Legend has it that in order to save mankind from darkness, Prometheus stole fire. The furious Zeus hung him on Caucasus Mountain for thousands of years, and sent an eagle to peck his liver every day.
In order to commemorate Prometheus's contribution to human civilization, people hold the Olympic Games every four years and light the sacred fire. During the games, the sacred fire will never be extinguished, conveying the flame to give it the meaning of endless life.
Use a concave and convex mirror to capture the sacred fire of the sun
Although fire plays an important role in both Western and Eastern civilizations, under the rules of nature, the "holy fire" that never goes out seems to be nothing more than a beautiful legend. Even the Olympic torch, designed and built by many engineers, has been extinguished by wind and rain in history, and finally had to be lit again with a lighter.
But the amazing thing is that on our earth, there are really some "holy fire" that are burning naturally or have burned for decades or even hundreds of years.
Located in Davaza, Turkmenistan, there is a deep pit with a diameter of 69 meters and a depth of 30 meters. This deep pit was ignited in 1971 and has been burning to this day. Because it is located in the desert, it is often accompanied by the "ghostly" sound of howling wind when burning, so it is called the gate to hell .
Time goes back to the late 1960s. Turkmenistan, which was still one of the Soviet Union's allies at that time, gathered some Soviet engineering teams to discover coal, oil, natural gas and other natural resources buried under the desert.
During the mining process, the ground collapsed, and a huge deep pit appeared. A steady stream of natural gas emanated from this pit. .
The surrounding environment of Hell's Gate
Because there is no repair and mining technology, we are also afraid that the gas that emerges will have a health impact on the surrounding residents. So the Soviet engineer threw a match into the pit and lit the Gates of Hell.
originally expected that the gas in the pit would be burned out within a few years, but what everyone did not expect was that from 1971 to the present, the door to hell has never been closed.
Source: YouTube | Andrew MacLeod
There are many urban legends surrounding the Gate of Hell. This everlasting will-o'-the-wisp pit has also been developed into a tourist destination. Every year, there is a steady stream of travelers who are curious about it. Some even try to "leap" through the gates of hell.
Source: YouTube | NetGeo UK
But in fact, the pit in Darvaza is not the only gate to hell in Turkmenistan, and the gate to hell is not the only place on earth that continues to burn. Behind these seemingly magical "holy places" is actually people's helplessness that they cannot exploit a large number of underground resources and can only let them go to waste.
In Turkmenistan Karakum Desert , there is a gas well dug by Turkmenistan themselves - Pir-5 well, but unfortunately due to a wellhead accident, natural gas leaked . April 19, 2009 A flash of lightning ignited this gas well into , and it has not yet been completely extinguished.
Source: @China Petroleum
Azerbaijan, known as the Land of fire ( the land of fire ), also has a mountain that continues to burn, Yanar Dag. The volcano's flames are three meters high when burning and will not go out no matter what the weather.
No one knows how long the Yanar Dag fire has been burning, but it is said that it once burned to death an unlucky shepherd in the 1950s. There are also legends claiming that the fire was originally lit by werewolves.
In Azerbaijan, which has a strong religious atmosphere, this "holy fire" that never goes out has been given a sacred meaning. Many believers who come to pilgrimage believe that just kneeling before the holy fire can drive away diseases.
But the reality is that this is just because Yanar Dag happens to be located at a natural gas outlet, and the continuous natural gas underground gives the flame the capital to continue burning.
Source: YouTube|MarkRevlon
This is common in Azerbaijan, which is rich in natural resources such as underground natural gas and oil. However, other burning points have been extinguished and artificially mined, but Yanar Dag has remained until now.There are also rumors that the natural gas underground has been burned out and is now a man-made "holy fire" piped in.
Although the conspiracy theory about Yanar Dag is not known to be true or false, the main reason for the existence of most of the remaining burning gas pits is due to insufficient mining technology. Even if the flames are extinguished, the combustion gases seeping out from the ground cannot be stopped.
In this case, if the gas is allowed to overflow, it will not only have a health impact on the surrounding residents, but it will also easily spontaneously ignite again in dry weather, so simply let it burn and consume itself.
But no country is willing to let these gas pits continue to burn. After all, money is burned. The natural resources that are wasted every year are very precious to human beings, so they will do their best to extinguish mining.
Offshore gas field mining
my country's Xinjiang Sulfur ditch once had a flame that could not be extinguished for hundreds of years . It was actually a coalfield fire. During the most serious period, the open fire area was 1.83 million square meters, and 10.03 million tons of coal resources were wasted every year. waste.
Before it was completely extinguished in 2004, the flames in Xinjiang's Suulugou Valley had been burning for at least a hundred years, so it was also nicknamed the real "Flaming Mountain". However, due to the large area of the coalfield, even if a large area has been extinguished, small spontaneous flames will still appear occasionally.
Source: Weibo@Chanji City Suanggou Town
In fact, natural gas field and coal field fires like this often occur in various countries with rich real estate resources. Xinjiang region of my country often has " "Demon Fire" appeared in this world.
However, with the development of fire control technology in our country, there is no longer a large area of continuous open fire burning like the sulfur ditch in the past.
Coalfield fire extinguishing scene source: Xinjiang Coalfield Fire Extinguishing Department | Photo by Cao Jiaxiang
So the eternal fires like the Gate of Hell and Xinjiang Sulfur Ditch sound magical, but the reason behind them is quite simple, even a little bit disappointing. Blockage refers to the leakage of underground coal, natural gas, oil and other resources, causing the continuous burning of surface flames.
However, does this mean that in the era when Wu Chengen wrote Journey to the West, Flame Mountain might not have been written?
(The pictures in this article are all from the Internet and are only used for communication and learning)
Reference:
https://sometimes-interesting.com/2013/07/31/turkmenistans-door-to-hell/
http://www.odditycentral .com/travel/yanar-dag-the-eternally-burning-mountain-of-azerbaijan.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yanar_Dag
http://www.people.com.cn/GB/other4788/20030209 /920050.html
https://www.quora.com/Why-doesnt-Turkmenistan-put-out-the-fire-of-the-Door-of-Hell-which-has-been-burning-for-decades-and -is-obviously-a-waste-of-precious-natural-gas-resources
http://www.dili360.com/article/p546e9f4d3297b04.htm
Source: Crazy Pill Science Editor: AI
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