From the Department of Awesome Natural Wonders comes this impressive geological formation - an enormous rock perfectly balanced atop a smooth mound. Located deep inside the forests of Finland, the balancing rock is called Kummakivi:

“There is still no scientific explanation for how the rock, whose given name translates as ‘strange rock’ in Finnish, has wound up in such a perplexing position.”

However it happened, it’s a pretty awesome sight. But we don’t recommend standing under it for too long.

[via My Modern Metropolis]

From the Department of Awesome Natural Wonders comes the Lake Hillier, the mysteriously bright pink lake found on Middle Island in Western Australia that looks like it’s made of Strawberry Nestle Quik or Pepto-Bismol. No one knows for sure why the lake sports such an unusual colour.

According to Wikipedia: The reason for the lake’s colour is still under investigation. A possible explanation according to some scientists involves the low nutrient concentrations and different types of bacteria and algae. The pink colouration could also be from a sea salt and nahcolite (sodium bicarbonate) deposit reaction or red halophilic bacteria in the salt crusts.

Photos by Jean Paul Ferrero/Ardea/Caters News (via Exposing the Truth), JWB @ Panoramio.com, Ralph Roberts on Google+, and lookcaitlin.

[via Twisted Sifter]

“Over the past few weeks in a wooded area around Knaresborough, North Yorkshire, UK—a city known for quirky architecture and annual art festivals—three [awesome] sculptures were surreptitiously carved into a number of felled trees by an unknown artist. These were not crude, amateur wood carvings, but clearly the work of an accomplished sculptor that the Daily Mail called “an anonymous Banksy-style guerrilla artist”. Right. Well, the sculptures are indeed incredible, and I think the world could use a healthy dose of accomplished mystery art, as was the case last year in Scotland where a series of book sculptures were left by a still unidentified individual in libraries and book festivals around the country.

The rogue tree carver’s identity was unveiled when the BBC decided to do the obvious thing and knock on the door of the person who owned the publicly-accessible private property where the sculptures were spotted, David Brown. Although Brown was unavailable for comment his housekeeper reported that the works were were commissioned from chainsaw-wielding artist Tommy Craggs who makes a living traveling around the world carving all matter of mystical creatures, animals, and figurative works into trees. Indeed in his own online gallery [where we found the awesome witch tree sculpture that was set on fire] several photos of a piece entitled King Hallow of Abbey Road identically match one of mystery sculptures found in Knaresborough. Case closed.”

[via Colossal]

From the Department of Awesome Natural Wonders come these mysterious patterns on the ocean floor off the southern coast of Japan. Japanese scuba diver and photographer Yoji Ookata, who has spent the last 50 years exploring and documenting his underwater discoveries off the coast of Japan, spotted these beautiful and puzzling patterns in the sand, nearly six feet in diameter and 80 feet below sea level, during a dive near Amami Oshima at the southern tip of the country.

So what happened next? Are these rippling geometric patterns the equivalent of crop circles on the seafloor? Not quite, but the answer is still a good one. Colossal explains:

“He soon returned with colleagues and a television crew from the nature program NHK to document the origins what he dubbed the “mystery circle.”

Using underwater cameras the team discovered the artist is a small puffer fish only a few inches in length that swims tirelessly through the day and night to create these vast organic sculptures using the gesture of a single fin. Through careful observation the team found the circles serve a variety of crucial ecological functions, the most important of which is to attract mates. Apparently the female fish are attracted to the hills and valleys within the sand and traverse them carefully to discover the male fish where the pair eventually lay eggs at the circle’s center, the grooves later acting as a natural buffer to ocean currents that protect the delicate offspring. Scientists also learned that the more ridges contained within the sculpture resulted in a much greater likelihood of the fish pairing. To learn more about the circles check out the full scoop over on Spoon and Tamago, and you can see two high resolution desktop photos courtesy of NHK here.”

Busy little pufferfish boys wooing potential mates by sculpting the sand with their bodies. As far as we’re concerned, that’s pretty awesome!

[via Colossal]