the surrounding atmosphere has been shoved up by the shock wave of the eruption. The smooth white cloud on top may be water condensation that resulted from rapid rising and cooling of the air mass above the ash column, and is probably a transient feature (the eruption plume is starting to punch through). The structure also indicates that little to no shearing winds were present at the time to disrupt the plume. By contrast, a cloud of denser, gray ash — most probably a pyroclastic flow — appears to be hugging the ground, descending from the volcano summit. The rising eruption plume casts a shadow to the northwest of the island (bottom center). Brown ash at a lower altitude of the atmosphere spreads out above the ground at upper right. Low-level stratus clouds approach Matua Island from the east, wrapping around the lower slopes of the volcano. Only about 1.5 kilometers of the coastline of Matua Island (upper center) can be seen beneath the clouds and ash.

2. Kliuchevskoi Volcano, Russia

STS068-218-007 (30 September-11 October 1994) — (Kliuchevskoi Volcano) The crewmembers used a 70mm camera to photograph this northeasterly looking view of the plume from the Kamchatka peninsula’s newly erupted volcano. The eruption was photographed from 115 nautical miles above Earth. Six NASA astronauts spent a week and a half aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour in support of the Space Radar Laboratory 2 (SRL-2) mission.

3. Pavlof Volcano, Alaska

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) photographed these striking views of Pavlof Volcano on May 18, 2013. The oblique perspective from the ISS reveals the three dimensional structure of the ash plume, which is often obscured by the top-down view of most remote sensing satellites.

Situated in the Aleutian Arc about 625 miles (1,000 kilometers) southwest of Anchorage, Pavlof began erupting on May 13, 2013. The volcano jetted lava into the air and spewed an ash cloud 20,000 feet (6,000 meters) high. When photograph ISS036-E-2105 (top) was taken, the space station was about 475 miles south-southeast of the volcano (49.1° North latitude, 157.4° West longitude). The volcanic plume extended southeastward over the North Pacific Ocean.

4. Manam Volcano, Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea’s Manam Volcano released a thin, faint plume on June 16, 2010, as clouds clustered at the volcano’s summit. The Advanced Land Imager (ALI) on NASA’s Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite took this picture the same day. Rivulets of brown rock interrupt the carpet of green vegetation on the volcano’s slopes. Opaque white clouds partially obscure the satellite’s view of Manam. The clouds may result from water vapor from the volcano, but may also have formed independent of volcanic activity. The volcanic plume appears as a thin, blue-gray veil extending toward the northwest over the Bismarck Sea.

Located 13 kilometers (8 miles) off the coast of mainland Papua New Guinea, Manam forms an island 10 kilometers (6 miles) wide. It is a stratovolcano. The volcano has two summit craters, and although both are active, most historical eruptions have arisen from the southern crater.

5. Puyehue-Cordón Caulle Volcano, Chile

After awakening on June 4, 2011, the eruption at the Puyehue-Cordón Caulle Volcanic Complex continued through at least June 6th. Located in Chile, just west of the border with Argentina, Puyehue-Cordón Caulle emitted a plume of light-colored ash that stretched along the edge of the Andes. Hours earlier the prevailing winds had shifted, forming the prominent kink visible in the plume.

This natural-color satellite image was acquired by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard Terra on the morning of June 6, 2011. At the time the Buenos Aires Volcanic Ash Advisory Center (VAAC) reported that the ash plume reached an altitude of 40,000 feet (12,000 meters).

6. Eyjafjallajokull Volcano, Iceland

7. Nyiragongo Volcano, DR Congo

Two East African volcanoes, Nyamuragira and Nyiragongo, account for 40 percent of all recorded eruptions in Africa. The two volcanoes sit along the edge of the Western Rift, part of a giant crack in the Earth’s crust that runs for thousands of miles from the Middle East southward to central Africa. In addition to their shared tendency to produce unusually fast-moving lava flows, the two volcanoes have an even rarer trait in common. The crater of each has periodically contained a lava lake, a huge volume of molten lava pooling in a high-walled summit crater. The lava lakes can drain during eruptions, either spilling over the rim of the crater or bursting from a fissure or vent on the flank.

