When amateur photographer Risto Mattila went for a Sunday stroll along Marjaniemi beach on Finland's Hailuoto Island recently, that was exactly what he found. Lucky for us, he took some snaps, which quickly spread through social media. 

"I was with my wife at Marjaniemi beach. The weather was sunny, about -1 Celsius (30 Fahrenheit) and it was quite a windy day," Mattila told the BBC. "There we found this amazing phenomenon. There was snow and ice eggs along the beach near the water line." 

A stretch of roughly 30 metres (about 100 feet) of sand was littered with frozen spheres that ranged from golf ball-sized to the circumference of a football.

 

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A post shared by Risto Mattila (@rismatti)

The bizarre sight might look like carnage after a serious snowball fight, but it actually has more in common with your garden variety hailstones, because the formation of these 'ice eggs' requires a near-perfect set of meteorological conditions - not too warm, not too cold, not too windy, not too still. 

First of all, you need relatively calm water. It also has to be just cold enough for ice to form, given the opportunity. That opportunity requires something small for that close-to-freezing water to cling to, such as small ice crystals or grit floating in the water. Hail forms when water condenses and freezes onto particles blown up inside storm clouds, for example. As they fall and rise, the stones collect layers of ice, until finally they grow too heavy and drop. 

In the case of these ice eggs, it's not the chaotic blast of rising air currents that lead to the slow build-up of ice, but the gentle churn of water, blown by a suitably stiff breeze that helps layers of ice form on the floating ball as it rolls through the freezing currents. 

Take a look at these grittier ice rocks being washed up on the shore of Lake Michigan in the US a few years ago to get an idea of how they develop:

  Given enough time, the frozen rocks can grow to become virtual boulders. In 2016, similar giant snowballs washed up on a beach in Siberia, some measuring a meter (about 3 feet) across. 

It's not the kind of thing most of us would see while out on a winter walk on our favorite beach or river bank, but Mattila wasn't the only one to appreciate this unusual phenomenon, with local resident Ritva Rundgren capturing this footage below.

ICE BALLS cover Beach in Finland!!!! 😮😮

Permission: Ritva Rundgren
Hailuoto, Finland - Bothnian Sea@WeatherBug - Download the weather app today! pic.twitter.com/F9fe1K8tcd

— Live Storm Chasers (@LiveStormChaser) November 7, 2019

Meanwhile, another odd assortment of icicle-laden 'eggs' has washed up on the banks of the Wulik River in Alaska.

Interesting formation of ice on the banks of the Wulik River near Kivalina. We suspect a combination of strong waves and super cold water created these ice balls. pic.twitter.com/oIM19Jle2N

— NWS APRFC (@NWSAPRFC) November 6, 2019

Thanks to so many people out there with easy access to cameras, and easy ways to share their discoveries around the world, we all get to experience the awesome moments nature serves up.
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In the depths of Colombia’s Caribbean region, there is a tree some mistakenly call ‘The Tree of Guacarí’, which was another enormous tree in the same area, rather similar in looks to the tree we are presenting now. Image credit: Eréndira Rodríguez
That tree, otherwise called the Samán of Guacarí, used to feature on Colombian 500 peso coins in the 90s. It was a Samanea saman, also sometimes known as a rain tree, and was cut down in 1989 as its thick branches began to detach. But the tree this article is about is different. It’s not another iconic Samanea saman, even though it really looks like it. 

No, it’s actually a Ficus, commonly known as fig tree – the popular ornamental plant you will find in gardens and homes all around the globe. And it has grown huge. Regarded as Columbia’s largest tree, the gigantic fig is so huge, in fact, that from a distance you could mistake it for a hill. Indeed, as you approach it, you get the sensation of being dwarfed until you feel really tiny. 

That’s just natural, though, as this giant is allegedly 30 meters high and 75 meters in diameter (we couldn’t find decisive proof but the images seem to underline this.) The tree has an incredibly beautiful foliage that looks like a green mountain, with branches that kiss the ground as if paying homage to Mother Earth. 

And not only do they kiss the earth, but they function as supports that the tree itself has generated, from aerial roots coming from the branches furthest from the trunk. A wonderful sight indeed. Under this colossal tree, one has the sensation of being in the basement of a great building, with many columns that support the giant mass, Viajar en Verano reports. 

Some people in Latin America call it ‘The Tree That Walks”, because of its ‘feet’ with which it ensures its expansion. Indeed, the pillars it has grown are like limbs through which it advances to cover a larger area with its branches to receive the sun’s rays more directly or find more fertile land to feed on. 

Even more interestingly, the Tree of San Marcos is not a tree. It’s several trees. Historian Raúl Ospino Rangel gives a splandid description of how the green mass was formed. 

It all started when in 1964 the owner of the Alejandría farm wanted to protect a yellow cedar tree that he had planted. They placed six fig tree rods around the sapling to prevent the cattle from damaging the young cedar. 

