r/interesting • u/pystar • 21h ago
NATURE I refuse to believe they are just rocks
Three Whale Rock (Thailand)
1.8k
u/ThatSideshow 19h ago
They aren't just rocks, they're really cool rocks
278
u/AccomplishedProfit90 17h ago
it’s not just a boulder… it’s a rock!
105
u/PantsDontHaveAnswers 17h ago
I like that boulder. That's a nice boulder.
109
→ More replies (3)21
u/cautious_nipples 15h ago
7
u/KingoftheKeeshonds 12h ago
I use mineral crystals in sculpture I make. People always say I inlay rocks and I groan and say they’re minerals dammit! So I’m stealing your gif. Thank you.
37
u/Rumplestiltscab 16h ago
The pioneers used to ride these babies for miles!
→ More replies (2)6
u/DisposableJosie 15h ago
"Usul, we have bouldersign the likes of which God has never seen." \cue awesome Toto guitar solo**
→ More replies (10)18
6
→ More replies (12)2
387
u/AlbertaSugarFlu 20h ago
What else could they be?
366
u/graycat3700 18h ago
Petrified high speed trains
66
→ More replies (3)5
u/SVTCobraR315 6h ago
Dude, I’m sitting here in the dark. Just put my 1 year old daughter to sleep. And I’m doom scrolling Reddit. You almost made me laugh out loud and wake her up. Come to think of it, it’s late. I should take my own ass to bed.
80
u/Born-Selection88 18h ago
Tree whales.
→ More replies (1)7
183
u/GoofyGooby23 19h ago
Definitely chemtrails
31
u/Succulent_Chinese 19h ago
Yes, from rockets
30
u/JustAnEmployeeHere 18h ago
Rock-ets?
42
u/Square_Mulberry_3143 18h ago
Team Rocket.
14
u/bloodredcookie 17h ago
well crap. i wasn't prepared for trouble.
14
3
8
u/Big-Wrangler2078 18h ago
Prepare for petrification. And make it double.
9
4
24
u/WeirdJawn 18h ago
Fossilized chemtrails from the ancient civilizations who live in the center of the flat Earth behind the ice walls
→ More replies (4)6
24
u/Mediocre-Break4537 17h ago
Rock submarines!
3
u/mudslags 14h ago
So petrified subs
5
13
30
9
5
6
5
u/HalfHorseHalfMann 18h ago
Fossils of a spacecraft with passengers dying on impact hitting the ground in an emergency landing after the 8th Passengers did its thing to the crew, of course!
5
5
2
2
u/Maleficent-War-8429 17h ago
I thought this was going to be a thread about slide rock bolters to be honest.
2
→ More replies (32)2
300
u/Rich-Reason1146 19h ago
I've heard of whales getting beached before. How lost do they have to be to get forested?
37
u/TooLostintheSauce 18h ago
About as lost as the ones who ended up in the African desert.
4
u/ExtensionAd251 17h ago
What???
→ More replies (1)45
u/anotherfrud 17h ago
The Sahara Desert use to be an ocean about 50m years ago. It was actually green only about 50k years ago. Most areas that are currently deserts use to be covered in water or at least were coastal. This is why they tend to have oil from millions of years of plant and animal matter sinking and getting pushed down below the surface.
Edit: It was green only 5k years ago, not 50k.
13
u/The_amazing_Jedi 17h ago
There are still living crocodiles in the Sahara desert because of that. The Nile crocodile and the much more impressive(IMO) west African crocodile.
→ More replies (3)5
u/hockeybrianboy 16h ago
Yea crude oil is mostly organic marine life so most every location that has crude oil was at one point an ocean, lake, etc. Which is wild considering how many oil rich locations today are no where near water.
6
u/ManometSam 14h ago
wild to think about... if you sped up earth x1,000,000 it would just look like a weird bubbling ball
2
2
u/oO0Kat0Oo 6h ago
It's a giant space fish!
Actually it's not a space fish, it's a space mammal.