This high-resolution images from the commercial Ikonos satellite shows the craters Nyiragongo. According to the Smithsonian Global Volcanism Program, the most recent lava lake in the Nyamuragira crater drained during an eruption in 1938; the remnants of that activity are the lighter-purple lavas, mostly in the southwestern part of the crater.

The lava lake in Nyiragongo has drained and refilled several times during eruptions in the past few decades. Evidence of its simmering presence is provided by the plume of smoke and/or steam that billows from crater. In 2002, Nyiragongo’s lava lake drained during a flank eruption on the southern slopes. That lava flow raced into the city of Goma, killing several dozen people.

8. Shinmoe-dake Volcano, Japan

Ash has been the primary hazard from Shinmoe-dake Volcano since it began erupting on January 26, 2011. This natural-color satellite image shows an ash plume stretching eastwards from the volcano, and looping around the city of Miyazaki. The ash has caused flight cancellations, halted trains, and closed schools in the region. The image was acquired by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer aboard the Terra satellite on February 4, 2011.

9. Merapi Volcano, Indonesia

At 2,911 meters, the summit of Merapi Volcano and its vigorous steam plume rises above a bank of stratus clouds on its southern flank on August 24, 2003. One of Indonesia’s most active volcanoes, it has been almost continuously active for nearly ten years, including periodic pyroclastic flows (hot ash and rock debris) and avalanches. The volcano is located less than 25 miles north of the city of Yogykarta in central Java. More than 50,000 people live adjacent the treacherous southwestern slope, where volcanic material often sloughs from the unstable summit. Note the deep ravines on the eastern slopes providing rich soils and moisture to the agriculture below.

10. Api Volcano, Indonesia

11. Mt. Etna, Italy

When this southward-looking photograph was taken by the Expedition 2 crew aboard the International Space Station, the city of Catania (in shadow, ~25 km SSE of the volcano) was covered by a layer of ash and Fontanarossa International Airport was closed. On that day an ash cloud was reported to have reached a maximum height of ~5.2 km. Plumes from two sources are visible here–a dense, darker mass from one of the three summit craters and a lighter, lower one. The record of historical volcanism of Mt. Etna is one of the longest in the world, dating back to 1500 BC. Two styles of activity are typical: explosive eruptions, sometimes with minor lava flows, from the summit craters and flank eruptions from fissures.

12. Eyjafjallajokull Volcano, Iceland

NASA’s Terra satellite flew over the Eyjafjallajokull Volcano, Iceland, on May 6 at 11:55 UTC (7:55 a.m. EDT). The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer instrument known as MODIS that flies onboard Terra, captured a visible image of the ash plume. The plume was blowing east then southeast over the Northern Atlantic. The satellite image shows that the plume is at a lower level in the atmosphere than the clouds that lie to its east, as the brown plume appears to slide underneath the white clouds.

13. Chaiten Volcano, Chile

After more than 9,000 years of silence, Chaiten Volcano in southern Chile erupted on May 2, 2008. The plume of ash and steam rose 10.7 to 16.8 kilometers (35,000 to 55,000 feet) into the atmosphere, reported the Smithsonian’s Global Volcanism Program. According to news reports issued by the AFP news service, ash blanketed the town of Chaiten, 10 kilometers away, forcing the town’s 4,000 people to evacuate by boat.

On May 3, ash and steam continued to billow from the volcano. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this photo-like image of a long, cloud-like plume flowing southeast from the volcano’s summit on May 3 at 10:35 a.m. local time (14:35 UTC). The plume rises high over the Andes Mountains, drifts across Argentina, and dissipates over the Atlantic Ocean. Ash closed schools, roads, and an airport in Argentina, hundreds of kilometers away from the volcano, said AFP.

