Bizarre Natural Phenomena Vol. 70 - Where The Wild Waters Flow (The Devil's Kettle)

This series has been dealing with peculiar sights and unbelievable mysteries of Nature ever since its very first episode! Today, I bring you yet another one... only this time, the veils of mystery have been lifted and the puzzle is solved...

Have you ever seen...

The devils Kettle?

^{*Image from: commons.wikimedia.org - Courtesy of: August Schwerdfeger - License: CC BY 4.0}

And now that you saw it...

Do you want to listen to it too?

At a first glance it looks nothing more than just a double waterfall system, shaking the waters of the Brule River and getting things noisy in Judge C.R. Magney State Park (Minnesota, USA).

But it's not as simple as that.

For years the second waterfall had been puzzling scientists that couldn't figure out where the water of the second stream went. The river splits in half and whereas the east half (the waterfall on your right -meter as you're looking at the video) keeps flowing downwards, following the course of the River; the shorter, west stream simply disappears inside a 3-meter pothole whose end no one seems to know where it leads to... ^{[1, 2, 3, 4]}

No one up until recently...

Scientists had been trying to solve the mystery with various scenarios and imaginative methods. They used dies to color the "vanishing" waters and follow their flow, they threw ping-pong balls in, but they never saw them coming out. Their idea was that the waters continue to travel underground and get drained into Lake Superior. ^{[1, 2, 3, 4]}

Not gonna happen

This scenario was somehow impossible due to the geology of the area. The park is made of basalt and rhyolite layers that do not allow for water to be absorbed. Water could travel deeper underground in more porous rocks like limestone, or through lava tubes. But this is not the case here, since rhyolite is too thick to allow for lava tube formation and the basalt layer seems to be deeper than it should to let water pass through it, in case conditions were met for lava tubes to form. ^[1]

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This SciShow episode explains very well why the rhyolite and basalt rocks do not have high absorbity

^{Note: The episode was published in 2016, before the official explanation was made public.}

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What did happen

Scientists figured out a different way to crack the riddle of the disappearing water. In 2016, they simply measured the volume of the "incoming water" of the falls and then the volume of the river flow a few meters farther. The result numbers seemed to match after taking into consideration the equipment tolerance (the difference was only 2 cubic feet/second)! So, the conclusion was: Water comes in, half of it takes a deviation route and comes back. ^{[1, 2, 3, 4]}

And where do all those ping-pong balls go?

With the water coming down so hard, the most plausible explanation is that it keeps objects down, not allowing them to emerge to the surface until they've been crushed and turned to... tiny little pieces. Chemical analysis of the waters, to find traces of dye would surely add to the theory's credibility and allow for a more precise determination of the exact spot where the west stream meets with the river waters again, but the park authorities did not allow scientists to conduct further experiments in the area. ^{[1, 2, 3, 4]}

Been there?

Any chance for readers to have visited the place? I'd love to hear more about your experience!

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References

[1] wikipedia.org
[2] dnr.state.mn.us
[3] mnn.com
[4] atlasobscura.com

Thank you so much for your time!

Until my next post,
Steem on and keep smiling, people!