Sand Fountain in Saudi Arabia

Sand Fountain in Saudi Arabia



This is amazingly wierd! This is what I imagined, when I was a kid, Clifford digging in a sand box would look like!

Anyone know about this phenomenon? My GF sent me the link... was on home page of YouTube. This was the first time I'd ever seen anything like it!

EDIT: If this is in the wrong forum, I apologize... feel free to move it. This just seemed to be the most fitting forum to post this in.

[edit on 23-5-2008 by Earthscum]

Looks like a natural blowout caused by a shallow lying pocket of gas.

reply to post by Earthscum

Evil me. I hope it's a sign that SA is running dry. You know, used to be oil gushing out of the ground like that and now it's only sand.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust . . .

LMAO! That thought crossed my mind as well. Methane pocket.

Another I was looking at the video for was possibly a machine doing some digging, but it's way too much sand being moved for too long in the video to be a machine.

I'm gonna say you're probably right though... methane pocket in an empty oil field would hold enough pressure and volume to do something like that.

If it was a methane pocket those men would have died. Wouldn't they? I mean I'm no expert, but that was quite the geyser. Maybe a Sandworm had to relieve a gas pocket!

Lol! Nice Dune reference! Or was that Beetlejuice? Or Tremors? (lol... at least Beetlejuice ad an amusig twist on it).

I was thinking about that, but methane is lighter than air. I was thinking that being so close would stifle the air, but I was thinking CO2, which WOULD have killed those guys, due to the fact that it is heavier than the air.

[edit on 23-5-2008 by Earthscum]

reply to post by Earthscum

It looks like water and some sand mixed,see how it falls straight back down and not floating away as dust sand will.
My 2cents will say its a burst water main.
LOL even allah gets a mention,so that explains it

Burst sewage pipe ?

Dirty water ?

Where is the video shot ?

Near the coast ?

Take care.

Regards
Lee



[edit on 23-5-2008 by h3akalee]

Well it prob aint a burst sewerage pipe - firstly sewerage is not usually a lovely sandy colour! and I don't think it's ever pumped at that pressure.

As for water main that is possible - but it's still a hell of a lot of pressure required for that - and a hell of a big diameter pipe too - I've personally seen a 36" main at about 4 bar (40 meters) pressure go, the graffiti removal muppets in Hammersmith had no idea how to use a stand pipe - they crossed the thread, they they whacked the valve open and boom! rumour had it they never found the stand pipe anywho the resulting fountain could be seen above the 3 story buildings... Taking into account the added weight of the sand I'd have to say that if that was a burst then the pressure would of been 6 - 8 bar.

Could it not be a high pressure airline? for industry of some sort - or even intentional using air?

Edit: and that sand does look pretty dry to me.

[edit on 23/5/2008 by Now_Then]

Originally posted by Now_Then
Well it prob aint a burst sewerage pipe - firstly sewerage is not usually a lovely sandy colour! and I don't think it's ever pumped at that pressure.

As for water main that is possible - but it's still a hell of a lot of pressure required for that - and a hell of a big diameter pipe too - I've personally seen a 36" main at about 4 bar (40 meters) pressure go,

Could it not be a high pressure airline? for industry of some sort - or even intentional using air?

Edit: and that sand does look pretty dry to me.

[edit on 23/5/2008 by Now_Then]

G'day Now_Then please allow me to comment on your reply .
Ok I understand what you saw when a 36" pipe burst,there's an incredible amount of pressure I know.Think what an 8'-10' water pipe would look like when bursted.
The video of subject shows what looks like a main road between two towns I'll guess where you would find 8' to 10' water pipes that connects the water supply,when a town taps into these Main Water Supplys the pipes are rejuiced by 1/3 to 1/4 and more,all the way down to your copper house pipes so the Mains pressure can continue to the next town.
By narrowing the pipes you retain pressure and not blow out the town that's taped into its water pipes.
This video of subject seems to me that a Mains Water Pipe has blown out,with the pressure it picks up all surrouding materials and up she goes.
This sort off presure will pick up big rocks, boulders and throw them in the air,think of a car it would pick it up like Paper

I must state that only water/liquid will do what this video shows,if for example it was pressured air,air would blow straight up and keep up,all materials would fall by the side of the air spout but the air will still blow up.See how the fountain moves up together and suddenly drops as one unit.
I can't think of any reason a high pressure air line would be in an area like that,how big would the compressor be.
anyways my 2cents.
Regards
Zelong.

HI Guys,

One thing noticed was that the sand was not collecting around the site!!! It just seemed to be melding back. I would have thought that a dune would have formed around it looking at the amount of sand being thrown out.

I believe this to be water and sand mix. Purely for the reason that if it was just sand because of the amounts being thrown up quite quickly you would begin to see a small dune build up where all this sand is falling. Look on the sides of this thing there is no build up of anything which leads me to believe its merely water with a little added sand

Originally posted by Earthscum
I was thinking about that, but methane is lighter than air. I was thinking that being so close would stifle the air, but I was thinking CO2, which WOULD have killed those guys, due to the fact that it is heavier than the air.

[edit on 23-5-2008 by Earthscum]

It's possible, and has occured naturally.

An example of this can be found in a documentary called "The ten most deadly volcanoes" or something like that, whereby one of the volcanoes was actually located underneath a vessel of water, and when it erupted it released a very large amount of CO2 or CH4 (i can't remember which) into the water, which then began to rise and drift away from the water vessel once the molecules had broken the surface due to being hot.

I think that one was named "The Silent Killer".

Anonymous: That would be generally true, however if the cause of the sand geyser wasn't that far down into the earth then that wouldn't happen.

Remember back to when you were a kid and you'd blow bubbles in your cola using a straw - by blowing bubbles nearer to the surface, it wouldn't matter how hard you blew, you would not be able to displace the liquid from it's container.

Which sort of backs up the idea that it's a burst pipe, and judging from the number of chemical tanks on the back of those trucks that doesn't sound too far fetched.

Of course, the video lasts over a minute, so if anyone was losing some sort of critical resource i'd imagine they'd turn off the flow rather sharply.

If it's a sewage pipe, i don't think the pressure would be great enough to acheive that level of spray.

Even a burst water main would probably only reach about half that height, considering the overall weight of the sand.



I'm willing to agree that it's a natural gas pocket, but that makes me wonder why the people standing around it aren't dead...

I saw this video a while ago and came to the conclusion that most likely it's a direct result of the large amount of oil and that becuase of the agressive drilling that's going on the oil pockets underground are becoming vacant and filling up with air and as the ground starts to settle and collapse the pockets the air is force up through the earth and being mostly sand in that part of the world that the sand it'self filters most of the toxic fumes and gases just like a giant water filter for your home or tap.
JMHO