Last week's Borscht?
Post up facts and things that hardly anyone knows...... (for entertainment purposes only. NO need to fact check)
- Thread starter Kern Dog
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nutcracker
Yeah butt what about the backside?
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Point Nemo: The Ocean’s Loneliest Place
Point Nemo, discovered in 1992, is the most remote location on Earth — a place so far from land that the nearest humans are often not on Earth at all, but aboard the International Space Station, orbiting 417 kilometers above.
Located in the South Pacific, it lies 2,687 kilometers from the nearest landmass in any direction, including Antarctica. This oceanic pole of inaccessibility is so isolated that ocean currents and winds barely disturb it, creating a quiet void in the vast Pacific.
Point Nemo isn’t just a geographical curiosity — it’s also where decommissioned spacecraft are often directed to crash, earning it the nickname “the Spacecraft Cemetery.” For most of human history, it remained an unmarked stretch of water, unknown and unreachable, until modern mapping revealed its true significance.
It is the closest thing Earth has to complete isolation — a reminder of how vast, empty, and mysterious our oceans still are.
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On July 5th, 1973 on the east side of Kingman Arizona, Andy Devine Avenue, just before 2pm, a railroad worker was offloading a railroad tank car to a side tank. The tank was filled full of liquid propane. (Doxal then, now Ferrell Gas.) The valve stuck. He tried to force it. He dropped his wrench and hit a valve. It sparked a fire. The fire grew. Because of its location it took a few minutes to get a call to the local fire department. Actually the fire station was just down the street within sight. It only took the FD just a few minutes to arrive. At that time the Kingman Fire Department was operated by volunteers. Don't let the term fool you, these men were well trained and experienced. They respond from all directions from wherever to they were to converge on the pumper truck. The railroad tanks have a safety valve that if the pressure gets too high it releases the contents at a controlled rate. The responding firemen knew this and were operating a rehearsed procedure they had actually practiced not too long before. The safety valve failed. The firemen soon realized that the safety valve was not working as it was supposed to and began an evacuation procedure. It was too late. There is a term Kingmanites of the era now know, BLEVE, Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Explosion. Of the dozen firefighter who responded, one survived. He was standing behind the firetruck at the time. For some it was instantaneous. Most suffered with agonizing burns for days. I believe the last to die was my High School principal, Lee Williams. He lived for 3-4 days from his burns. I believe some 50-70 others in the area were also injured. Locals were ferrying injured people in the backs of P/U trucks to the hospital. The local radio station was broadcasting pleas for locals to bring ice to the hospital. I believe the population back then was around 8,000-10,000.
Early in my career in the 80’s one of my projects was remanufacture, rebuild and test the hydraulic flight control actuators for the SR71. Way exotic metals, all the drawings were 1957-1958. no elastomeric seals. We would test them at 600 degrees f.
The World’s Largest Waterfall Is Underwater
Earth’s biggest waterfall is under the surface of the Denmark Strait, the waterway separating Iceland and Greenland. How, you might be asking yourself, can a waterfall form completely underwater? The answer is in part a quirk of geomorphology — namely, a troughlike formation in an oceanic mountain range. Because cold water currents are denser than warm water currents, they sink downward, and in this particular spot cold water collects in the trough. Eventually, it overflows the rim of the trough and then sinks downward against the mountainside — and boom, underwater waterfall. The rim, called the Denmark Cataract, is 11,500 feet tall, making this waterfall at least three times as tall as its tallest counterpart on land.
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Wow never knew or heard that, what an ordeal...
1973 I'd been 14, I did travel to SoCal with my stepfather Bob a lot
his 64 GTO H/S, or G/S later a 68 Firebird 400 Ram Air II , or 71 Judge Ram Air III F?/S
(he would have had the 71 GTO in 1973)
sometimes into Az, off hwy-40 (?) Kingman area too,
they had a dragstrip at the airport, IIRC was cool lil' desert town...
Interesting story, but sad too
what made you think of that, ?
IIRC you were looking at property in Az at one time, was it near there ?
what's the connection ?
or just a fun (or sad story) fact you had ran across, chose to share...
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There is a thread on another web forum that is about these same topics.
The Kingman connection caught my interest. We were long to move but decided against it. We were looking at northwest Kingman. We made offers on two houses but lost out to other buyers on one. The second one… they declined our offer and a year later had dropped the price to below what we offered. Still no sale!
Thanks.
The Kingman connection caught my interest. We were long to move but decided against it. We were looking at northwest Kingman. We made offers on two houses but lost out to other buyers on one. The second one… they declined our offer and a year later had dropped the price to below what we offered. Still no sale!
Thanks.
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