The underground life forms that have taken over Centralia

[@VergeScience]

We’ve looked at a bunch of tiny things in our videos recently. What BIG experiments would you like to see us tackle next?

[@xavier4563]

Living organisms with weird adaptations.

[@donchono5643]

Geoengineering! It's becoming an ever increasing topic in the international agenda. The whole risk / benefits attached to it makes it a very interesting subject.

[@NikhilKumar-cr7cd]

Sleep Paralysis

[@semidemiurge]

I would suggest an experiment related to the introduction of electric scooters in a city. Tucson, AZ for example is about to introduce e-scooters next month. The experiment would entail studies into varies impacts/reactions. You may even contact Profs and grad students from Uof A for assistance in the research. Tucson is an eclectic and interesting place that has a large bike culture and trail system. It also has a surprisingly diverse demographic and culture.

[@notsaltylol]

Flying cars

[@roxymanasquan9087]

My family often drove through Centralia on our way to visit relatives in Shamokin. It was so sad to see the town slowly disappear. I'll never forget the last day we drove through Centralia--right before the government closed the road down... the creepy surrealness of stopping the car on the side of the road by a wispy gully and feeling the toasty warm earth, while the steam rolled around the ground like an early morning fog.

[@UnitSe7en]

The irony is that now it's Centralia that's _shamokin!_

[@kevinsathapornchaisit5816]

This reads like a passage in a book I would read for class.

[@AmberAmber]

I drove by once · you nailed it, you gifted author you! 💗

[@AmberAmber]

@@UnitSe7en ☺️🤣😂

[@CandaceDerr]

I lived about 30 miles away from Centralia yet I've still never been there 😞

[@donchono5643]

Good choice on the Celsius! :D

[@g.a.c.6488]

please use both

[@quin2910]

@@g.a.c.6488 he did

[@newton1000]

yea.

[@alanwakefield2453]

Yea, metric One Lt of water = One Kg. water freezes at 0c boils at 100 c = simple

[@Bolt99K]

Gross. Commie units.

[@semidemiurge]

Everything about this video demonstrates a group of highly skilled and knowledgeable people behind its making. Truly impressive work and interesting content.

[@SeaJay_Oceans]

Yes, it took a lot of men to dig out those mines.

[@tmbottegal]

“It’s pretty eerie.” Nah mate, that’s up north.

[@georgeb.wolffsohn30]

Lake Erie caught fire because of the pollution in the '70's.

[@charliegarrison9688]

The eerie canal was pretty well useless after being built due to railroads going further and faster.

[@ayame69]

50,000 people used to live here.. now it's a ghost town.

[@letsomethingshine]

The fires had nothing to do with the mining, other than that the mine leftovers caught on fire ... and the tunnels were perfect to let air in.

[@ayame69]

@@letsomethingshine ok

[@kingoftehwalrus77]

Our so-called leaders...

[@alex0589]

Just like the people who invented nuclear weapons had nothing to do with Nagasaki... @@letsomethingshine

[@alex0589]

@@letsomethingshine " i am become death, the burner of Pennsylvania"

[@SachithMaduranga]

Maybe you could do a followup episode(s) where you sequence the microbial genomes and try to generate the phylogenetic trees that show their relationships and explore the basics of bioinformatics

[@ichifish]

Exactly.

[@michaelbagby2451]

Try hard

[@1sadsexually2sadsexually54]

Michael Bagby Yes! Try, hard!

[@greenhat7618]

The scientists can do that but idk if the journalists have that academic capacity

[@the_bioway]

Being a Microbiology professor and always curious about those small invisible creatures I've thoroughly enjoyed this video.... Kudos to whole team behind this project to choose a topic on microbes and presenting this infront of the world is much appreciated👏🏼👌🏼✌🏼

[@michaelk9943]

Centralia, Pennsylvania. The actual inspiration for Silent Hill. I’ve been there many times.

[@cwosbyjones1550]

For the movie yes

[@meatKog]

My wife's parents live on the other side of the mountain from Centrailia. I went there back in 2015 because I like the movie (and game) Silent Hill. The church is on a hill above the town and it does look similar to the church in the movie. Aside from the church there were only two houses remaining there. One which was the ouse of the mayor and the other that hung up signs saying the mayor was a lousy cheat...

[@salaciousBastard]

Silent Hill is an adaptation of a video game made by Japanese designers. No evidence at all that they even knew about Centralia.

