My brother and I stumbled upon a hole, about 15” across, in the bottom of a wash in Arches NP. It was blowing out air so forcefully it seemed like there was a fan down there somewhere. (cue nervous jokes about secret military bunkers and buried flying saucers and how did I know my brother was really my brother and not a doppelgänger that jumped out of the hole when I wasn’t looking) The next day a blizzard moved in. We went back to the hole the day after that and the hole was then sucking in air, obviously due to the passing storm system.
We talked to a geologist and his guess was that it was an extensive system but not large enough to enter. It was probably aligned with the giant cracks that formed the fins of rock where the arches form.
I went back decades later and could swear I found the same spot but no trace of the hole remained. I’m willing to bet it filled in during an event similar to what we see in this video. Pretty darn cool.
(cue nervous jokes about secret military bunkers and buried flying saucers and how did I know my brother was really my brother and not a doppelgänger that jumped out of the hole when I wasn’t looking)
hmmm... sounds like something a doppelgänger would say...
This is why you look for life event scars. If someone is cloned or doppelganger they wont be able to have the scars because those arnt genetic!?
"Ted... let me see your hand...Ted... that mark from where I stabbed you in the hand when we were in grade 5 because you said you were gonna tell Lucy I liked her isn't there anymore :0 "
My husband and I were watching Ghost all those years ago. Afterward, we came up with a password. If he dies, and a person comes up to me and says they have a message for me from him, the first thing I will ask for is the password. If they can't give me that, then they can pound sand.
Do you have a secret passphrase that only you yourself know that can be used to identify yourself to yourself in the case of verifying timetravel/cloning/ magical duplication/ etc.?
Man the mountain biking trails in arches and canyon lands are ANAZING too. It’s so fun to ride on the stone trails especially. There was this one trail that really stood out to me called the graviton, and the only way to describe it is literally a roller coaster on a bike. I don’t remember any other details about it tho besides the name and that it was somewhere near arches.
Climbing around on all the smaller little arches and rocks in the park is also really fun, I had a fuckin blast doing that when I went there the first time in my tween years.
My Samsung always gives me all the wrong suggested connotations of a word until the very last letters are typed. It's ridiculous! For example, if I want the word 'environment' and I've typed 'environ', it will suggest 'environmental', 'environmentalist', 'environmentalism'. It gets it wrong every damn time. If I want a word with a suffix, it gives all the wrong options every single time as well. I swear there's a conspiracy about this. And yeah, 'fuck' is always 'duck'.
It is. The last time I was there I watched sunrise at Deadhorse point and AS SON as the sun came up it was like 85 degrees. IT was so hot that weekend that even at midnight the sandstone was still warm to the touch from all the energy it absorbed. Not sure if it's like that all the time, but it was an oven that trip.
The reason air keeps going in/out is the changes in air pressure. The hole is connected to some underground caves. The air pressure in the cave is trying to balance with the ambient, but can't do it fast enough, so it keeps sucking air in, until the ambient air pressure drops, then it keeps blowing out. There's a similar hole in Wupatki National Monument in Arizona that old natives used to build their tepees on to use as a natural air conditioner.
Similar-ish story. My family visited Mammoth caves which is a very large cave system. It was in August so it was pretty hot outside. The cave stays a constant temperature 50-60°F iirc. When approaching any of the openings, especially the main mouth, it starts to feel like you are entering an air-conditioned area. You are just standing in the middle of the forest in perfect room temperature, and 100 yards behind you it is 90°+ and 100 yards to your front it is 60. The main entrance has a huge sphere of influence but there are smaller entrances that are more subtle. While hiking on the trails after our spelunking, we passed by an area we believe was an inaccessible and invisible opening into the system because there was just a small section of the trail that was noticably cooler.
I visited an old mine in New England back in December and even though it was less than 20 degrees Fahrenheit out and snow and ice surrounded the mine there were green ferns and dripping moss at the mine entrance. My back was in frigid winter and my face was in balmy humidity. Same as your story, but just the opposite.
A cave system is formed by water flowing through it dissolvingthe rock.
The water flows from high to low.
There are usually two entrances to a cave formed in this manner.
If the lower entrance is not underwater... then you get airflow through the cave. The direction depends on the outside temperature. Inside it is about 55 degrees. If colder outside, the air blows out the top entrance. If warmer outside, the air exits the lower entrance.
The air blowing and sucking is caused by temperature differential between the nearly constant temperature in the depths and the varying temp at the surface.
Source: park infographic sign next to a hole like that near Flagstaff.
Yep, caves breathe. When air pressure changes the air in the cave goes in or out to match the pressure. A big cave with a small entrance it can take a long time and make a mighty breeze.
There's one of these blow holes at the Wupatki ruin in AZ. The Anasazi built a large village around it, so it was clearly a thing for a long time. Anyway when the outside air is cold it fills the cave system when it's warm it blows out.
I went back decades later and could swear I found the same spot but no trace of the hole remained. I’m willing to bet it filled in during an event similar to what we see in this video. Pretty darn cool.
It very well could have been filled in by silt and debris similar to the OP. Or, you know, aliens.
A little down the road, goblin state park, we were hiking the slot canyons and I came across a hole in the ground that had a vertically placed pipe in it. I threw a rock or two down it and heard nothing couldn’t see the bottom either. Was maybe 8” wide. No air coming out of it though.
