Photo: MPMA Jewski
Behind the cascade of a small waterfall
in the Shale Creek Preserve section of Chestnut Ridge Park in suburban Buffalo, New York,
you might see what appears to be an optical illusion: a flickering golden
flame. Actually, you'll smell it before you see it, and amazingly, it's real,
fueled by what geologists call a macroseep of natural gas from the Earth below.
A geological fault in the shale allows
about 1 kilogram of methane gas per day to escape to the surface, where, at
some point, possibly the early 20th century, a visitor had the idea to set it
alight. The water occasionally extinguishes the flame, but there's always
another hiker with a lighter to reignite it.
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