[@jasonsmizer5431]

When I was a kid and my parents drove past Centrailia for the first time I was amazed at what I saw. There was dead trees with smoke coming out of them, snoke coming out from the ground, no vegetation anywhere and just a general hellish scene. Now 30 some years later I was told the fire has moved past the town. I dont know where it is but just walk around and look for the smoke.

[@michaelk9943]

John Spotts there’s nothing to see there anymore. There’s almost never any steam coming out of the hill anymore. The fire burned deeper into the ground and to the west. The only thing the state is worried about now is cave ins on the closed stretch of route 61 where the fire got closest to the surface. There’s a total of four houses still occupied there. The last people who refused to leave. I’m from Reading so I get up there quite a bit.

[@A2dy]

As a microbiology PhD student, just a few tips...Try to keep those plates open to the air as little as possible, grow the plates "upside down" to prevent condensation from dripping onto your plates, and growing in liquid media before plating onto solid media might have helped. Still, super interesting video!

[@crtika123]

Yea that was nerve racking for me too haha

[@glenngoodale1709]

Thank you so much for the amazing content. It's so refreshing and reassuring to see that in this age of dumbed-down rubbish that plagues almost every media outlet, there are still some passionate people dedicated to producing interesting, high-quality content. I love your videos and can't wait for more. You make the world a better place with your work, and I wish you all the success you deserve for it

[@Wallach_a]

glenn goodale well said.

[@SeanAFoXy]

Stolen.. Why can't people just type things different.

[@spartan97351]

I appreciate your appreciation of such thought provoking content..Im glad there are still individuals out here like you that exist . I love a comment reponse reflect and ponder session. So very fulfilling like food for my brain. Thank you and thank you all to the people who took part in creating this wonderful surrel documentary on life that thrives in even the most awkward or harshest of areas..

[@glenngoodale1709]

@@spartan97351 wow

[@brandonb3279]

Dude, you lifted that comment verbatim from a post I made to a video on the Technology Connections channel a year ago (kzbin.info/www/bejne/hIbEoKqZjbanhdE). I immediately recognized it even though I wrote it half-tipsy on my phone while in a pub waiting for my girlfriend, because it's completely identical. Like you literally just copied and pasted it, every character is identical, you didn't even bother to change a damned thing. I guess I should be flattered, imitation is the sincerest form and all that. But your laziness is astounding. And ironic, considering that I wrote it about a truly passionate and amazing creator (Alec Watson of Technology Connections), and you lifted it to post to The Verge, a subset of a pseudo-intellectual media conglomerate which produces mediocre content at best. Far from what I would consider passionate and dedicated. If you're going to plagiarize my praising prose, you could at least use it to heap approval upon a worthy channel (try Isaac Arthur, or The History Guy if you want examples of other creators deserving of such high accolades). Thank You to @Chancellor Sean The Fox420 for both recognizing and pointing out this blatant posing. And also, @glenn goodale, you really shouldn't engage with other people's praising responses to your plagiarizing, as you did in your reply when @And Ye Shall be Entertained Regularly posted his appreciation of your (my) comment. Not cool man. Not cool at all.

[@JarrodBaniqued]

8:56 Extremophile research also has major implications for researching extraterrestrial life, including Martian microbial life and the theory of panspermia.

[@alaricvisigoth919]

In the book, "A Walk In The Woods" by Bill Bryson, he describes the fire and how it started. Seems they burned trash on a holiday weekend. it wasn't attended and ignited a coal vain that's been burning ever since. Several independent films have been made about it.

[@bdickinson6751]

I never understood the mention of Centralia in that book since it is miles from the A.T.

[@crywhit4619]

So...when someone says "go to hell" they mean Centralia, PA?

[@tylernaturalist6437]

Found an interesting spot in Centralia bellowing steam last winter, it had thick moss and ferns growing around it despite being the dead of winter

[@twilight_mourner1865]

Interesting... Maybe that certain moss is used to cold temperature??? I dunno im pretty sure moss doesnt come up on winter

[@goddammitalana]

Just an Average Artist are you stupid?

[@tylernaturalist6437]

It was able to thrive in the winter due to the warm steam being released from the ground

[@captindo]

Expected to see pyramid head in the background as an Easter egg.

[@timmydirtyrat6015]

What? Where?

