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Thursday, March 05, 2009

"Cosmic Motors" Concept Art by Daniel Simon


"QUANTUM SHOT" #542
Link - by Avi Abrams



If you wondered who is on the cutting edge of futuristic vehicle design, here is your answer

Daniel Simon, God bless his skills and imagination, is the coolest concept vehicle designer this side of Saturn's rings. The future itself can't help but shrivel and scuttle into a corner when this mighty artist enters the room. Yes! the Future itself feels intimidated, knowing that it will have to come up with something as radical and smooth as Daniel's visions in a few hundred years.



Get the book "Cosmic Motors" while it's still available, and find a quiet corner to drool over it

We admit, this feature is a bit overdue, but not for a lack of trying! It's just that Daniel Simon is a super-busy guy these days and is pretty hard to catch. Between designing the objects of future fetish and the newest luxury car models, he jet sets from Berlin to California three times on any given day. One hour he is having lunch with the top Star Wars artist, the next - he is surfing with a bunch of dudes (and supermodels) in the sunny Land of the Free.

In the meantime, his futuristic vehicles book "Cosmic Motors" continues to sell like a bunch of Ganymedian pancakes, or hot pies during Russian perestroika - and he is on fire with designs for the next book. So check out this catalog of galactic machinery, before it disappears from the stores (you can also order it from his site):




DETONATOR: a magnum-sized street-cruiser bike with a V8 engine

Daniel Simon says (in February 2008) "Yeah, I really like your site and think it's really cool, so, lets do it, tell me what you need! Best and until soon..." That soon turned out to be a full year, and finally we are able to exclusively feature his designs, and damn the torpedoes! (the pin-up style of some of his sexy drivers and machinery put our mind into a chrome-sleek-vintage-retro-pulp-WorldWarTwo-patriotic mode)



The Astrocon TAOOA light ray gunner

At some point we sent deeply philosophical, life-altering questions to Simon, to which he replied by sending us his book (which rocked the socks off our editorial team) and saying that he'd work on the answers while on the plane. However, the answers got siphoned off the airplane into a big blue yonder and are slowly drifting to the ground somewhere over China. In the meantime, here are some interesting facts from introduction to his book:




A pilot of the CAMARUDO pilot training vehicle and a cockpit detail view

"In 2001 he obtained his degree in vehicle design at the University of Applied Science in Pforzheim, Germany. After completion he went to Barcelona and designed concept cars for Bugatti and Lamborghini, followed by 5 years in the VW Group's Advanced Design... He has since returned to Berlin and founded the Daniel Simon Studio where he is designing virtual vehicles for his brand Cosmic Motors, published in his first book "Cosmic Motors". In parallel he continues to be a car designer, and offers his services to premium car makers."




Lots of things happen "long time ago, in a galaxy far far away". But "Cosmic Motors" happened in your nearby bookstore. So go there and get it - we only hope that this book will be followed by two sequels, three prequels and one TV animation series.


Design process of the Cosmic Motors DETONATOR bike.

Here you can see how much joy the curves of a properly-designed luxury car can bring to a blissful eye:




An "epic vehicle" is one way to describe the exploration Ice Train that routinely meets two dozen Cthulhu on any given trip (who line up for credit for a chance of ownership, on their unspeakable terms). It's big, it's gorgeous, and it knows it:




ICETRAIN is a gigantic ground patrol vehicle, over 180 feet long

Stewardesses of these sexy vehicles are pretty sexy, too. Almost as groovy as the original "Joy of Flying" examples of the 1960s, see here -




This is probably the most atmospheric and moody image that we intensely like (a "Hard Days Night" caption, perhaps?) -


All art courtesy and copyright Daniel Simon)


Detailed to the point of obsession, sleek and sensual enough to be considered evil - these machines haunt your dreams and DRIVE your desires, prompting you to look on your current car with a sort of deep sadness...

Order the book directly from the publisher here or from Amazon here. On the right is the cover of another great concept art book we recommend:




ALSO READ: "Extravagant Designs by Luigi Colani" ->

Permanent Link......+StumbleUpon ...+Facebook
Category: Auto,Art

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Incl. "Clumsy Heinz Automatons"


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Not safe, by any stretch of imagination

COMMENTS::

7 Comments:

Blogger Peter said...

