In south-eastern Romania, there is a cave that was locked away from the slightest ray of light for 5.5 million years—and that has a completely different atmosphere from the earth. The cave was discovered by workers looking to set up a powerplant. They tested the ground to see if it was a safe place to build—and cracked open a pathway that leads into one of the strangest places on earth.
If you descend through the narrow shaft and past a series of tunnels, you enter a chamber with a lake of sulphuric water stinking of rotting eggs. The air there is toxic, filled with hydrogen sulphide and contaminated with 100 times the surface’s levels of carbon dioxide.
The strangest part, though, is that a whole ecosystem has survived inside it. Researchers have found 33 species inside the cave that don’t exist anywhere outside of it. They’ve adapted to survive in a sulphuric atmosphere, living by feeding off a foam on top of the stones.
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Poster Comment:
I can't help but wonder if this isn't analogous to humanity. Are there senses or crucial forms of energy that we've forgotten or never knew? We do certainly stumble around in an atmosphere figuratively sulphurous and toxic..... well, literally too. Compared to what we could and should have become by now, we're little more than those blind albino bugs in the picture.
Other items in this list (10 Real Places On Earth That Seem Scientifically Impossible) include 'ShanayTimpishka, the Boiling River' and 'The Petrifying Well Where Water Turns Things to Stone'. Listverse will liven up your day in mostly responsible ways!