6 mo. ago • 98%

Kummakivi is a 500.000 kg rock in Finland that has been balancing on another rock for 11.000 years

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kummakivi

97 comments

Better keep it low profile, or some tourists will try some bad ideas.

96
- American Boy Scout leaders.
  
  47
  
  Ruining historic natural monuments is somehow not first on the list of American Boy Scout leader atrocities 🫤
  
  12
  
  Or this more recently 🙁
  
  10
- RIP Sycamore Gap tree.
  
  12
- I feel like if this was my town idiots would have done it long ago by all means necessary
  
  7
- A stick of dynamite might offset it enough to roll.
  
  5
  
  I was thinking trucks
  
  1
This is the rock that keeps the Earth right side up. If you knock it off we flip upside down and Australia gets to rule the planet.

45
I would never go anywhere near that rock

44
- Main character syndrome lol
  
  -74
  
  I think you recently heard this term and are trying to shoehorn it into any conversation you can.
  
  77
heavy breathing

34
- All hail noita
  
  11
  
  Fly now, Squishy Finnish Witch!
  
  3
  
  Oh my god how have I never seen this game! Fucking buying and playing today 🤘 thanks for the name!
  
  1
I don't care how long this has been going on, I ain't fucking around near that thing.

30
My cat would go there and push it over...

29
- There's not a feline or a man alive who could move that without tools.
  
  -1
  
  If cats could read and open doors, they would collectively go to Finland to push it over with a huge mass of pure cat power.
  
  4
  
  You understimate the sheer amount of "i-want-to-push-over-things-energy" of a cat.
  
  1
Ima have to see an 11,000 year old picture and an 11,001 year old picture as proof of this.

25
Very impressive from that view! But more stable than that tiny contact point would suggest.

24
Is there a country that uses a different thousands separator based on unit?

22
- Yes, in a lot of places a period is used for order-of-magnitude separation and comma is used for decimal places.
  
  In this title the use seems inconsistent.
  
  23
  
  Either the rock weighs exactly 500kg to an impressive precision and has been there for eleven thousand years or it weighs five hundred thousand kg and has been there for exactly 11 years.
  
  17
  
  It's got something for everyone.
  
  5
  
  Right, i think he's asking if there's some culture where the inconsistency is designed based on unit. So, for example, period for years, comma for weight.
  
  I think it's simply an error. Maybe AI generated?
  
  3
- Finland uses space for thousands (and comma for decimals), so an article in Finnish would have 500 000 kg
  
  8
- I don't care how long it been balancing there I wouldn't dare stand that close to it, be just my luck it pick that moment to shrift.
  
  2
What happened 11,000 years ago?

13
- The ice sheet covering northern europe started to melt away, and with that we got what is called "glacial erratics". Rocks had traveled from once place to another, and then settled. In Sweden we call those "giants throw", because it was assumed that the only way those big rocks could be where they are was if a giant had thrown it.
  
  46
  
  In Finland those are called siirtolohkare (moved boulder) or hiidenkivi (devil's rock)
  
  11
- it was actually around 11025 years ago. i first heard about this in 1999, and it was 11000 years then.
  
  12
- Ice age
  
  7
- You're not gonna believe it.
  
  6
Nice, what bouldering grade?

12
If that was a comma, it would be way more impressive…

11
- In Europe generally commas are used for decimals and periods for marking thousands
  
  18
  
  Then, it's a very light rock!
  
  11
When earthquake?

10
- Finland is not close enough to the edges of tectonic plates, so if we get earthquakes here at all, they're barely noticeable.
  
  15
  
  so if we get earthquakes here at all, they’re barely noticeable.
  
  ..and caused by the sea bed rising after it was compressed because of the weight of the glacier during the ice age
  
  4
  
  Not being close to a plate does not necessarily mean only small quakes.
  
  There were a series of what today would be absolutely devastating earthquakes in the Midwestern U.S., far from any tectonic plates, between 1811 and 1812.
  