The photo you labeled "Ice Train" appears in the fantasy art compilation "Spectrum 15 here's the Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/Spectrum-15-Contemporary-Fantastic-Underwood/dp/1599290278

It's one of my favorite images in the book! If you are a fan an fantasy art (like me) you should check it out!

___  
Anonymous groovista said...

All hail the Heir to Syd Mead!!!

Wowsers, Mr. Simon is the real deal. About time the Future looked like itself again, isn't it?

Looking at these images takes me back to the best psychedelic trip of my life. One merry night in 1981 I spent a pile of cash on naughty things and a copy of Syd Mead's book "Sentinel." Hours and hours in Tomorrowland...

___  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

If it weren't for the creepily starved and pin-up girls he envisions as pilots... Maybe they put so much money in their vehicles that they could afford neither food nor protective clothing.

___  
Anonymous designsdelight.com said...

Dark Roasted Blend

He is great designer, I featured him in my concept motorbike article,

http://www.designsdelight.com/motorbikes/10-spectacular-concept-motorbikes/

But I can see Why he needed a more in depth look.

___  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Those will never sell. Here's the design process that works:

Homer: All right, you eggheads! I want a place in this car to put my drink!
Designer: Sir, the-the car has a beverage holder.
Homer: Hello! Hello, Einstein! I said a place to put my drink. You know those Super Slakers they sell at the Kwik-E-Mart? (Makes a large circle with his hands.) The cup is this big!
Designer: (Talks as he writes on a clipboard.) Extremly large beverage holder.
Homer: I'm not done yet. You know that little ball you put on the aerial so you can find your car in the parking lot? That should be on every car!
Designer: (Talks as he writes on a clipboard.) Little ball.
Homer: And some things are so snazzy, they never go out of style! Like tail fins and bubble domes and shag carpeting.

___  
Anonymous Wayne John said...

Incredible!!!!! Awesome!!!! Very Cool!!!!

___  
Anonymous Zen of Design said...

Daniel Simon is our hero! Enough said. Hopefully his contributions to Tron 2 will hold up this high level.

___  

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  • The picture with two green tram cars is most probably taken in the AnsaldoBreda workshop.
    The damaged vehicle on the right was involved in a crash in Milan, near Porta Romana, on 10 october 2008: it derailed due to an error of the driver, who was using his mobile phone while driving.
    After going out of the track, the Jumbotram hit another tram, an older model made in 1927 (those tram, called "Carrelli" are one of the symbols of the city).
    Noone was injured, but people on the older vehicle got blocked inside the car due to a failure of emergency opening of the doors.

    http://milano.corriere.it/cronache/articoli/2008/10_Ottobre/13/scontro_tram_milano_bligny_sabotino_atm_feriti.shtml
    Read more

  • The video at the end isn't a train hitting a concrete wall, it is a crash test for nuclear waste transport containers. The container is on a flatbed train car that has been turned on it's side, and the train hits the container (the yellow box)
    Read more

  • Sorry if you know this already, but it has happened that trains that are to be scrapped have been cleaned up and then dumped in the sea to make artificial reefs for wildlife and divers to enjoy. That may explain the underwater image. Or maybe not! :-)
    Read more

  • The crushed black tanker car was the result of implosion. "The general-purpose tank car in the photo below was being steam cleaned in preparation for maintenance. The job was still in progress at the end of the shift so the employee cleaning the car decided to block in the steam. The car had no vacuum relief so as it cooled, the steam condensed and the car imploded." Keep in mind that steam has around 1600 times the volume of condensed water.

    Two links:

    How tank car implosions work.
    http://blogs.howstuffworks.com/2008/04/22/how-tank-car-implosions-work/

    Lessons Learned in 2001: Over/Under Pressure Relief Required for System Safety from the Richland Operations Office Department of Energy
    http://www.hanford.gov/RL/?page=525&parent=506
    Read more

  • I'd have to watch the episode again, but the underwater subway car is probably a screencap from an episode of CSI: New York. It' looks awfully familiar...

    The train on the "unfinished" bridge is out there deliberately; there's nothing that will stop it from backing up in that image.

