• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 618 4351
  • 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

  • Neanderthals And Homo Sapiens Coexisted For Longer Where Herbivore Hunting Was Good
  • Sun Rips Hole In Earth’s Magnetic Field Sparking Rare Red Auroras
  • Flowers Are Thriving In Antarctica, Suggesting It Might Be Reaching A “Tipping Point”
  • Making Of Birch Tar Proves Neanderthal Intelligence And Cooperation
  • Worms Might Have Basic “Emotions” In Response To Electric Shocks
  • It’s Definitive – The Gulf Stream Is Weakening
  • The Zoo Hypothesis: A “Psychologically Unpleasant” Idea Why Aliens Haven’t Made Contact
  • New Method Can Tell If We’ve Found Signs Of Alien Life
  • What Is Water Intoxication? Chris Pratt Claims To Drink An Alarming Amount Of Water
  • ChatGPT Will Soon “See, Hear, And Speak” With Its Latest AI Update
  • The Mars Sample Return Mission Is In Trouble
  • Ligers and Tigons: The Results Of Big Cat Mashups That Shouldn’t Really Exist
  • Another TRAPPIST-1 Planet Seems To Lack Atmosphere, And The Star Is Not Helping
  • Old Video From 2018 Seems To Show What The “Mummified Aliens” Really Are
  • Holly Tree Lost For Nearly Two Centuries Rediscovered In Forests Of Brazil
  • Genetic Studies Rediscover Human Populations In Africa Thought To Be Lost
  • Dinosaur Feather Fossils Reveal Proteins Preserved For Millions Of Years
  • What Lies Underneath The Sahara Desert?
  • What Will Happen To All The Used Electric Car Batteries?
  • The Science Of Monogamy: Is There A Biological Explanation?
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 618 4351
  • +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 © 2023 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version