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1811–1812_New_Madrid_earthquakes
  
  1
The age sends my imagination racing, I wonder if there was a Proto-Indo-European name for it, as a remote curiosity/enigma.

"They say that somewhere up north, half a moon beyond the most remote village, there is a large stone put on top of another by the hand of the Earth Goddess herself."

9
Or some aliens with antigrav guns were like "Hey you know what would be funny?!?"

7
- Rock is in the floor
  
  Ice age ends, water floods dirt around the rock away
  
  Rock either rolls down or stays
  
  We have lots of these in Austria and at least here this is how they became like that.
  
  2
Let's hope it doesn't get destroyed by idiots.

6
- Listen I'm trying very hard not to go there with a hamer and a chisel. But in case I couldn't help myself to take a train to Finlande, everyone could understand the urge against which I lost.
  
  2
- That honey with the stick will beat them to death.
  
  1
- I'm going to destroy it
  
  -4
  
  Lame attempt at a troll. If you're going to at least try to troll be creative. You're boring, shallow and unimaginative.
  
  1
There is another of these in Lanesborough, Massachusetts, USA.

Balance Rock State Park

5
Can anyone tell me why the bottom rock is so smooth? I imagine people come and sit on it and touch them both frequently, and that they are two rocks from different places but they each look very dissimilar. I guess what I am really asking, is the bottom rock so smooth because of the big boy topping it?

4
- Likely glaciation, the bottom rock was likely on the bottom of an ice sheet and millions of tons of ice moving over it over time had smoothed it out.
  
  The top rock is probably from many miles away and was carried and placed there from the receding glacier. To me the top rock looks like it is a completely different type of stone then the bottom.
  
  16
  
  Awesome. That would make sense.
  
  1
I'm not convinced that weighs 500 tons, that's the same as at least 65 of the largest African elephants or 2.5 of the largest blue whales

4
- After some googling, some of the heavier rock types are 3g/cm^3, which is 3000kg/m^3
  
  If we use the person as a rough ruler of 1.6m, the rock is about 5 person wide, and 3 person high (eye measure), give or take. And if we say it's 3 person deep, then it has a rough mass of 5*3*3*1.6*3000 = 216 000 kg, which is in the same order of magnitude.
  
  Close enough to check out, I'd say.
  
  Edit: I realized since the actual ruler we use is 1.6m (assumed), it should be multiplied by 1.6 three times (one for each dimension/length), not just once. If we do that, we end up with 921 600 kg instead, putting 500 000 kg well within the range of possibilities from a quick calculation.
  
  Edit 2: as pointed out below, the actual correct estimation would be 553 tons
  
  20
  
  Your edit is correct except I get 553 tons! I'm still shocked it'd easily tip the scales vs 2 large blue whales
  
  Edit: ahh you accidentally did 5x5x3 instead of 5x3x3
  
  6
  
  Um, wouldn't we be dividing by 1.6 instead of multiplying?
  
  1
  
  You got me confused.
  
  5*3*3*1.6*3000
  
  is the same as
  
  [(5*1.6) + (3*1.6) + (3*1.6)]*3000
  
  0
- Useless. We all want something standard. Like how many pygmy marmosets that is.
  
  5
- Morning, yes, I'll have 65 of your largest African elephants please.
  
  2
aw man, this is like the cooler version of the jug rock.

Jug rock is a better name though. I don't know what that name translates to so maybe im wrong again. I hope not.

3
The name "odd stone" is really deserved. There's also a pine tree growing on top of the rock

2
Neat. The trick rock has a pet tree

1
I can't believe it weights just 500kg! But what happened 11 years ago? Who put it there?

-3
- You reguegitated the top comment from Reddit, where this was posted 24 hours before it was posted here.
  
  -1
  
  I'm sorry that somebody wrote a similar post on reddit. I hope you'll forgive me one day for having similar thoughts...
  
  2
  
  The tireless work of the repost police must be exhausting. You lone hero you.
  
  -1
Can someone knock it off? I hate when people keep thinking these things matter

-7
- It does not have to matter, but can still be cool. I also don't know if this sentence makes sense.
  
  1

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