    The imploded tank car might be from a test/demonstration that was done - I'd have to dig out the video again and see if it's the same location.
    Read more

  • Train disaster happen quite often, luckily mostly without fatalities. One example for a catastrophe is the disaster in Eschede/Germany, where a high-speed train derailed and collided with a bridge, killing 101 people on board.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eschede_train_disaster
    http://nedies.jrc.it/uploadedimages_nedies/Eschede1.jpg
    Read more

  • montparnasse is a station in paris, france, quite in the center of the city. its original name is "gare montparnasse". from there, trains depart to the south-western part of france.
    Read more

  • (concerning img #4. thought you should make that clear. it really happend in the heart of paris)
    Read more

  • Thank you WrathofDog (cool nick!) post updated with a video link; good info, all - updated.
    Read more

  • "Nowhere to go, can't backup either" Is a photoshop job, and a terrible one at that. You don't even have to look that closely to tell.
    Read more

  • The CN on the side of the train stands for Canadian National (not pacific).
    Read more

  • You should look up the train wreck in Prince George, British Columbia about 2 years ago. We all stood in the park and watched the train burning across the river. You could see the smoke all around town.
    Read more

  • Picture #6 in the Russian section shows two rubber tired wheels attached to some wreckage between the two trains. The spiked objects to the right are diamond harrows which are not quite obsolete farm equipment. There's another harrow in the center further back and a badly bent on on the left. The wreckage with wheels is the harrow cart. It looks like a farmer was crossing the track when he shouldn't have.
    Read more

  • Ad. Utterly Surreal: Tilt-Shift Train Wrecks
    I'm not convinced... these look as actulal tilt-shift photos, not "PS trickery". Of course tilt-shift can be immitated by retouching a photo on PS or other software but why bother? The fun You get with a tilt shift lens (such as PC-E Nikkor 24mm for example) is worth a lot more than time spent on your PS. The PS tilt-shift retouched photos will NEVER look as good as taken with an actual perspective-correction lens.
    Peace to You all. I love this blog.
    Read more

  • The photo of former New York City rollingstock unit 9577 is *definitely* not a train wreck. As someone mentioned before, this is one of the repurposed Redbirds that have been stripped of usable parts, cleaned, and dumped off the eastern seaboard. Please get it right, or note it.

    If you're going to show an accident involving NYC rollingstock, at least show a real accident
    Read more

  • Great info, Mark - updated
    Read more

  • Check this out.. Two photos of the only train wreck in US history where four steam locomotive trains collided... occurred at East Thompson Connecticut, Dec.4, 1891.

    http://www.ahrtp.com/HallofFameOnline2/pages/NYNEtrainwreck.htm

    http://www.ahrtp.com/HallofFameOnline2/pages/trainwreck1.htm
    Read more

  • Nowhere to go, can't backup either:
    This is the BNSF bridge over the Columbia River at Wishram,Washington.
    Read more

  • Image #31 happens in Malaysia, it was on local news. It was the end of the rail, but the train couldn't stop because of brake malfunction.
    Read more

  • were the 1000 trains that sunk in the UN States pulled out?
    Read more

  • @ujanja They were intentionally put there to encourage reef growth on the otherwise flat and featureless ocean floor along the eastern seaboard off the coast of the Carolinas. This reef growth has also been great for tourism and fishing in the area.
    Read more

  • I am very impressed to the people who made a lot of stuff like that. I always wanted to learn how to make them. But unfortunately, I can't. So to make myself happy and contented I make sure that I have all the stuff I want or atleast search for a site like this to give my own perspective. Thanks for the post.
    Read more

  • Great work

    1: http://funnypics3.blogspot.com/
    Great collection of Funny Pics

    2: http://123amazingpics.blogspot.com/
    Amazing,Excellent,Awesome,Wonderful,Tremendous pics of daily things around the globe

    3: http://extreme-funnyvideos.blogspot.com/
    A great collection of funny videos ever
    4 http://funnydotnet.blogspot.com/
    More useful site for Freshers who learn .NET.Here i provide links For to download PROJECTS with source code and more
    Read more

  • Um...too many zeros. How about 20,000 feet below the surface. 200,000 feet is not possible (on our planet, at least).
    Read more

  • To quote from the article you linked to, these animals are found at "depths of 600 to 800 meters (2,000 to 2,600 feet)". That sounds a bit more reasonable. Incredible fish for sure.
    Read more

