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Then Mount Tarawera erupted and destroyed this natural wonder forever. The White Terraces were at the north end of Lake Rotomahana and faced away from the lake. They covered 3 hectares and descended over approximately 50 steps to the lakes edge 40 meters below. The extra sunlight they received from facing north gave them a more bleached or white appearance. Their pink appearance was largely due to less sunlight reaching them and therefore less bleaching....

Its true size model of a yellow bus hoisted on top of a concrete platform. On the base is a memorial tablet with the words Veteran of the Road. LiAZ-677 was former Soviet Unions most famous bus. The plant produced pressed wood products, as well as wood particle boards. Fifteen years passed and LiMZ decided that it was time for another upgrade. They also changed their name, this time calling themselves LiAZ....

Port McNeills other claim to fame is that its home to the worlds largest burls. Like cancer, the tree cells multiply uncontrollably resulting in abnormal bumps on the trunk. The worlds second largest burl (formerly the largest burl) is also located in Port McNeill. This burl weighs an estimated 22 tons and measures 13.7 meters in circumference. At the time of its discovery, it was the largest burl. Photo credit...

Pele’s hair usually form in lava fountains, lava cascades, and vigorous lava flows. Being extremely lightweight, they often get carried away by the wind to places several kilometers away. They have golden yellow color and looks almost like hair or straw. This is not a birds nest. Peles hair is not limited to Hawaii and can be found near other volcanoes of the world. Sometimes Peles tears are found attached at the tips of Peles hairs....

Now the Netherland-basedZand Hotelis doing the same, but with sand. The rooms have windows, beds, electricity, running water and Wi-Fi. Photo credit: Zand Hotel But how do the sand stay up? The sand hotel is actually made of a sturdier material and covered inside and out with reinforced sand. Bumping against the wall is still not advisable. Zand Hotel plans to reopen both in time for next year’s festivals. They are also hoping to create similar hotels in Germany and the UK....

Most of the cells were dug out into the side of the hill. The walls were plastered with adobe mud. The hole was used for solitary confinements. Those trying to escape were punished by being chained to heavy iron balls. Summer temperatures often soared over the 115-degree mark, while the desert nights were bitter cold. Inmates also had to deal with cockroaches, black widow spiders, scorpions and persistent bedbugs. These work of fiction gave the Yuma Territorial Prison much notoriety....

This forms a persistent and striking border around individual crowns that are visible from the ground. Trees with slender trunks have relatively small crowns because of their lesser ability to resist deflection in wind. They therefore sway widely in wind and are more likely to collide with neighbors. He suggested that the growing tips were sensitive to light levels and stopped growing when nearing the adjacent foliage. Some suggest that trees exhibit this phenomenon to prevent leaf-eating insect larvae from spreading....

They called them Works of the Old Men. The narrow opening at the end of the funnel leads to a circular enclosure or a pit. LikeBuffalo Jumps, desert kites were generally built where the natural environment helped the hunting effort. The land had to be flat and between narrow deeply incised gullies or wadis. Some stone walls were built into small cells so that animals couldnt get out. Hunting and processing these animals must have involved a large number of people....

About 200 million years ago this area was a high mountain. Six others are lined up at the edge of a cliff. Each of these monolith is between 30 to 42 meters high. Photo credit The pillars are also called the “Seven Giants” or “Seven Strong Men”.

An immense stainless steel teardrop hangs inside the crack. It was a gift an expression of grief from the people of Russia to the US. Vladimir Putin was himself there when construction began and Bill Clinton attended the dedication ceremony in 2006. Since then, it has been forgotten. Peter the Great is a monstrosity it has been called one of the ugliest building in the world. Thankfully, The Tear Drop Memorial is graceful....

But the river was not an easy beast to tame. The typical response to a flood was to dam areas that had been affected. As soon as a dam would be built, floods would gush into a new region. Preparing the site itself took three years from January 1943 to May 1946, before model construction could begin. The model was built using an exaggerated vertical scale of 1:100 and a horizontal scale of 1:2000....

The most valuable among their find was the disk, and the robbers knew it. The disk is 30 cm in diameter and weighs 2.2 kg. About forty holes are punched all around the perimeter of the disk. Each of the symbols on the disk are part of a complex European wide belief system. The sun is worshipped as the harbinger of life all across Europe. The moon was used as a symbol to mark the passage of time....

The archipelago of Anavilhanas is located on the Rio Negro river, approximately 70 km upstream from Manaus, Brazil, at a place where the river becomes almost 30 km wide during the wet season. When the water rises, about four hundred elongated islands and canals form within the riverbed, covered by inundated forests and compact vegetation that serves as a shelter for diverse birds, animals, rodents and insects. The impressive black waters of the Rio Negro too, has an extremely abundant aquatic life with several species of fish, including the famous Pirarucu, Tucunare, and piranhas, as well as crocodiles, dolphins and manatees....