• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

100,000 Soldiers: A Geological Oddity Not Seen Anywhere Else In The World

June 10, 2023 by Deborah Bloomfield

We at IFLScience love a cave. The deeper, bluer, and more terrifying the better. We are also always keen to celebrate the weirdest wonders planet Earth has to offer, and as geological oddballs go, the Trabuc Caves in southern France take the cake.

Situated in Mialet, France, the caves are the largest network of underground passages in the Cévennes. They were first investigated in 1823 and have since been explored to almost 10 kilometers (6 miles), although speleologists – people who study caves – believe them to stretch two to three times farther than that, according to Atlas Obscura.

Advertisement

As well as a rich history of human use – the caves have acted as a refuge for various groups since prehistoric times, including the Camisards during the Reformation and, later, “Trabucaïres”, or highwaymen, from whom they get their name – the caves are renowned for a strange and unexplained phenomenon known as the “100,000 Soldiers”.

When exploration really kicked off in 1945, speleologists were met with what appeared to be thousands of tiny soldiers standing to attention (hence the name), but are in fact a unique type of concretion that still to this day have no explanation.

100,000 Soldiers

The 100,000 Soldiers are unexplained and unparalleled anywhere in the world.

The “soldiers” litter the cave floor, just a few centimeters tall, and as yet have not been found anywhere else in the world.

These mysterious mineral masses form underwater and are made up of 95 percent calcite and 5 percent clay. Each appears to form overlapping discs, perhaps due to varying water levels.

Advertisement

Beyond this, little is known about how they came to be.

Trabuc Cave

The Trabuc Caves network is also home to an array of colorful of minerals, waterfalls, and pools.

Other, more familiar, cave formations, stalagmites and stalactites, form in pairs, on the ground and ceiling, respectively. As water passes over limestone and drips down, these icicle-shaped deposits take shape. The 100,000 Soldiers, however, form without a partner hanging above them, ruling out this means of formation.

Various hypotheses have been posited over the years, ranging from bacteria to electrostatic forces, but none has ever been able to fully explain this oddity.

All right then, Trabuc Caves, keep your secrets.

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. Motor racing-Kubica to race again for Alfa at Monza as Raikkonen isolates
  2. Marvel shows are now available through Apple Podcast subscriptions
  3. Alphabet’s Wing tests drone deliveries from shopping center rooftops in Australia
  4. Main Explanation For The Rise Of Continents Challenged By New Study

Source Link: 100,000 Soldiers: A Geological Oddity Not Seen Anywhere Else In The World

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • The Oldest Stalagmite Ever Dated Was Found In Oklahoma Rocks, Dating Back 289 Million Years
  • 2024’s Great American Eclipse Made Some Birds Behave In Surprising Ways, But Not All Were Fooled
  • “Carter Catastrophe”: The Math Equation That Predicts The End Of Humanity
  • Why Is There No Nobel Prize For Mathematics?
  • These Are The Only Animals Known To Incubate Eggs In Their Stomachs And Give “Birth” Out Their Mouths
  • Constipated? This One Fruit Could Help, Says First-Ever Evidence-Led Diet Guidance
  • NGC 2775: This Galaxy Breaks The Rules Of “Galactic Evolution” And Baffles Astronomers
  • Meet The “Four-Eyed” Hirola, The World’s Most Endangered Antelope With Fewer Than 500 Left
  • The Bizarre 1997 Experiment That Made A Frog Levitate
  • There’s A Very Good Reason Why October 1582 On Your Phone Is Missing 10 Days
  • Skynet-1A: Military Spacecraft Launched 56 Years Ago Has Been Moved By Persons Unknown
  • There’s A Simple Solution To Helping Avoid Erectile Dysfunction (But You’re Not Going To Like It)
  • Interstellar Object 3I/ATLAS May Be 10 Billion Years Old, This Rare Spider Is Half-Female, Half-Male Split Down The Middle, And Much More This Week
  • Why Do Trains Not Have Seatbelts? It’s Probably Not What You Think
  • World’s Driest Hot Desert Just Burst Into A Rare And Fleeting Desert Bloom
  • Theoretical Dark Matter Infernos Could Melt The Earth’s Core, Turning It Liquid
  • North America’s Largest Mammal Once Numbered 60 Million – Then Humans Nearly Drove It To Extinction
  • North America’s Largest Ever Land Animal Was A 21-Meter-Long Titan
  • A Two-Headed Fossil, 50/50 Spider, And World-First Butt Drag
  • Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS Is Losing Buckets Of Water Every Second – And It’s Got Cyanide
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version