  • It's Mad-Eye!
    Read more

  • "Construction of the Yusufiyah Electrical Generation Plant was started in 2001 by the Soviets"

    Круто, я точно знал что Советский Союз, нашу родную Империю Зла, перестройкой так просто не угрохать. Возможно, СССР ещё даже слегонца жив.
    Read more

  • Great post.
    The Swedish substation totally looks like "Return of the Jedi". I kept looking for Chewbacca.
    Read more

  • My Russian is pretty weak (nonexistant), but I'm willing to guess that Matthias is saying what I was going to say - that in 2001 there weren't any "Soviets", so perhaps you meant "Russians".

    Sources disagree about when it was constructed, varying from 1980 to 1989 to 1996 to 2001.

    The best explanation for that appears to be (according to RIAN), that construction started under Soviet direction in 1989, was put on hiatus for a decade after the Gulf War, and Russians went back to work on it in 2001 until conditions [and probably lack of payment] led them to leave in 2004.

    So both "Soviet" and "2001" are reasonable, just not quite in the conjunction offered.
    Read more

  • Some of these pics look straight out of Gotham City.
    Read more

  • What about the most famous London power station? Battersea!!! The one Pink Floyd took to hang the pink inflatable pig on the two front towers, for taking a picture for their album.
    Sometimes I go there and I think that it's a shame that they abandoned such a marvellous magnificent architectural beauty...
    It seems that has been recently bought and will be transformed in a shopping center (but maybe I'm wrong)
    Read more

  • wow, I mean how do you keep coming up with fresh ideas like this.
    Read more

  • That BC Hydro plant in Vancouver is amazing. I would like to see someone convert that into a resort / hotel. Even better yet, a museum.
    Read more

  • How about Marble Hill Nuclear Power Plant?
    More info

    Or how about Richmond Generating Station? More info
    Read more

  • Have you seen this?
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%BBarnowiec_Nuclear_Power_Plant
    Read more

  • Круто, я точно знал что Советский Союз, нашу родную Империю Зла, перестройкой так просто не угрохать. Возможно, СССР ещё даже слегонца жив.

    Actually, what Маттиас said was something more or less like this:

    Cool! I just knew that the Soviet Union, our own Empire of Evil, couldn't be destroyed so easily by perestroika. Perhaps the USSR is still alive even today.
    Read more

  • Check out OMSI's Turbine Hall. The Oregon Museum of Science and Industry is located in a building donated by the Portland General Electric company. Massive indoor space with the overhead cranes still in place. Picture here: http://www.omsi.info/visit/physics/engineerit/graphics/components/turbinehall.jpg

    and more info here: http://www.omsi.org/visit/physics/
    Read more

  • You can have a great day out at this dissused atomic power station in Germany:
    http://www.wunderlandkalkar.eu/ws/content.asp?navigationId=45&base=1&Title=Kernie's%20Familiepark
    Read more

  • here the hell is Yamantau?
    Read more

  • The Cruas cooling tower in France is definetely not abandonned...

    have a look at this pretty picture on flickr:
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/rogerjb/2218066191/
    Read more

  • Thanks for including buntzen lake power plant which is fairly close to my home. I will post some pictures I have of Anyox up the coast and you should also look for pictures of W.A.C bennett dam and the G. Shrum powerhouse
    Read more

  • Thank you Colin, send us some pics too
    Read more

  • Regarding the 'Skylon'; I am skeptical of websites wherein the apostrophe is abused and the HTML is invalid.
    Read more

  • At http://ec.europa.eu/environment/life/publications/lifepublications/lifefocus/documents/military_en.pdf (page 29) you will find a couple of (fairly poor) pictures of the Porton Down antscape - hectares of anthills, cheek by jowl, albeit without the geometric regularity your pictures show. Could your mounds have been "built" by insects? I imagine it would take some hundreds of years for such mounds to naturally erode away (depending on local conditions). Here in Wiltshire, UK, there are a good number of neolithic burial mounds which have survived several thousand years, and some of these would (even when "new") have been no higher than the mounds you describe. So current occupation by ants need not rule out such origins. Just a thought!
    Read more

  • But, given the pictures, the mounds aren't meticulous and regular, especially in a way defying natural creation.

