Now that we all survived the rapture, readers are invited to help figure out what this is.
Details here: It is cut out of the Florida forest, the white surface is sand, and there appear to be sand piles that make the step shapes?
http://dailygoogleearth.com/ has the location and details.
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It’s the naughty step where skeptics have to sit until they reform their bad ways.
worlds largest (and slowest) game of Tetris.
@Geoff Sherrington:
Not sure it was exactly the right answer for the time. If it had been felled as normal, it would have been re-planted and be as green as the surrounding forest by now. And, there would have been none of the precision. This required a professional survey crew working in conjunction with the bulldozers to accomplish.
Sorry, I though it was some kind of grand flow chart for Green policies, because it started with a dead end, it twists & turns here & there, then ends in a dead end!:-)
Bob Diaz, you had me laughing out loud.
Glacial lakes. Lakes are geologically temporary, because they fill up, so all those lakes were created recently. Those areas were covered with glaciers a few thousand years ago. They’re all elongated in the same direction because that’s the direction the glacier was flowing — or the other way glaciers are formed, because that’s downhill. Glaciers form lakes through two mechanisms – by scraping out holes, or by creating the high land around what becomes the lakes. Why lakes are created by digging holes is obvious. Glaciers creating high ground is less obvious.
One way that glacial ridges are created is by water flowing under the glacier; they’re basically stream beds with stones accumulating on the bottom, except these streams can grow tall if they melt through the ice above, forming a ridge of stones (with ice on both sides) and water flowing through the stones and above it. More stones get melted out of the ice above and next to the stream, adding to the stream bed. Parallel ridges can be formed because the streams all tend to flow downhill.
It’s a ball field for the January 2013 New Mayan Games.
Obvious evidence that God was too busy with his etch – a – sketch to bother with the rapture. Maybe next time.
I did have the thought at one time there was a massive drug interdiction radar site around there somewhere and maybe this is google’s way of covering it up???
@Steve Garcia
Hopefully, your friend in PC can get some ground level shots. I’ve had many people warn me over the years to stay off the dirt roads in this part of the country lest you run up on business being conducted that you don’t want to know about. Otherwise, I’d have already checked it out.
Nearly perfect right angles, as in the photo, are not very common in Nature. One example: NaCl (aka salt) crystals.
Some Northern California hikers–including myself–know of another example. Although there are no dolmens–or even standing stones–we sometimes call it the “California Stonehenge”. It’s in an area of glacier-polished granite of mostly one shade. Running through this granite is a Dike or Sill, having a different shade. (I’m igneous about which is the correct geological term.) Here’s how it probably formed.
Millions of years ago, the granite was covered by soil. There was pressure from below. The granite cracked, and magma filled in the crack. Over time, the magma cooled slowly, because the soil on top acted as insulation. This promoted the formation of the small, well-defined crystals that characterize granite. The newer granite was not the same shade as the older. Then some time within the last 5 million years, a mountain glacier eroded the soil away, leaving this geological formation behind.
Here’s the interesting part. The sill runs in a straight line segment for awhile; then it makes a nearly perfect right-angle turn, and continues on in another straight-line segment. When I first saw it, I thought that Nature was playing a joke on us.
The “California Stonehenge” is in a canyon in the Northern Sierras, just off of Highway 88. Since there is no trail, the hike in is cross-country, with some bushwhacking, and with a respectable amount of elevation gain on the way out.
If some Sacramento-area WUWT photography buffs express an interest, I could be persuaded to lead a hike there later in the season. Late September would be good time for this. The mosquitoes should be gone by then. We could even have an informal Equinox celebration. Druid costumes optional. My email is wimpehiker@yahoo.com.
This place?
http://www.jarvisgallery.com/sierra-club-event-stonehenge-rocks
Hey! Get off my lawn!
Damn kids.
D. Patterson says:
May 24, 2011 at 2:12 pm
This place?
http://www.jarvisgallery.com/sierra-club-event-stonehenge-rocks
No, the ‘California Stonehenge’ is West and a bit South of there, near Silver Lake. However my first visit to the California Stonehenge was on a Sierra Club hike many years ago.
When mentioning the possibility of an Equinox Celebration there, I should have emphasized the bushwhacking aspect a bit more. If you bring a costume, it should be stuffed inside your rucksack. While hiking, you’ll probably want to wear blue jeans or work pants. Otherwise you’ll get scratches on your legs.