10 Mysteries of Our World
With all our modern technology, it can be easy to assume that we know everything. With a few swipes of our finger, any of us can view detailed photos of the surface of Pluto or take a Google Street View tour through Antarctica’s McMurdo Station. Truly, the age of mystery is over.
Or is it? In spite of all our miraculous tech, we’re still a long way from understanding even some basic things about our planet. Here are 10 intriguing mysteries still surrounding our world.
10 The Unmapped Regions Of Our Greatest Cities
The phrase “off the map” conjures images of wild adventure in distant lands—places like the Amazon jungle or Antarctica. In reality, unmapped parts of the world could be closer than you think. Some of the world’s greatest cities still have uncharted regions that no one has ever surveyed. there are mysterious peaks out there that have never been climbed, but their identity is just as mysterious as the mountains themselves.
8 Unknown Minerals
The list of known minerals on Earth currently stands at around 5,000. That’s an insane amount, and you might be forgiven for thinking we’ve located nearly all of them. After all, a single new mineral turning up in Western Australia made news headlines in 2014.
According to an analysis last year by Robert M. Hazen at the Carnegie Institute for Science, we could still have a long way to go before we get the full set. His team used a highly sophisticated statistical modeling system to calculate the number of unknown minerals currently found on Earth. They returned with a figure of over 1,500.
This isn’t as unlikely as you think. The majority of Earth’s mineral species are rare, with most found at five or fewer locations on the entire planet. Given the sheer amount of land across the globe that’s still never been surveyed by experts, it stands to reason that plenty of minerals could have slipped through the gap.
What’s interesting about Hazen’s figure is that it only includes minerals that still exist and are likely accessible. The models he and his team designed also tracked minerals that have likely been created then lost again over the centuries. The total number of these “lost” minerals could be massive.
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