    They're not all that regular and not at all meticulously laid out in the example images... the Google ones particularly make them look like an erosive artifact.

    (The seismic activity hypothesis looks pretty likely, to my eyes.)
    Read more

  • My guess would be that at one time a certain type of tree or plant grew where the mounds are, and rain eroded the areas between them, where there were fewer roots to hold onto the earth. Eventually the trees/ plants died off for some reason, leaving the mounds.
    Read more

  • Looks like a standing wave pattern to me. I wonder how the locations of these sites would map compared to sources of vibrations. Hmmm.
    Read more

  • Well it has kind of an texture like some footwear. Maybe it's the carbon footprint?

    The other thought I had that when mud dries out it leaves cracks in it (like here http://www.photos.com/en/search/close-up?oid=2710969&hoid=8f04e1d10fb5cea7a9bcc4c10ceb71ec)
    and those mountains are some sort of soil that dried up deep into ground and bigger cracks appeared. Through time wind has carved the edges off the cracks and made those bumps look smooth.
    Read more

  • To me the patterns kinda look like when water is boiling in a pot..

    Could at one point they could all have been hot springs?

    Water:
    http://soul-amp.blogspot.com/2008/01/boiling-water-photo-weird-photos-of.html

    sulfur springs:
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/kqedquest/3025698529/
    Read more

  • Goose bumps on Mother Earth as she cools down.
    Read more

  • I live near the Mima mounds in Olympia and have heard professors speculate on theories. There is zero evidence of any link to animals. We are close to the terminus of the gaciers during the last ice age. But the most reasonable hypothesis that I've heard has to do with seismic activity. If you put sand on a piece of plywood and bang rythmically with a hammer it forms into regularly spaced little mounds.
    Steve in Olympia
    Read more

  • Really big frost heaves?

    Either that or Mothra eggs.
    Read more

  • After reading this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mima_Mounds

    It seems there is likely a variety of explanations for various mounds around the world. Here in MN I've seen what pocket gophers can do.
    Read more

  • My guess would be... grass. Perhaps with some helper ants/insects/rodents/rabbits for soil fertilisation and turnover. Seeing how quickly grass can build up topsoil (for instance, over a paved path), I don't doubt that over centuries such mounds could build up. All it needs, is some positive feedback between ground surface height (above the water table, or frost zone, or dew-catching, or wind-blown dust collecting, or average sunlight levels) and rate of grass growth - and you'd get mounds. Big ones.

    Heck, it might even be something as simple as rabbits liking to sit on top of the mounds for the view, and pooping there - greener grass, more rabbits, more... etc.

    Positive feedback is a powerful effect. (Says me, the electronics engineer.)

    TerraHertz
    Read more

  • Read more

  • Of course they are natural. Just because the exact method of their formation is not yet known is no reason to jump to supernatural conclusions.

    Looks to me like an interference pattern of some sort, probably seismic.

    Your statement that natural formations "can't be as precise, orderly, or meticulous as the mounds" is breathtakingly ignorant.

    Here's an example of a different natural phenomenon creating an equally strange regular landscape: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2665675.stm
    Read more

  • I have to agree with Bill, those look like acoustic wave patterns created by some sort of seismic activity. To indicate cause by flora or fauna, there would have to be traceable remains of either in, on, or around those mounds.
    Read more

  • As far as I have read and understood those mounds were made by indians. They used them to grow certain crops that needed a type of ground elevation, in order to get the conditions right for the crops to grow (moisture levels etc.).

    source:
    http://www.amazon.com/1491-Revelations-Americas-Before-Columbus/dp/product-description/1400032059
    (apparently this theory of those mounds being human made is supported broadly among archaeologists, and having read that book i'm also inclined to believe it to be true)
    Read more

  • Hmm, miniature giant space gophers?
    Read more

  • Ants
    Read more

  • I live near some of these and have wondered about them for years. Glad to finally have a name for them and to know no one else knows that they are either.
    Read more

  • I couldn't even start guessing what the heck these things are. I just find it funny that Canada is referred to as an "exotic locale" along with Kenya and Australia.
    Read more

  • Clearly these are NOT "Mothra eggs",
    but rather the pupae mounds left whenever Rush Limbaugh visits an area.
    When he and Sarah Palin are declared
    King and Queen, they will burst forth
    and destroy Godless heathens and organic farms the world over.
    Read more

  • I think theyre made from earthquakes when the ground is loose like sand forms these shapes when on something that vibrates at the right frequency. This could be a bigger scale of it.
    Read more

  • Where's the mystery?

