I learned of a vast expanse of smooth granite domes that rise above the desert as far as your eyes can see

in one of the most remote and inaccessible landscapes in the entire United States. After exploring around here on

Google Earth for a long time, I finally came upon something truly interesting. It was a massive canvas of polished stone

on the top of a mountain, covered in circular indentations and shapes strangely reminiscent of a gigantic, fractured

eggshell. I was so curious to see this place with my own two eyes that I set off into the desert to climb up the

mountain, and above all else, what I was most curious to find was this thing. [Music] All right, good morning!

To get here, I had to drive through so many miles of dirt roads, backtrack so many times, and today we're going to be hiking to the top of

these absolutely bizarre geologic formations. Look at that, just a vast open expanse of smooth rock. So that's where

we're headed next, and I think I'm going to camp right at the top of it. We're going to walk up that ridge, take a

left, and then traverse over the top of that ridge of stone. Let's go! I'm looking out for petroglyphs;

haven't seen any. I do know that they are around here. Whoa, look at this standing rock! Look at what it's being held up

on! What a hike! This is absolutely brutal, especially with there being no trail, and I have to watch every

step. It's so hot! Come on! Wow, this really looks like a wall. You can see how this that layer just extends

all the way up the hill. These rocks are super similar to the Sage wall rocks in Montana. Let me show you what I mean in a

second. Look at that! Once again, we have come upon the bizarre shapes created by the geologic process of

Jointing in this area, in particular, was probably a slow process of magma cooling deep in the ground that formed

the granite's inner structure in vertical, parallel patterns, kind of like the shape of interconnected Lego bricks, which then broke apart as they were

exposed to surface erosion. These giant granite domes, over millions of years, frost, rain, and ice

freezing and thawing, basically peels off layers. Now, this is an amazing example of this type of erosion, because you can

actually see where the layers of the granite are flaking off. Oh my god, this place is so

amazing, very weird, and just keeps getting weirder. Oh my gosh, what? Look at this! Look at this

split in the rock! No way! I've never seen anything like this. This is kind of terrifying, kind of

amazing. That's like a 30-foot-across massive slab; unbelievable slab! This whole landscape is like an abstract

painting. It really feels like we're on the [Music] moon. I could see the most amazing

balanced rock in the distance. These are really interesting. This is called a weathering pit, or a pan hole. They are

most common in smoothly sloping granite faces, exactly like this. Water entering micro-fractures in the rock

mechanically deepens the hole through freeze-thaw cycles. The life that actually is supported from the water trapped in

these holes, like the green lichen or moss growing on the rock, actually accelerates this erosion by emitting organic acids

that further eat away at the stone. This is home for the night; nice and sheltered from the wind. Going to have a

beautiful view of the stars. I'm not even going to use a tent; it's really that warm right now, even though we're around

8,000 ft elevation; that's the tent for tonight, underneath some big old sky. [Music]

is for... for these mountains. Once, they stood over 12,000 ft tall and were a twin to rival the

nearby Wind River Mountain Range. Both ranges were composed of granite that was pushed onto the surface 50 million years ago. The only difference was

these mountains were subjected to far more erosional pressure. This massive splinter of stone is an amazing visual

metaphor for the processes that reduced these mountains from their mighty height, one piece at a time, over the course of

50 million years.  Years in the process known as exfoliation. Just like human skin, these mountains are shedding their outer

layers, piece by piece. As you will see, the chunk I found on Google Earth will soon slide off the mountain, as countless

others have before, and as countless others will in the future, until these mountains are turned to dust. It's

unbelievable. Goodbye, beautiful sun! I saw a bunch of shooting stars last night, just from inside my car, so

hopefully that happens again. Oh my God, the sun is huge right now! Good morning! We slept under some beautiful stars last night. Look at this

sun! Oh my gosh, it's huge! When there's a lot of smoke in the air from fires,

sunrises and sunsets actually become a lot bigger. It's kind of like when you've seen those pictures of the sun setting

over the Sahara and it looks like a giant circle. It's kind of a similar concept, because all the particulate actually

expands the shape of the sun from our perspective. For now, what we're going to do is we're

going to fly across the valley; we're going to investigate that really interesting stacked rock over there. So I

Hope the drone can make it; we're going to find out. [Music]

[Music] Check out the channels of water. It's really steep. We're basically in like a giant

rain gutter that's been carved out of this over thousands of years. You can see the path the water actually takes.

Oh, now your paws are feeling better, huh? All right, we just packed up camp. There's one last piece of unfinished business

and that is to climb into that giant crack that we found yesterday, that is on the inside of this huge slab.

This is unreal! This is kind of scary; I'm not going to lie. Definitely looks like I get out of

it, and it just gets narrower and narrower the farther it goes down. I don't like how crumbly it

is. Okay, it's officially as wide as I am. It doesn't stop; it just keeps getting narrower.

[Music] I'm stuck... just kidding! So here's the craziest part about this place: this block is actually

free-floating. So this isn't even attached to the ground. I was looking underneath it; you can see gaps underneath it. So this whole thing

is ready to just slide off at any moment. All right. Well, it's been pretty incredible to be here. This is one of the

coolest things I've found on Google Earth in a very long time, and uh, I can't wait to explore more of this area.

Anyways, hope you enjoyed watching this video. If you did, let me know. This is Nolan Fiser, aka the POV

Channel, and have a good rest of your day. Look at them; they're all coming towards us! Why are you guys doing this?

Hey, come here! Tuy, come here! Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, guys! Come on, come on!

Guys, that's enough! Oh my God, what's the deal? These are pretty wild cows. So I

mean, they're tagged, but maybe they've just not seen humans very often. Hey! Hey! Come back here!

One starts running, then they all start running. I don't think they see regular humans very often that aren't on horses,

so maybe that's why they're so curious. I don't know. Guys, come on, clear off!

I discovered Massive Destruction on Google Earth

I discovered Massive Destruction on Google Earth

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