Natural--or Not??

russiantraveling.com...


Nestled deep in Russia’s northern Siberia lies the Komi Republic. A relatively sparsely populated region, Komi has ample natural resources including natural gas, oil and timber. Natives also breed reindeer as well as do a great deal of hunting and fishing. It is a simple life.

The land surrounding the republic is predominantly forests, covering about 70% of the landscape. A great deal of swamps are also present during the summer months. However, this post isn’t about any of that. It turns out that the northern region of Komi contains a very strange formation, one that has yet to be properly explained and is rightly considered one of Russia’s seven wonders. The area in question goes by the name Manpupuner rock formations, and is a set of 7 strange outcroppings that peak at over 42 meters high (almost 140 feet).

reply to post by MuzzleBreak

Awesome place. They look like discarded chess pieces from a giants game board.

Fascinating. Thanks for showing this.

I'm at a loss on this because there seem to be no 'bits' of rock lying on the ground as though fallen from a time when the pieces may have been joined up and formed some type of structure.

Ancient man use to utilise the ground and rock to work it to whatever he required but a couple of things puzzle me.
I am assuming these are very ancient yet during the last ice age they would have been covered in ice surely and subject to the movement of the ice caps. I wonder if the ice may have destroyed the original layout of these rocks when it retreated (always assuming it covered the area) and some of the rocks, were they joined may have been destroyed leaving the irregular layout there now?

The rocks seem to be loosely in a line. Did they form part of some structure eg temple or fortress? So many ancient places have been carved and laid so geometrically these don't seem to fit that pattern, if anything they look quite natural to me but how they can be natural is, as I started , fascinating.

I'd say they were put together by stacking and cementing the rocks. They have been doing that for thousands of years. They often did that sort of stuff for sailing and also for navigating on land.

reply to post by MuzzleBreak


natural - the region is limestone , shaped by glacial activity

I'm going with natural as well. They do look like giant termite mounds but that isn't what I think they are.

Originally posted by ignorant_ape
reply to post by MuzzleBreak

 

natural - the region is limestone , shaped by glacial activity

Seems to me that a glacier would not leave things standing up like that. Everything is pretty smooth after a glacier goes by. It will leave some straight sheared earth cliffs from it's weight as it presses some things right into the ground. I think these are post glacial.

Natural they've been discussed here before

Ever been to Bryce canyon Utah?
lots of that stuff there,.
Or Devils tower?
erosion and a few million years of glaciers

Natural, yes.

There's a number of processes by which "hoodoos" form (did you know they had a formal name in geology?) As Hans said, they've been discussed before. They're volcanic necks. -- aka "volcanic plugs."

They're really neat, though, aren't they? (check out the pictures at the links above of other similar fantastic formations.)

Originally posted by Byrd
Natural, yes.

There's a number of processes by which "hoodoos" form (did you know they had a formal name in geology?) As Hans said, they've been discussed before. They're volcanic necks. -- aka "volcanic plugs."

They're really neat, though, aren't they? (check out the pictures at the links above of other similar fantastic formations.)

edit on 28-5-2013 by Byrd because: (no reason given)

Nature's own central park..

It made me think of the 'Old man of Hoy", which is a red sandstone 'stack' on a plinth of basalt. This was only eroded away to it's current state 400 years ago, and the erosion continues so it won't be around forever.



More on the 'Old Man of Hoy'

Originally posted by Byrd
Natural, yes.

There's a number of processes by which "hoodoos" form (did you know they had a formal name in geology?) As Hans said, they've been discussed before. They're volcanic necks. -- aka "volcanic plugs."

They're really neat, though, aren't they? (check out the pictures at the links above of other similar fantastic formations.)

edit on 28-5-2013 by Byrd because: (no reason given)

I used to use a photo of one as the 'restart button for earth'. The unspoken challenge was to find someone with a finger large enough to push it in.

My first thought is that they were left there by glacial movement tens of thousands of years ago. We know that this type of glacial movement can create cairns of stones, stones stacked up to where they look unnatural, even though they are. So I suspect that these large rocks could have gotten caught in glacial ice, maybe off the northern coast by the sea, and were pushed and stood up as the ice melted. Was this area under glacial cover during the last glacial maximum? My guess would be yes. But I admit I could be wrong. These are quite big to be manmade structures though, or to be moved there by man.