[@Lorenzo-bo7id]

Timmy Dirtyrat key word is "expected"

[@timmydirtyrat6015]

+Z O O W E E M A M A I meant as in where would he expect to see a pyramid head in this video about an abandoned ghost town.

[@Massive_the_Composer]

@@timmydirtyrat6015 Silent Hill is based on the town on Centralia, which the entire video is talking about lol

[@timmydirtyrat6015]

+Massive the Composer Oh I that makes more sense now.

[@JacobFWilde]

This is FANTASTIC science content!! I'm so happy this exists

[@binhlau1303]

WOAH, WOAH! He didn’t waft the samples..

[@alexanderwilliams988]

Just to clarify a point about Centralia: Pennsylvania did not relocate any of the former residents. The state seized people's homes and land through eminent domain, only compensating them the market value of their property, which was significantly lower thanks to the fire. After their homes were seized, Centralians had to find new places to live on their own, made more difficult by the pittance the state gave them. The only people who still live there are the ones who could afford to keep suing the state to prevent their land from being taken.

[@frankdai]

4:27 "Twice as hot" hold on there, you can't just say 27 degrees Celsius twice as hot to be 54 cuz 0 Celsius is just an arbitrary concept. Actual "twice as hot" you would need to use Kelvin

[@renciks5610]

Ok

[@metamorphicorder]

Piss off.

[@christiangeiselmann]

Oh, you can. You just have to read it as "twice as hot on a zero degree Celsius based scale". Which is what people anyway have accepted as their usual scale for temperature. - Technically, of course, you are right.

[@pixelpatter01]

@@metamorphicorder Just mad or is it you don't understand?

[@LashanR]

Thank you for using celsius!!!

[@bettythebutcher]

The fire has "nothing to do with mining"?? You don't think big abandoned underground tunnels from the surface, lined with coal, and replete with an ongoing supply of oxygen to feed the fire has anything to do with it?? Hmmm....

[@harold3345]

they meant they weren't the direct cause for the ignition

[@pixelpatter01]

Coal seams have been exposed to air for all of history, forest fires have been started by lightning. It may have a proximal association with mining but the coal but mining did not cause the problem, coal seams caused the problem. Think of it as a forest fire delayed 50 million years.

[@JuanPablodelaTorre]

No matter how much trash you light, this fire would not exist without the mines.

[@pixelpatter01]

@@JuanPablodelaTorre More accurately; the fires wouldn't exist without the coal. True, in this case the fire was ignited by people, but just like forest fires, they can be ignited by nature, and ignited accidentally by people. Here is an article about prehistoric fires and another that's been burning for 6000 years. gizmodo.com/the-worlds-oldest-underground-fire-has-been-burning-fo-1539049759

[@Andya97]

6:35 someone didn't learn to never smell directly any specimen or chemical always waft towards you plus bacteria always smell bad

[@myrlewulf6256]

Stfu

[@ronanmurphy98]

I honestly thought "Centralia" was a portmanteau of Central Australia 😂 I'm left disappointed.

[@yeahoh2222]

Bitc-

[@SusanLynn656]

I thought Centralia was due east of Portmanteau-alia??????????

[@macbuff81]

thanks for using Celsius. This is a science show after all

[@SafirAksel]

One of the few channels from america that the presenter actually saying in Celcius instead providing it on the screen. Love it!!

[@DaveTexas]

Centralia is a fascinating place. It would be really interesting to sample the microbes from each temperature zone - air temperature to temperatures near the fires themselves. That would be a bit more of a project than just walking through with a trowel and some plastic bags, though.

[@Munden]

You need a better scope for this! Needs a collab with Jam's Germs

[@VergeScience]

What a great idea... We've seen a bunch of Jam's videos and love them.

[@EvanBoyar]

@4:23 No, twice 27°C is 327.15°C, and the highest temperature extremophiles thrive at is around 122°C.

[@lucasqwert1]

What? Is my math wrong ?

[@EvanBoyar]

@@lucasqwert1 Convert °C to K to remove zero-offset. Multiply by 2. Convert K back to °C.

[@lunchboxproductions1183]

Last time I checked 27+27=54. Is this common core math or something?

[@AndorianBlues]

@@lunchboxproductions1183 Centigrade doesn't start at 0, it starts at -273.15 (absolute zero)

[@itsking2u]

So glad I subbed to this channel love the content.

[@notreveh]

I just loved how you managed to dissect the paper!

