Explorer blown away after discovering 'eternal flame' burning beneath icy waterfall near New York

Natural wonders such as fires burning for decades or waterfalls that appear to be flowing in reverse are often seen in the depths of dense forests or nestled between hills. But about 20 miles south of Buffalo city in west New York, an “Eternal Flame” has been burning on and on for thousands of years that too right below a waterfall. A video of the “Eternal Flame Falls” is now gaining widespread attention on social media after it was posted by a user named Mike Loughran (@fishlikemike) on Instagram, according to Newsweek.

Large fire burning in the forest at night (Representative Image Source: Getty Images | Bianca Gruensberg)

In the video, the flame looks like a tiny ember that has lit up a dark crevice carved inside the snowy terrain surrounding the waterfall. While water seeps down inside the tiny space, the flame continues to burn creating a fascinating sight. According to Discovery, the flame is about 8 inches high and the waterfall hosting it is 35-foot long. “This flame is one of the 9 big naturally occurring eternal flames we have here on earth,” Mike wrote in the caption of his post.

Eternal Flame Falls in Shale Creek Preserve (Representative Image Source: Getty Images | WireStock)

Mike went on to add, “This flame here is one of the more famous eternal flames due to its location inside of a waterfall. They occur because of cracks in the earth that leak a combination of natural gases.” Discovery explains that the flame is indeed a result of natural gas pockets that are formed by plumes of gases leaking from the cracks in the shale. However, in the scientific community, the cause behind this flame has remained a mystery. A 2013 study published in Marine and Petroleum Geology found that this flame "may have burnt naturally for many hundreds or even thousands of years."

The study authors noted that this flame was first documented by explorers during the mid-1600s. "Natural gas seeps with significant, continuous and long-lasting gas fluxes are generally driven by pressurized deep gas pools, which are attributed to conventional reservoir rocks, typically porous sandstones or limestones, and are connected to the surface by faulting of overlying cap rocks," they wrote.

“This flame and these seepages have occurred for millions of years in those areas and we know that the source rock, about 400 meters deep, is not very warm. It should not even be able to produce much gas at this temperature, yet the gas is coming and it’s not being depleted. So our hypothesis is that a different mechanism is responsible for continuous gas generation at depth,” said Professor Arndt Schimmelmann of Indiana University, as per Discovery. If the flame starts flickering slowly, it can also be reignited using a barbeque lighter. “That’s wild,” said a user @traylittle, commenting on Mike’s video. The sight of “Eternal Flame Falls” also made @the.scary.gary ponder, “Is this how cavemen found fire?” While @tammclurg said, “I wonder what the first man thought of this when they came across it. Magic!”

Comment by @andrew.too.real under the video (Image Source: Instagram)