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Weird

Why These 7 Eternal Flames Around The World Keep On Burning

The president of Turkmenistan announced plans this year to extinguish the country's famous "Gates of Hell" gas crater. But it's by no means the only one of its kind. We rounded up the eternal flames still burning in all corners of the globe.

Photo of a man taking a picture of Turkmenistan's Gates of Hell gas crater's giant flames

Turkmenistan's "Gates of Hell" gas crater.

On Jan. 8, Turkmenistan’s leader Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, known for his authoritarian tendencies, announced on television that he had set his sights on the Darvaza Gas Crater, also known as the “Gates of Hell”, a mysterious vat of flames that has been spewing fire for over 50 years in the Karakum Desert.

The burning crater is one of the central Asian country’s few tourist attractions, yet President Berdymukhamedov has ordered it extinguished once and for all, saying the methane-belching pit was bad for the environment and locals’ health, while also representing a lost opportunity for the impoverished nation to capture marketable gas.


Even If Turkmenistan is set to clean up and close down its “Gates of Hell,” this doesn’t necessarily spell the end for fans of eternal fires. Here are seven still burning from Iraq and Taiwan to the U.S. and beyond.

Baba Gurgur, Iraq

Photo of a tank and soldiers near Baba Gurgur

Soldiers near Baba Gurgur

upload.wikimedia.org


Baba Gurgur, (بابە گوڕگوڕ) which translates to “Father of Fire'' in Kurdish is located near the city of Kirkuk, in Northern Iraq. This place was known as the world's largest oilfield in the world, until the Ghawar Field was found in Saudi Arabia in 1948, and is home to an Eternal fire, claimed to have been burning for some 4,000 years.

The flames, burning for thousands of years over a small patch of land in the oil field, have inspired legends and hope for locals who believed it had magical properties.

Yanartas, Turkey

Photo of a kid standing next to Yanartas's Mount Chimaera eternal fire

Yanartas's Mount Chimaera eternal fire

commons.wikimedia.org


Known in Turkish as Yanartas, meaning “Burning Rock,” Mount Chimaera features a cluster of small flames that burn on a rocky mountainside. The dozen little fires are caused by methane gas vents and have been burning for an estimated 2,500 years.

Visitors have reported that at night it looked like “hell itself has come to pay a visit.” This odd geographical site is believed to be where the legend of the chimera, a mythical fire-breathing creature made of goat, lion and a lion serpent’s body, came up.

Eternal Flame Falls, United States

Photo of Eternal Flame Falls in Chestnut Ridge County Park

Eternal Flame Falls in Chestnut Ridge County Park

www.flickr.com


This eternal flame flickers inside a grotto, just behind a waterfall in Chestnut Ridge County Park in the U.S. state of New York, south of the Canadian border. This fire, visible throughout the year — even when the waterfall freezes over! — is fueled by a natural gas deposit believed to be coming from a natural hydrocarbon seep.

Sometimes, all it needs is a little help from tourists and passersby to be reignited.

The Burning Water ( 水火同源), Taiwan

File:水火同源.JPG - Wikimedia Commonscommons.wikimedia.org


Similar to the eternal flame falls in New York, this eternal flame burns close to water. The Hot Spring Eternal Flame is located in Guanziling in Taiwan and is said to have been started by an earthquake that opened a fissure in the earth. It has been burning for more than 300 years, fueled by methane gas deposits beneath. The fire then escapes from a crack in the rocks near pools of hot springs.

Gates of Hell, Turkmenistan

Photo of a man standing on a rock to take a picture of Turkmenistan's Gates of Hell

Turkmenistan's Gates of Hell

commons.wikimedia.org


The Karakum Desert burning crater is considered mysterious, but most believe it is the result of a Soviet drilling accident that hit a gas cavern in 1971. The ground then collapsed, and the hole was reportedly lit on fire to prevent natural gas from spreading and has been burning since that day in the gigantic crater.

Turkmenistan has vowed to gather top scientists to figure out how to extinguish the Gates of Hell, although there are no current estimates on how much the operation might cost.

Centralia, United States

Photo of people standing next to a cracked highway from subsurface coal fire near Centralia, Pennsylvania

Cracked highway from subsurface coal fire near Centralia, Pennsylvania

www.flickr.com


Located in a quiet valley of Columbia County, Pennsylvania, Centralia was once a bustling mining center with a population of roughly 1,000 people. It has since become a smoldering ghost town, after an uncontrollable coal mine fire forced the evacuation of almost all of its residents in 1984. The fire spread from the surface to the underground seams and has kept burning since.

As of 2020, Centralia only had five residents left, who, in spite of being surrounded by smoking rubble, continue living life as normal.

​Murchison, New Zealand

Photo of a man standing next to eternal flames at Murchison, New Zeland

Eternal flames at Murchison, New Zeland

upload.wikimedia.org


The tiny, isolated New Zealand village of Murchison is home to a perplexing cauldron of smokeless flames, which have been burning since the 1920s. Legend has it that two hunters took a break and sat down in the bush to smoke. One threw away his match, suddenly igniting natural gas which was leaking from the ground right next to him. This bizarre bowl of flames has kept burning ever since.

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Future

Life On "Mars": With The Teams Simulating Space Missions Under A Dome

A niche research community plays out what existence might be like on, or en route to, another planet.

Photo of a person in a space suit walking toward the ​Mars Desert Research Station near Hanksville, Utah

At the Mars Desert Research Station near Hanksville, Utah

Sarah Scoles

In November 2022, Tara Sweeney’s plane landed on Thwaites Glacier, a 74,000-square-mile mass of frozen water in West Antarctica. She arrived with an international research team to study the glacier’s geology and ice fabric, and how its ice melt might contribute to sea level rise. But while near Earth’s southernmost point, Sweeney kept thinking about the moon.

“It felt every bit of what I think it will feel like being a space explorer,” said Sweeney, a former Air Force officer who’s now working on a doctorate in lunar geology at the University of Texas at El Paso. “You have all of these resources, and you get to be the one to go out and do the exploring and do the science. And that was really spectacular.”

That similarity is why space scientists study the physiology and psychology of people living in Antarctic and other remote outposts: For around 25 years, people have played out what existence might be like on, or en route to, another world. Polar explorers are, in a way, analogous to astronauts who land on alien planets. And while Sweeney wasn’t technically on an “analog astronaut” mission — her primary objective being the geological exploration of Earth — her days played out much the same as a space explorer’s might.

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