The Astounding Subterranean Salt Cathedral

Deep underground in Poland lies something remarkable but little known outside Eastern Europe. For centuries, miners have extracted salt there, but left behind things quite startling and unique. Take a look at the most unusual salt mine in the world. LINK


Image Credit Gypso_banana_prune under CC

From the outside, Wieliczka Salt Mine doesn’t look extraordinary. It looks extremely well kept for a place that hasn’t minded any salt for over ten years but apart from that it looks ordinary. However, over two hundred meters below ground it holds an astonishing secret. This is the salt mine that became an art gallery, cathedral and underground lake.


Image Credit Il Conte Di Luna under CC

An entire lake, with its barges, is sucked into a sinkhole

An old story, from 1980, when an oil drilling rig punctured an underground salt mine and an entire lake and its contents and much of the shoreline was sucked down into the resulting sinkhole. About 10 minutes, and quite interesting. LINK

When a Texaco oil rig mis-triangulates its drilling position and hits a nearby salt mine full of workers, an entire lake complete with homes, barges, and land drain into the enormous sink hole. Soon the river reverses direction and brings in water from the ocean, swallowing up more land. LINK: Youtube