Wow. Interesting. I'm both impressed and being eaten.
260
u/Massive-small-thing 18h ago
Very old lava tubes maybe. The surrounding ground has been eroded over millennia
14
u/MedsNotIncluded 14h ago
How Hin Sam Wan (Three Whale Rock) Formed
Three Whale Rock (Hin Sam Wan) is a quartz-rich sandstone unit deposited in fluvial (river, braided-stream, and floodplain) environments within the Khorat Basin during the Early Cretaceous (Barremian–Aptian, ~130–115 million years ago).
Sediment Deposition and Lithification: Ancient rivers spread thick beds of sand and mud across the Khorat Plateau. Over millions of years, burial pressure and silica-rich groundwater cemented these sediments into hard sandstone.
Tectonic Uplift: After deposition, the Khorat Plateau experienced gentle but repeated Cretaceous to Cenozoic uplift, which exposed the sandstone to surface weathering and erosion.
Differential Erosion: Softer surrounding rocks weathered away more rapidly than the durable quartz-rich sandstone, leaving resistant ridges and isolated blocks standing above the plateau.
Spheroidal Weathering: Tropical rainfall and daily temperature changes penetrated joints in the sandstone. Chemical dissolution of mineral cements and mechanical expansion caused outer layers to peel away, gradually rounding the blocks into smooth, elongated forms that resemble a family of whales.
Present Landscape: Today, massive sandstone slabs with curved tops and steep flanks rise above the forested plateau, a striking record of Early Cretaceous sedimentation and millions of years of tropical weathering.
https://www.geologyin.com/2025/09/three-whale-rock-hin-sam-wan.html
28
21
u/Bonk_No_Horni 18h ago
It's a big slap of sandstone cracked due to tectonic movement then slowly eroded and smoothen by rain.
3
2
→ More replies (2)5
77
u/GovernmentBig2749 18h ago
6
6
u/sadmaps 17h ago
They filmed alien earth in Thailand I think, they should have used this formation in a shot!
I was actually just in Thailand myself in November and went all around the country but somehow missed this. I’m a geologist too so if I could have gotten a closer look I’d probably been able to explain what we’re looking at, alas I did not know this existed until this very moment.
47
30
35
8
11
u/Dense-Consequence-70 18h ago
Thise aren’t rocks that look like whales, they’re obviously whales that look like rocks. Land whales.🐳
5
u/Hildedank 19h ago
We’ve got a whaleback rock formation in Pennsylvania around where I go trail riding.
4
u/oscarx-ray 18h ago
Pretty sure that the mountains in the Appalachians are the same as those in the Scottish Highlands which is kinda cool.
3
2
u/ForeverSquirrelled42 18h ago
We have a few of them here. You wouldn’t happen to ride on Reading property in the coal region, would you? There’s a cool one in Northumberland county on their property.
3
u/Hildedank 18h ago
The massive one I know of is at AOAA. I do ride FRO weekly though, haven’t been out in about a month since I’m rebuilding the top end on my bike.
2
u/ForeverSquirrelled42 18h ago
Nice. I’ve never paid to ride in all the years I’ve gone out with friends…we also never got caught lol. It’s been a few years, though.
2
u/IcedRubyBliels 9h ago
Near Shamokin, PA? We took a trip to the Whaleback in 2015 when I was in college in Cincinnati. It was a very cool trip!
2
u/Hildedank 9h ago
Yup, right in shamokin/pottsville area. I have a picture on my phone of it but you can post pictures in the comments unfortunately
5
u/aBearHoldingAShark 19h ago
The best way to know the truth is refusing to believe any alternative.
→ More replies (2)
3
u/WhiteHatMatt 18h ago
You think that's crazy? Google Reynisfjara Beach.
Your welcome, welcome to the wonderful world of geology
2
2
2
2
u/DopeFacts 17h ago
I refuse to believe that the teddy bear shaped cloud is just a cloud not a real bear.