But the opposite happened: instead of giving security to the cedar tree, the fig tree struts sprouted buds and then branches, which eventually ended up absorbing and devouring the yellow cedar.

So the ‘Giant Fig of San Marcos’ is not just one, but six different plants that were joined and strengthened by aerial roots with which they formed supports on the ground. 

If you ever happen to travel to the Atlantic coast of Colombia, be sure to visit San Marcos and let yourself be embraced by the shadowy extremities of ‘The Most Beautiful Tree in Colombia’. 

You will definitely see it from afar – about three kilometers before entering the Alejandría farm, you can get the first glimpse of the gigantic ‘green mountain’. Image credit: Antonio Sáez
Protected by the branches of this tree, one feels small, but also enriched by its powerful energy. Let’s hope it will stand for a long time to come.
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  Image source: Reddit
Socratea Exorrhiza, a tree that grows in a remote part of Ecuador can, reportedly, walk – yupp, like Ents do in The Lord of the Rings. 

OK, these leafy giants might not be able to wage war on the forces of Isengard, but they definitely have a thing or two in common with their fictitious counterparts, apart from their size. Their complicated system of roots is thought to serve as legs, helping the tree constantly move towards sunlight as the seasons change. 

Apparently, these walking trees can move up to 2-3 cm per day, or 20 meters per year. That may not sound like much, but it’s quite a marathon by tree standards! The mysterious trees remind the visitors of Tolkien’s creations. Image credit: Peter Vrsansky
Rainforest guides in Ecuador have long been telling tourists about the incredible walking trees. The most commonly told story is that the tree slowly ‘walks’ in search of the sun by growing new roots towards the light while its old roots are left to die. John H. Bodley suggested in 1980 that it’s the tree’s stilted roots that allow Socratea Exorrhiza to “walk” away from the point of germination. 

Whether that’s true or not, the tree’s unusual roots, split from the trunk a few feet above the ground, definitely add to the illusion of the tree having legs. “As the soil erodes, the tree grows new, long roots that find new and more solid ground, sometimes up to 20m,” explains Peter Vrsansky, a palaeobiologist from the Slovak Academy of Sciences who worked for a few months in the Unesco Sumaco Biosphere Reserve, about a day’s journey from Ecuador’s capital Quito. 

“Then, slowly, as the roots settle in the new soil and the tree bends patiently towards the new roots, the old roots slowly lift into the air. The whole process for the tree to relocate to a new place with better sunlight and more solid ground can take a couple of years.” According to some scientists, it is the tree’s stilted roots that allow it to ‘walk’. Image credit: Ruestz
Other scientists, however, are of a different opinion. According to a 2005 paper by biologist Gerardo Avalos, director of the Center for Sustainable Development Studies in Atenas, Costa Rica, although Socratea Exorrhiza trees do occasionally produce new roots, they stay firmly planted in one place. The fact that they sprout new roots doesn’t mean they use them to move around. 

“My paper proves that the belief of the walking palm is just a myth,” Avalos told Live Science. “Thinking that a palm tree could actually track canopy light changes by moving slowly over the forest floor … is a myth that tourist guides find amusing to tell visitors to the rainforest.” But then, why all the confusion? 

Ultimately, it all seems to come down to that unique stilted root system. The ‘walking’ trees of Ecuador have a higher root system than other trees, starting near the bottom of their trunks. This makes the trees look more like an upright, walking broom than an actual tree. 

And, as the soil around them erodes, some of these weird-looking roots die off, leaving space for new roots to form. Its unique root system makes the Socratea Exorrhiza look like an upright, walking broom. Image credit: Ruestz
So, after all, it’s probably the special look of these trees that has made tour guides cook up the story of them walking, to add a bit of spice to their lecturing. 

This conclusion is further underlined by the fact that, if you do a quick search, you won’t find any time-lapse videos showing one of these trees actually ‘walking’. (If you do find one though, please don’t hesitate to let us know.) 

That said, there are other plants species, if not trees, that can actually move from one place to another. The Creeping Devil cactus, for example, can actually crawl across the desert.
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Reniala is a malagasy name of baobab, “reny” means mother and “ala” means forest so baobab is called Reniala or mother of the forest due to its height and shape bigger than other trees surrounding her in the forest. This reserve is held by an association called Reniala that gives the name of the area like their association. 

Not only the association’name makes the reserve called Reniala but the place is known as home of many species of baobabs within just 60 ha . From Tulear to the reserve, you’ll cross some Mahafaly(one of Malagasy ethnics) typical villages where you’ll see houses that are quite similar to each other build with dry bulrush.( a tall reed-like water plant with tall leaves) Arrived at the reserve you’ll have opportunities to learn more about the Baobab and other endemic vegetal species in the dry area of the South. 

