Fillmore underground fire
A thermal anomaly in Fillmore, California emits gases and heat that can burn the vegetation. A form of spontaneous combustion, the underground fire is difficult to extinguish.
Category Archives: Spooky Geology
Hexenplatten – the witches’ stone
The pitted surface of this outcrop in Switzerland was a mystery. Local people called it the “witches’ stone” or Hexenplatten because they imagined it was formed from the witches dancing.
Legends and science of bottomless holes
There are countless holes in the ground. Some have water. Some are just open void and darkness. When we can’t readily discern the depth, the hole begets additional legendary characteristics, including that of being bottomless. Let’s check out the legends of bottomless holes.
Ringing rocks and sonorous stones
Ringing rocks, rocks that make a bell-like sound when hit with a hammer, are rare but occur across the world. They are seen as magical, mysterious, and scientifically curious.
The “Hellmouth” Batagaika crater
A megaslump is affecting the villagers of Batagay in Yakutia, Siberia. Local legend is that it’s a mouth to hell. The area of land continues to slump and sink, changing the landscape and creating a hazard for the village.
Pic de Bugarach: The mysterious mountain
Pic de Bugarach in Aude, France, is a place that effortlessly combines natural wonder and legends. Add to its history a heaping portion of serious scientific misunderstandings, flavor with rumors and imaginative speculation, then bake for centuries, and the result is a bizarre mashup of fact and fiction that satisfies in our modern spooky times.
Trapped in Quicksand
Quicksand was a deadly peril in unknown lands, according to pop culture in the late 1900s. But quicksand is a real thing and its creation (and your ability to escape from it) is a lesson in soil dynamics.
Discovery of weird water pool in Lechuguilla cave
The photo of a mint-green, pristine pool in Lechuguilla cave circulating on social media resulted in expressions of speculation, wonder, and a desire to visit. For many reasons, the cave area must remain off-limits and isolated.
Eye agate: The rock that looks back at you
Eye agate is formed from water-deposited mineral inside rock voids. The result can be the creation of a very spooky specimen that attains legendary properties.
Faces in Places: Mimetoliths
Rock formations that look like faces are called “mimetoliths”. Faces in rock can accrue great cultural significance as land marks. Societies place spiritual meaning into features that appear meaningful because they resemble a human form.
Gravity Roads, Magnetic Hills, and Mystery Spots
Mystery spots, magnetic hills, or gravity hills are local places named for their unusual characteristic of making the observer confused or unbalanced. Exploited as tourist spots, they have been explained as mysteries of nature. But they have a more complex and interesting cause.
Pole Holes and the Hollow Earth
A sci-fi trope, some people actually believed that there is substantial space inside the earth’s sphere where curious things occur. The history of the hollow earth idea is complex and far more serious than you might guess. It definitely qualifies as some spooky alternative to geology.
Devil’s Corkscrews
In the late 19th century, settlers came across bizarre, giant “stone screws” vertically embedded in the ground. Flummoxed as to what could cause such structures, the locals named them the “devil’s corkscrews”. Paleontologists would argue for over nearly a century about what they really were.
Moving rocks of the Racetrack Playa
For a long while, there was a popular mystery surrounding how moderately-sized rocks moved on their own across a dead flat surface in Death Valley leaving a trail behind them. That mystery is solved.
Devil’s Punchbowl
All around the world are remnants of a party of epic proportions – Devil’s punchbowls. Or maybe the punch was more literal. Let’s explore the interesting geology of these legendary cauldrons.
Devil’s Gate
Several sinister and infamous places around the world have been named the Devil’s Gate and come with legends of murder, magic, and monsters. Let’s take a brief tour.
Devil’s Kitchen
Something evil may be cooking up in places given the name of the “Devil’s Kitchen”. In this piece, I examine some of the most famous locations that have earned this unpleasant name. It sounds like someplace you don’t want to end up but in reality, the various “DKs” are geologically interesting and fascinating places. There… Read More »
Devil’s Den
Devil’s Den is an infamous collection of large diabase boulders within the Gettysburg National Battlefield. The location has accrued spooky legends. But the truth about this diabolical place, and others with the same name, is connected to geology.
Devil Places
There are countless places in the world named after the Devil. Devil-named places sometimes owe their moniker to the geology. The features of these places may create a spooky and foreboding feeling that reinforces the local legends of the places being cursed, evil or enchanted. Let’s explore Satan’s Kingdom on earth.
Trapped in flooded caves
From June into July of 2018, media coverage about 12 boys and an adult man trapped in a cave in Thailand transfixed people around the world. How did they get trapped and not be able to get out? Let’s talk groundwater and karst.