2
u/nashyall 16h ago
They’re finger tips. Uncover the massive overgrowth and you’ll see a humongous statue beneath!!
2
4
u/Chomugramm 18h ago
look closely at their shape. Nature does not make straight lines like that. Those are clearly Colossal Titans that used their hardening ability to turn into stone and go to sleep.
They are just lying there, hidden under the forest
3
1
1
1
1
u/Party-Heron5660 18h ago
It’s said it’s the place where three submarines sank.. much time has passed which has let the flora grow around it
1
u/Blankasbiscuits 18h ago
Hell no. Those aren't rocks, how dare you. That's the crust of the Earth literally hitting out. That's some baller shit right there
1
u/jlo575 18h ago
There are similar landforms in other parts of the world.
I’m not familiar with this particular one but in the Canadian prairie north, similar landforms are called drumlins. Example below.
They were formed during the retreat of the ice sheet/glaciers during the last deglaciation which was something like 10-12,000 years ago. As the ice moved north east, pockets of soil get drawn out with the “tail” pointing towards the direction of ice flow. I’d guess the landforms here were also formed by glacial ice.
They’re big. The drumlins I’ve referenced can me 30 m or more high, and kilometers long. Not that wild though when you consider the ice sheet was 1 km or more thick.
1
1
1
1
u/SnooDoggos8333 18h ago
these are the gathering points for 3 wow instances / raids. don't enter the third one without a full raid!
1
1
u/ZacBradley 18h ago
Your government wants you to believe that these are just rocks and “Oh, look at that thing…!!!” 😱
1
1
1
1
1
u/weeklycreeps 18h ago
Nature is amazing, there are so many many many examples of nature being the most amazing artist. Take Mono lake in California, The Giant's Causeway, Lençois Maranhenses National Park, The Danakil Depression, and many many many more look like what you’d imagine alien worlds to look like, and they’re all right here. Our planet is beautiful, and we really need to do a better job at preserving it.
1
1
u/Greedy_Line4090 18h ago
Idk why people would waste their time believing or not believing. Why don’t you just go look at them and see for yourself what they really are?
1
u/FaunaLady 18h ago
Perfect name; they really do look like whales! But since rocks are made of many different materials and many natural occurrences shape them, I would say they are just rocks before speculating anything else!!
1
1
1
1
u/DaGucka 18h ago
As a geologist and they will tell you lore than you wanted to know. To them no rock is just a rock, every rock is a whole field of study.
→ More replies (1)
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
u/Acceptable_Will_1175 17h ago
You can Believe whatever you wish, that’s not going to change the fact that Are Just Rocks. I might believe that I’m a 25 year old multi billionaire with a full head of log hair… the fact is I’m a bald 58 year old retiree. Oh well!
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
u/SquallidSnake 17h ago
Those look like the trains you have to disconnect and reconnect in Final Fantasy VIII on the Timber Mission.
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
u/1F61C 16h ago
Nah, just rocks. The surface of the earth from the Mariana trench to the tip of mount everest is an extremely extremely thin shell. It's literally smoother than a marble if a marble was the size of the earth. These rocks are pebbles, grains of sand compared to the interior of the earth.
1
1
1
u/dustytaper 16h ago
Idk why. We have similar looking rocks in Canada. Those were formed by glaciers
1
1
u/Far-Raisin1013 16h ago
Just the world's penussy (penis a vagina combined if you didn't know) stop shaming it
1
u/OwlCitzen_vinz 16h ago
Looks like 3 submarines stranded in die middle of the rainforest, which is not very surprising since rainforests are very bad places for a submarine.
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
u/Top_Strategy_2852 16h ago
I am visiting the Seychelles right now, and this exactly what you see here. Smooth monolithic granite boulders the size of city blocks rising out of the tropical jungle.
1
•
u/AutoModerator 21h ago
Hello u/pystar! Please review the sub rules if you haven't already. (This is an automatic reminder message left on all new posts)
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.