    Looking at them, i'd say they're caused by the vibration of the earth (the schumann resonance)
    and fluctous interference with the cosmic hum (prana/vril/orgone/ether).

    Check out the field of Cymatics of Prof Dr. Hans Jenny.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sY6z2hLgYuY
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWadDtIFPNs
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3csi-2Hrzhg
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bAmjRK9wBA


    [B]Everything[/B] is a a vibration.
    Read more

  • Hey! These are the places where the Teletubbies live! I KNEW they weren't just fairy tales! :)
    Read more

  • I think they are likely the remnants
    of forests. Each mound is a root ball
    left over from a decayed tree. The root ball decayed into a pile ofcompost
    that eventually became a mound. That is why they are so consistent in form
    and the same around the world.

    virag0
    Read more

  • re:virag0 - Wow, there is a fresh look on things! )
    Read more

  • Seems like regularly spaced Pingo formation.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pingo
    Pingos form from ice lensen in periglacial climates, so it makes sense that they would be found at the edges of ancient ice caps.
    Read more

  • What Anonymous wrote sounds very plausible: "My guess would be that at one time a certain type of tree or plant grew where the mounds are, and rain eroded the areas between them, where there were fewer roots to hold onto the earth. Eventually the trees/ plants died off for some reason, leaving the mounds."

    But I am sure that scientists would easily be able to confirm this by simply digging a big hole in one these mounded areas are analyzing the soil and so forth.
    Read more

  • I have spent a bit of time looking at these mounds in Oregon and California and find that ALL 3 main theories for the mounds FAIL for the same reason, none come lose to covering the range of the mounds.

    FAR MORE MOUNDS exist in areas that

    1. are not seismically active than are.

    2. are outside the range of gophers than within (also there is no signs of gopher activity within the mounds.) This theory is stupidity squared anyway.

    3. are outside of areas of glacial wash than are in such areas.

    There is no plant or animal that even comes close to covering the entire range of the mounds.

    What they are is unknown, they have the appearance of agricultural areas and their internal structure indicates the same thing. This does not mean that is what they are, but this is the only hypothesis that cannot be easily eliminated based on range and structure. The argument against this is that no people were around to build them. Try and find solid research to support this and you may be surprised at the lack thereof.
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  • I thought these were caused by episodic floods from glacial lakes. At least that is what I recall. The huge fresh water lake inside an ice dammed basin breaks free and the more flat and wide areas of the lowest areas get that pattern that probably reflects water flowing at a certain rate (reynolds number?) over a surface. Where there are larger obstacles you get different formations. Most of S.E. Washington State was formed that way as I (perhaps wrongly) recall. Or it was Mothra.
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  • hey Avi, checkout the chocolate hills of Bohol, Philippines.

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/ritsuw/3678737195/

    http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chocolate_Hills_Bohol.JPG
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  • Seismic activity is possible, as is the pingo theory, and perhaps even virag0's tree root theory ... though I suspect that one would leave some kind of organic or even fossilized remains. I tend to lean more toward a version of William's theory of glacial flooding. I know Washington was flooded during the draining of the proglacial Lake Missoula. Other reagions have flooded for other reasons. The southern U.S., for instance, was flooded in tsunami's resulting from the Chicxulub impact.

    The thing is, all thesemounds don't necessarily have to have the same origin. Different natural events could very well leave similar artifacts.
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  • standing wave maybe
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  • It's a rash!
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  • The structure of the soil in most cases is granular, and, under the right conditions of loose packing and moisture this can behave like a thixotropic liquid. At the right frequency (presumably from siesmic activity), mounds can form.
    watch

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nq3ZjY0Uf-g

    for the mechanism.
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  • Freeze-thaw cycles are known to create highly regular, polygonal patterns in tundra, based on differential expansion of soil- vs. rock-rich domains. I wonder whether swell-shrink cycles could produce the same kinds of patterns on fine-grained soils with lots of clay that dramatically changes volume when wetted vs. dried.
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