northernbook Chapter 357 Unique Landforms
Chapter 357 Unique Landforms
"What is that sound?" Zhang Guodong asked warily.
Li Xiangyang shook his head: "I didn't notice it last time I came. It might be..."
His words were interrupted by a sudden, piercing noise!
The noise lasted for about ten seconds, then suddenly disappeared as if it had never happened.
However, as the noise appeared, everyone felt a sudden dizziness.
"What the hell is this place?!"
After a long while, one of the workers came to his senses and couldn't help but curse, his face filled with terror.
"Don't panic!" Zhang Guodong suppressed his dizziness, took a deep breath, and tried to appear calm as he said, "It's probably just sound waves generated by geological activity."
As he spoke, he paced slowly, ostensibly observing his surroundings, but actually using this to calm the turmoil churning within him.
While the explanation was reasonable, even he himself didn't quite believe it.
After everyone recovered, they looked at each other, none of them daring to speak their minds.
Li Xiangyang twitched his ears, listening carefully to the sounds around him.
Although the piercing noise had disappeared, the deep hum still lingered, faintly emanating from all directions.
"Look over there, everyone!" Wang Ergou suddenly pointed to an open space not far ahead.
On that surface, countless tiny pebbles were trembling irregularly, as if some force was pushing them from underground.
The area of the tremor was about two square meters in size and was irregularly elliptical.
Professor Wang rushed over immediately, his eyes gleaming with excitement: "This is incredible! This is a natural phenomenon we've never seen before!"
Li Xiangyang cautiously approached and gently nudged the moving stones with the butt of his rifle.
The pebbles that had been moved aside soon began to tremble slightly again, as if driven by a stable energy source.
“It must be an anomaly in the underground magnetic field,” Professor Wang observed the movement of the stones. “The reason they can move is because these stones contain iron.”
Hearing the professor's certainty, Li Xiangyang took out a compass from his pocket and placed it in his palm.
The pointer immediately began to spin wildly, completely failing to point due north.
“Sure enough,” he nodded, “the magnetic field strength here is far beyond normal levels, and its direction is extremely unstable.”
Professor Wang pondered, "It's difficult for ordinary geological structures to produce such strong magnetic field changes...unless there are a large number of strongly magnetic minerals underground, and their distribution is extremely uneven."
Just then, the deep hum suddenly intensified, and the ground began to tremble slightly.
The stones vibrated more violently, and some of the larger stones began to move as well.
"Everyone, step back!" Li Xiangyang shouted, pulling Professor Wang back with him.
Just as everyone retreated to a safe distance, a small pit suddenly appeared in the center of the open space, and then the ground collapsed, forming a hole about one meter in diameter.
The collapse was accompanied by a faint rustling sound, like sand flowing in an hourglass.
"This could be a common surface collapse in karst topography," Professor Wang analyzed, "but it usually wouldn't be this sudden, nor should it be accompanied by such a strong magnetic field anomaly."
Li Xiangyang and Wang Ergou exchanged a glance, both with cautious curiosity on their faces.
"I'll go take a look," Li Xiangyang said, pulling out a flashlight from his waist.
“I’ll go with you.” Wang Ergou followed closely behind.
Zhang Guodong hesitated for a moment: "This is too risky. We don't know what's down there."
“It’s precisely because we don’t know that we need someone to explore,” Li Xiangyang said, having already prepared ropes. “If anything unusual happens down there, we’ll turn back immediately.”
Ultimately, Zhang Guodong agreed to let Li Xiangyang and Wang Ergou go down to investigate.
Li Xiangyang tied one end of the rope to a thick tree trunk nearby and wrapped the other end around his waist.
He checked the equipment, making sure the guns and ammunition were in optimal condition, and then nodded to Wang Ergou.
"Be careful," Wang Ergou said in a low voice, "something doesn't look right in this hole."
Li Xiangyang did not answer. He took a deep breath, gripped the rope tightly, and slowly descended into the cave.
The cave walls exhibit a unique geological structure with distinct horizontal stratification, but interspersed with many irregular mineral crystals.
After descending about five meters, Li Xiangyang's feet touched solid ground.
He looked around and found himself in an irregular cavity, about three meters in diameter.
Most surprisingly, the cave walls are covered with a large number of crystalline minerals that shimmer with a faint blue-green light when illuminated by a flashlight.
"Ergou, you can come down now, it's safe here!" Li Xiangyang shouted, looking up.
Soon, Wang Ergou also descended. The two of them stood in this underground space and felt a strange sense of awe.
"What are these minerals?" Wang Ergou shone his flashlight on the shimmering crystals.
Li Xiangyang approached the cave wall and carefully observed the minerals.
They have a distinct metallic luster, but their color is an unusual blue-green.
“It might be a variant of some kind of magnetite,” Li Xiangyang said softly. “I’ve never seen anything like it before.”
Wang Ergou also came closer, reaching out to touch the shimmering wall, but Li Xiangyang stopped him: "Don't touch it. We don't know what it's made of."
Li Xiangyang used a small knife he carried with him to gently scrape off a small piece of mineral and put it into a small cloth bag.
At that moment, he noticed a particularly dense area of mineral deposits on the cave wall.
“Look over there,” Li Xiangyang pointed to the area, “these minerals seem to be distributed in some kind of pattern.”
The two approached to examine it and discovered that the minerals had grown along the tiny cracks in the cave wall, forming a natural network structure.
These "networks" seem to have their own inherent growth patterns, like tree rings or river branches.
"Was this formed naturally?" Wang Ergou asked, puzzled.
Li Xiangyang shook his head: "It should be. This distribution pattern is common in some geological structures, called fractal structures, but it's indeed rare to see such a clear example in minerals."
Just then, they heard a soft crackling sound, the minerals suddenly sparkled even brighter, and the temperature inside the cave rose slightly.
"These minerals... seem to react to changes in the external electromagnetic field," Li Xiangyang said thoughtfully, "possibly due to a special piezoelectric or magnetoelectric effect."
Wang Ergou took a step back warily: "I don't understand. Is it dangerous?"
Li Xiangyang observed carefully for a while: "It doesn't seem like it, but we have to be careful. I suspect this mineral is directly related to the abnormal magnetic field of Magnet Mountain."
The two continued exploring inside the cave and discovered a narrow passage leading forward.
The passage was not flat; in some places, one had to crawl to get through. As one went deeper, the passage gradually widened, eventually leading to a larger space.