Natural, the pillars are made from a different stone than the lower levels below them.

One option is they are made of a softer stone and over time they have eroded, leaving just the pillars with the harder stone below.

The other, more likely in this case, is they are a harder stone than the stone below. Meaning the plains below eroded away being of softer material leaving these towering stone structures. Likely magma flows through softer sedimentary rock, that hardened and as the sedimentary rock eroded the harder volcanic rock remains towering above the landscape. This could also be a reason to their unique shapes.

Originally posted by Shiloh7
Fascinating. Thanks for showing this.

I'm at a loss on this because there seem to be no 'bits' of rock lying on the ground as though fallen from a time when the pieces may have been joined up and formed some type of structure.

Ancient man use to utilise the ground and rock to work it to whatever he required but a couple of things puzzle me.
I am assuming these are very ancient yet during the last ice age they would have been covered in ice surely and subject to the movement of the ice caps. I wonder if the ice may have destroyed the original layout of these rocks when it retreated (always assuming it covered the area) and some of the rocks, were they joined may have been destroyed leaving the irregular layout there now?

The rocks seem to be loosely in a line. Did they form part of some structure eg temple or fortress? So many ancient places have been carved and laid so geometrically these don't seem to fit that pattern, if anything they look quite natural to me but how they can be natural is, as I started , fascinating.

I think you're right regarding the ice. This site is just south of the artic circle. I think when the ice retreated it took away the surrounding loose rocks and "sanded" the ground essentially. the other features are from wind and erosion i guess

Easy thing to do would be chack the bottoms with a scaner of some kind. If people put them there all the bottoms will be flat. If it natrual they will be randomly shaped. but I find it hard to believe these are natrual

Looks to me that they don't belong there. Someone dragged them there to mark the spot. Could be a buried spacecraft under the ground. Maybe some aliens visited the planet long ago, and one of their craft malfunctioned. They found a good spot, burried the malfunctioning spacecraft. And then dragged those stones from some other location, to put as marker, just like we mark graves with stones today. The plan was to return with the spare parts necessary to resurrect the spacecraft at some future time. But, they never came back. So, all we have left is a graveyard for an alien ship.

I suggest doing some digging at the site, to see what's there.

Originally posted by SQUEALER
Looks to me that they don't belong there. Someone dragged them there to mark the spot. Could be a buried spacecraft under the ground. Maybe some aliens visited the planet long ago, and one of their craft malfunctioned. They found a good spot, burried the malfunctioning spacecraft. And then dragged those stones from some other location, to put as marker, just like we mark graves with stones today. The plan was to return with the spare parts necessary to resurrect the spacecraft at some future time. But, they never came back. So, all we have left is a graveyard for an alien ship.

I suggest doing some digging at the site, to see what's there.

A six week archaeological expedition to the Antarctic will cost you about 650,000 USD - if you do it on the cheap - you got that to contribute?

Originally posted by Hanslune

Originally posted by SQUEALER
Looks to me that they don't belong there. Someone dragged them there to mark the spot. Could be a buried spacecraft under the ground. Maybe some aliens visited the planet long ago, and one of their craft malfunctioned. They found a good spot, burried the malfunctioning spacecraft. And then dragged those stones from some other location, to put as marker, just like we mark graves with stones today. The plan was to return with the spare parts necessary to resurrect the spacecraft at some future time. But, they never came back. So, all we have left is a graveyard for an alien ship.

I suggest doing some digging at the site, to see what's there.

A six week archaeological expedition to the Antarctic will cost you about 650,000 USD - if you do it on the cheap - you got that to contribute?

edit on 29/5/13 by Hanslune because: (no reason given)

This is Arctic. 10 day hunting trips in similar areas can go for less than $10K for caribou/bear. Bet there are some Russian tourist agencies offering trips here for less than that. Could probably bring your own metal-detector.


I'd guess that ground penetrating radar might be needed.
That's probably a whole lot more cumbersome.