14. Kliuchevskoi Volcano, Russia

STS068-214-035 (30 September 1994) — One of the first photos taken by the crewmembers on launch day of the Space Shuttle Endeavour was this 70mm frame of the Kliuchevskoi volcano on the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia. The volcano was near its peak at this time. The large, black eruption plume billows from the summit, as ash is being deposited on the snow-covered region to the east and southeast (north is to upper left). A small steam plume rises from the peak of Bezymianny just south of Kliuchevskoi (or just right of center). As various members of the six-person crew were using handheld cameras to record the eruption, hardware in Endeavour’s cargo bay was taking radar data of the event in support of the Space Radar Laboratory (SRL-2) project.

15. Pavlof Volcano, Alaska

Kubu Island - A Desert Island of Baobabs

In the vast expanse of the great salt flats of Makgadikgadi in the north of the Kalahari, lies an isolated granite outcrop, some 10 meters high and roughly a kilometer long, known as Kubu Island. It takes the shape of a crescent, and its slopes are littered with wave-rounded pebbles and fossil, providing startling evidence of the presence of water in the prehistoric lake that once covered this region. The almost white rocks of Kubu Island is crowned with gigantic baobab trees and mysterious ruins rises out of the ground, belonging to those who once called this place home.

Makgadikgadi pan is one of the largest salt flats in the world covering approximately 16,000 sq km. The pans are the dried out remains of a huge superlake which covered most of central Botswana several millions of years ago. Climate change, earthquakes and the diversion of rivers starved this lake of its water supply, causing it to shrink and disappear into flat depressions of grey clay and salt.

Makgadikgadi pan is featureless save for a few isolated outcrops of igneous rock that extrude from the surface of the pans, notably Kubu Island in the west. After good summer rains the salt flats are transformed into shimmering shallow lakes, giving a glimpse of what the great superlake must once have been like. Sometimes when rains are heavy, the pans gets additional water from as many as five seasonal rivers. This attracts vast number of pelican and millions of flamingos to this corner of Makgadigadi.

Evidence of the former lake exists in the form of fossil pebble beaches along the shore of Kubu Island and other granite outcrops around the pan. Many of the rocks on Kubu are white, and covered in old fossilized guano from the water-birds that used to come here when it was a lake.

On the southern part of Kubu island are located a dry stone wall, 1.25 meter high, in a form of letter "C". Outside of the circle are a number of stone cairns. The shoreline is littered with Stone-Age tools, arrowheads and glass beads. Archaeologists believe these walls belonged to the dynasty of Great Zimbabwe in the time period between 1400 and 1700 AD. This place could have been a remote 'circumcision camps' to which the boys of the tribe were taken for circumcision and the ceremonies leading to adulthood.

The people of the nearest village hold Kubu Island and the nearby Thithaba Islands as sacred, and men over 16 years of age visit the islands to make contact with God, singing a particular song for rain and leaving offerings on the ground.

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Cocora Valley - The Valley of Wax Palms

Wax palms or palma de cera is Colombia’s national tree and the world’s tallest palms. These palms grow exclusively in the high-altitude valley of Cocora in the department of Quindío, in northwest Colombia, in large clusters containing hundreds of trees. Cocora valley is located in the upper reaches of the Quindío River, the principal river of the department of Quindío, at an altitude between 1800 and 2400 meters. The valley is also the entrance to Los Nevados National Park which covers some 4 departments of Colombia and is over 60,000 sq kms in size. The high altitude means the valley is often covered with clouds. The towering palms poking through the cloud shrouded valley offers a sight that is both surreal and arresting.

Wax palms grow up to 50 meters and can live for up to 120 years. The leaves are dark green and grayish, the trunk is cylindrical, smooth, light colored and covered with wax. The wax was used to make soap and candles, until the introduction of electricity. The outer part of the stem of the palm has been used locally for building houses, and was used to build water supply systems for poor farmers. The fruit served as food for cattle and pigs.

For centuries, the Christian worshippers used to cut palms fronds from their wax palm trees to celebrate Palm Sunday, waving graceful waxy branches in celebration of Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem. The exploitation of the indigenous people drastically reduced the number of wax palms, prompting the Colombian government to begin providing protection for the remaining trees. In 1985, an edict sponsored by both the Catholic Church and the government, forbid the cutting of wax palms frond under threat of penalty. The trees remain preserve in the valley of Cocora, where they can be seen and touched.

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