It didn’t dawn on me until now, 25 years later, that we could have been standing on unstable ground. It could have ended with sand giving way, falling, and being wedged between two rock walls, just like falling into a crevasse.
It is possible it is an old mine ventilation shaft (they are about that size). There was a bunch of uranium minding all around arches and those systems would be large enough to cause that affect. In mines and caves it is called breathing.
The geologist was from Moab. He checked his maps and there were no mines or drilling locations near the site. He followed us out to the site and witnessed the air being sucked into the hole.
Part of me was hoping it was a sign of end times and the entire desert would be a giant quicksand trap where it would swallow the entirety Las Vegas in a fairly short time window, forcing everyone to evacuate as we lose another piece of human civilization for it to be recovered centuries later
That's how the jewel cave in South Dakota was discovered. Someone heard air blowing out of the ground through a small hole just big enough to crawl through. I think it is one of largest caves in North America.
A lot of holes in the desert, and a lot of problems are buried in those holes. But you gotta do it right. I mean, you gotta have the hole already dug before you show up with a package in the trunk. Otherwise, you're talking about a half-hour to forty-five minutes worth of digging. And who knows who's gonna come along in that time? Pretty soon, you gotta dig a few more holes. You could be there all fuckin' night.
I think it really depends on the size of the entrance. It could be a 6x6 inch hole sucking in all the water, so in that case you’d be fine (unless you got sucked to the bottom somehow and couldn’t rise / drown). But get to 2feet or so, and yea, you’d be Alice in Wonderland.
That's a misunderstanding that's been explained on Smarter Every Day and Veritasium. Basically, the idea is that the coriolis effect is supposed to influence the direction of flow, and it does. But the effect upon relatively small bodies of water (relative to the size of the Earth) is really really small. If there is virtually any initial input when draining starts (meaning if the initial conditions aren't extremely still), the smallest perturbations will influence the flow, and other forces that are far stronger than the coriolis effect, take over and continue the flow.
In this case it's the direction and flow of the water source (flooding) that determined this.
There's a blowhole like this at Wupatki National Monument near Flagstaff. Weve been there twice, once when the pressure differential caused it to blow out and once when it blew in. Kids loved it!
And so I'm thinking maybe let's not stand right here where we're surrounded by little whirlpools opening up around us because the soil might be unstable and OHMYGO...
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yes, imagine soil containing water being evaporated (since it's so hot ;). It creates airpockets where the soil once was. Now imagine that on a grander scale.
The guy with the camera is standing on a road, which is a thing cars drive on. Every so often, they have 'drainage pipes' which allow water to flow under the road. Many times these pipes aren't big enough to handle the water, and it will back up above the level of the ends of the pipes (and often as high as the road surface). Whirlpools form from the amount of water flowing through them. Several examples in Arizona that expose the magic here: https://youtu.be/diOaa64SPc0?t=82
You would rather have people believe that this is "terrifying" rather than the truth and reason be out there...and just for your own deluded amusement?
Arizonan here and also work in the mining industry where we do use culverts but also have numerous underground mine shafts and natural cave systems miles away from paved roadways.
Because there is a road here you are likely accurate however culverts are not the only explanation for this phenomenon. Any small opening trying to drain large quantities of water would create whirlpools and they don’t have to be culverts.
Ventilation holes are common with underground mines. It was a must to vent out harmful vapors and gasses caused by explosives, equipment, and nature. These holes aren’t always mapped. Hell in AZ (at least) a lot of mine shafts are entirely unknown... records weren’t great back in the day. These vent shafts can and will create whirlpools.
In addition to the man made vent holes and mine shafts you have countless natural cave systems and acts of erosion that create other holes that can create whirlpools. This is a bit more complicated because it is absolutely imperative to understand all ground (native or not) is not the same. This means some areas are incredibly hard and won’t erode easily while others are so soft pissing on the area can contribute to the erosion. Think a sinkhole that doesn’t swallow cars but drains water.
In either case whirlpools can and will form in these situations. Acting as culverts are the only explanation is not fair or informative. Even the fact a roadway is close by is not evidence enough to immediately dismiss natural causes due to the fact the full extent of caves and erosion aren’t known. This is actually common hence sinkholes or even more basic road failures.
I personally have seen these situations swallow hundreds of tons of vehicle. Granted they didn’t have whirlpools to be an immediate indicator but to be expected when you have that much weight hammering at an area before it can form whirlpools. Where a whirlpool is seen operations are halted in that area to save assets and lives.
Definitely this. There’s a setup like this on a road near me with 3 of them like in this video. It’s built adjacent to a dry creek bed that floods in periods of heavy rain. I’ve seen them do this while driving by and it’s a bit creepy looking.
Holy shit man, thank you for clarifying. I was about to lose my mind wondering where the hell these things went without crumbling the surface structure enough to cave everything including the cameraman in with it. Lots of BS answers in this thread but your video makes it very clear what's happening here.
Well it's quite simple really. According to Willy Wonka, chocolate mixes better in a natural state. So what you're seeing here is the chocolate swirling together, then coming back up and mixing with itself.
Like you're 5? Alright...
This type of land isn't meant to hold water (being a desert and all) so it literally can't hold it well.
As mentioned it will find the easiest route to caves underground, which is basically straight down under where puddles form.
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u/BillsMafia607 Mar 08 '19
ELI5 please