Notice that Baobabs tree grows 1 millimeter per month so imagine how old are those big trees in front of us. If you are lucky enough you might taste its delicious fruit that falls in every December. Then learn about those four different species of trees that local use to build their boats and also the “Music tree” or the yellow flamboyant that is served to fabricate musical instrument like maracas, djember or mandolin. But the highlights of the day is to be in front of the biggest baobab of Ifaty Mangily area inside the reserve that looks like a coffee pot. 

This biggest baobab has over 1200 years with her 7 meters of height and 12 meters of circumference. It belongs to the species of “Adansonia robrostipa” called also “Baobab FONY”. This baobab bears leaves from November to April and flowering between February and April although sometimes as late as June. 

The flowers are large, showy and sweet-smelling, and open just before or soon after dusk, producing copious amounts of nectar but remaining reproductively receptive for just one night. Reniala reserve presents an exceptional faunistic richness that live inside the deciduous forest. 

During your visit you’ll meet many endemic birds including Uratelornis and Monias, lemurs, reptiles, lizards that has the head of dinosaur and caiman’tail, and also turtles. On your way back, you’ll meet the herders with their livestock of goats that cross the road through the sunset of the South that will be a real unforgettable painting tables on your mind.
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It’s been the backdrop of many a Hollywood western, because long ago folks went west to try their hand at silver mining and other entrepreneurial endeavors. 

Arizona is symbolic of the independent, high rolling lifestyle of past and present American individualism. It doesn’t have a landscape we associate with forests and wooded stretches, but once, many millions of years ago, Arizona was just that, and today is home to the Petrified Forest National Park, in the northeastern part of the state. It is one of the world’s biggest, natural tourist draws and a rich source of material for researchers. The park covers almost 150 square miles of land, and is at an elevation of more than 5,00 feet. 

Its vegetation today largely consists of desert plant, like grasses and cacti. Hard though it is to imagine, about 225 million years ago Arizona abutted a sea on its western edge and was affected by volcanoes spewing ash. As the water receded, many of the trees that made up its forest became mired in soggy earth, and remained there, stuck deep down, out of reach of air and microscopic critters that could damage it and cause it to rot. 

Today, those trees, now petrified – dried up, essentially – are an amazing well of research material for scientists, archaeologists and other experts trying to understand what the landscape once looked like, and how it evolved.

  And it isn’t just ancient, fossilized trees scientists study; also found in the park’s earth are dinosaurs, lizards, and all kinds of other creatures that once roamed there. 

Snails and even crocodiles once were common there too, many centuries ago. Particularly intriguing about the fossilized, or petrified trees is what’s inside them. In one trunk there is opal, a stone we consider semi-precious that makes beautiful rings and other jewelry. 

This past spring, in March of 2020, experts found this trunk filled with lines of opal, a striking and unusual finding even in this oddly bleak but beautiful place. Wood petrifies when it sinks in soggy earth and stays there. Minerals can penetrate it through the sediment, but otherwise there is a barrier from the common causes of decay. 

Minerals access the wood because they are present in the groundwater in which it’s resting. Eventually all the plant substance is replaced by the minerals, like pyrite (“Fools’ Gold,” as it is commonly known) and Silica. The latter material crystallized, and morphed, eventually, into quartz. 

Over time, and with the addition of other minerals, the wood’s interiors became a rainbow of colours that are strikingly beautiful. This national park is, experts say, probably the largest and most-visited petrified forest in the world. 

It continues to offer experts and casual visitors alike a stunning array of visual delights, and it is a great place to see, up close and personal, what the landscape of Arizona once looked like, and what its vegetation was like. It is also a stunning reminder of how nature works ceaselessly to constantly change the environment, the forests and waters we all assume have been around us forever. 

Whether one visits the park as a tourist or an expert, to work or to tour its natural attractions, it offers a satisfying peek into how landscapes grow and change, how plants become fossils and the power of minerals to carve wood and turn it into something entirely new – but equally beautiful.
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Yes, yes we have all seen the ridges and kettle holes but this is quite something you would not expect. There is about a kilometer long walk from the nearest point where you can leave your car. We walk through some wet areas so rubber boots or something waterproof for you feet is recommended. 

After crossing a clumsy looking bridge made out some branches the path finally takes some higher ground and your feet will be safe or dry at least. We are arriving into a regular looking forest with absolutely no hints of anything special. After a while of walking it hits us by a surprise even though we had already seen the pictures beforehand. 

And there it is, a massive rock standing on its own pedestal. It is not even that common to come across to a rock this size not to talk about it balancing on another rock. 

It seems that you’ll be able to flip it over anytime, but not even 10 000 years have done it. Another interesting thing is that the rock beneath the other one is almost perfectly smoothened out. It looks like something you would expect to see by the sea or somewhere in the middle of great rapids, but here in the middle of the forest it just looks like it doesnt belong in here. 

I’m pretty confident this is something quite unique even in larger scale. It is something you won’t come across in any other place in Finland and I doubt to find something like this anywhere. 

This such a peculiar rock, and that’s exactly what it’s called here in Finland: Kummakivi.
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