The Earth Story

Dark Sky Alqueva in Portugal seen here - the world's first tourism destination built specifically for star viewing.

The "Route of Parks" project connects 17 national parks on a set of remote hiking trails through some of the most amazing landscapes on Earth, from the northern tip of Chile to the south.

Collapsing Wedding Cake This geologic feature near Sydney could succumb to gravity at any time, but almost certainly within the next decade. Wedding Cake Rock is a stark white sedimentary rock within Royal National Park about 30 km (19 miles) south of Sydney. It resides at the top of a sandstone cliff roughly 80 meters above the ocean below.

Establishing the longest hiking trail in Texas through Big Bend National Park and State Park

Paint Mines Interpretive Park

In the wilderness areas of El Paso county in Colorado is a colourful site set in a landscape of hoodoos that provided Amerindians with clay for pigments (used for warpaint and ceramics) since 7,000 BCE. Now protected by the National Parks Service, the area was shaped by erosion by the endless winds and occasional flash floods into fantastic shapes. The fragile formations are of many hues, ranging from creamy white, to orange, purple, gray, rust, and chocolate brown.

The area was uplifted along with the rest of the American west by subduction off the Pacific coast, pushing formations upwards and compressing them as exotic terranes collided and agglutinated themselves to the continental mass. The colours are caused by iron within the clays, and reflect the passage of waters through the rocks, oxidising and reacting with them to produce the beautiful hues. Archaeologists have excavated plenty of pottery coloured by clays from this location in the area.

Loz

Image credit: Dave Soldano

http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/paint-mines-interpretive-park More stunning photos: http://www.electricreflections.com/paint-mines-interpretive-park.html http://adm.elpasoco.com/CommunityServices/ParkOperations/Pages/PaintMinesInterpretivePark.aspx http://paintminespark.webs.com/ http://www.awayfromthegrind.com/blog/hiking/colorado/paint-mines-interpretive-park/ http://www.discover-colorado-springs.com/paint-mines-park.html

Supertree grove

These structures aren’t exactly real trees. Instead, you’re looking at a unique project in the Gardens by the Bay, built in the last decade on reclaimed land on the island of Singapore. This is the Supertree Grove, containing 25 to 50 meter high “trees” constructed as a major park feature.

These structures are built on metal frames that overlie concrete cores, but they’re designed to integrate into the surrounding ecosystem and help regulate the environment of the park as well. Each of the supertrees is covered with planting panels that allowed for the growth of live plants on the structures. The plants chosen were a selection of native and imported plants capable of growing in an elevated/hanging position with no soil; over 162,000 separate plants were placed on the walls of these trees. Some of the Supertrees also have photovoltaic cells built into them; others are designed to help process air through the park as part of an integrated cooling system, contributing to the sustainability goals of the project.

At night, some of the power generated by the supertrees is pumped back out to light them up, turning the landscape into a nighttime light show, built on a backbone of sustainable and fascinating construction.

-JBB

Image credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/adforce1/8100691354/ (creative commons license)

Read more: http://www.gardensbythebay.com.sg/en/the-gardens/attractions/supertree-grove.html

This is the Green Lake, situated in Tragoess, Styria, Austria. The lake sits at the foot of the snow capped Hochschwab mountains.

The lake looks unusual, in that it looks like an underwater park. That is because it is!

In the wintertime, the lake is almost nonexistent and the area is used as a park, which is a favourite among hikers.

In the springtime however, the ice and snow on the mountains melts, and this melt-water fills the basin below. The park is filled with this ice cold, almost crystal clear water. The lake looks green in colour due to the foliage beneath.

The water levels rise from about one or two metres deep in the winter to as much as 10 metres in the late spring and early summer. The waters are at their highest in June when it becomes a mecca for divers keen to explore the rare phenomenon, before the waters recede at the end of July.

-Jean

Photo by Martinstr on Pixabay

For more video footage see here: http://www.globaldivemedia.com/?cat=11

Fall colors in Vinnovskaya Rosha park, Ulyanovsk

Hitachi Seaside Park, Japan.

pspiss Awesome colorful trees in a park in Tampere finland.