[@98Zai]

Could have done a night flight with a heat camera, you're already using a drone! And the implications for the future of the planet is a really interesting spin on this subject. Would love to see more about that :)

[@rubscratch98]

"it might not be disastrous but it´s worth understanding" thats what science is about!! just increasing knowledge

[@tashan680]

Its so weird seeing your hangout place on youtube

[@modolief]

This was a great study, and great production! Thanks!

[@anthonywalters9986]

I literally live right next to here its amazing!!

[@spelunkerd]

What surprised me most about the Chernobyl disaster was the way the ecosystem quickly rebounded when humans were excluded from the area because of the risk of radiation. Wolves, deer, wild pigs, and other animals did really well. For wild animals, human civilization is harder to cope with than is ongoing, serious radiation.

[@greatking5746]

Thanks for creating such content. Can make a video about pesticides and how they are destroying the eco system?

[@Acanuckian]

You should talk to some of your local farmers. They might be able to tell you about that.

[@bitsnpieces11]

I used to work at a city wastewater plant and we could grow almost anything there. We did one experiment where we fed a very strong solution of Ammonium Chloride (toxic to most life) to some of our sludge and gradually grew a colony of 'bugs' (bacteria) that were perfectly happy feeding on pure Ammonium Chloride. The organisms were already there, just in small numbers and they could reproduce like mad while everything else died off. This happened in just a few days (4-5).

[@NeedlessJ93]

Oh, so Silent Hill crossed with The Thing & War of the Worlds. Nothing to worry about, 😨

[@SafireRose2]

Silent Hill is actually based on this town.

[@ReptilianLepton]

@@SafireRose2 The aesthetic of the town is. Nothing in the actual plot, though.

[@cinnis5670]

@@SafireRose2 No it's not. The FILM Silent Hill took inspiration from Centralia, but the games have nothing to do with Centralia whatsoever (except for SH:Homecoming, but that's because the American team that was working on it decided to take inspiration from the films, rather than the previous games). Silent Hill did have a coal mine fire, the Wiltse Coal Mine to be exact. But the fire didn't shut the town down, it was actually what spurred on the idea to turn it into a tourist attraction.

[@josephgao4657]

@@SafireRose2 Silent hill, the film. Not the game.

[@krinklesofmadness]

Ohhhh actual serial dilution and spread plating? I’m impressed, verge

[@bumpygarage4291]

I live about 35 miles from Centrailia. It’s a very interesting area, not much to see but the history behind it is very interesting. Been there too many times to count lol

[@rolfw2336]

Great topic! I never heard of Centralia, so that was cool too. As others have suggested, a FLIR (thermal) camera might have made the field work a bit easier.

[@davidm.4670]

access satellite IR imagery?

[@jeremyramey7300]

"The Life Down Under Centralia" was a real missed opportunity for this video's name

[@jriceblue]

Odd comment, but... the music in this video was pretty great!

[@davidklein1453]

Great video. Microbe research is nuts, like a real brain-breaker. This video mostly asked a bunch of questions and I'm cool with that. Glad there are (some) ways forward with DNA sequencing.

[@jedwijnberg8464]

I love Verge Science! So Intresting!

[@blowersm]

My brother David DeKok was the associated press reporter on this town/topic for many years and wrote two books about it.

[@borjojo]

Now, I'm more curious rather on why a geothermal power plant wasn't put up.

[@recklessroges]

Inconsistent thermal rates and not enough coal to reclaim the investment costs, (its easy to forget how under priced global fossil fuels were 30 years ago.)

[@JarrenRocks]

borjojo sinkholes have been a big problem

[@ReptilianLepton]

The next ridge over has a dozen or do wind turbines.

[@borjojo]

@@ReptilianLepton that's good to know :) used to work for a wind-turbine related platform, myself.

[@borjojo]

@@ReptilianLepton interesting... prolly would make the project cost more? Wonder if any energy company has done a feasibility on it.

[@michaelmallon8013]

please be sure to show respect for St. ignatious Cemetery. I have about a dozen relatives buried there.

[@user-zp5vt1tu6b]

Years ago I stopped by, it was colder out in October so you can see the steam. I found the section of old highway and inside a crack in the road I got a measurement of 161F.

[@Feynman981]

Well done! Even in the right units!)))

[@devtank]

Who's infographic at 6'10"? That is art right there.

[@joshbeaulieu7408]

Could the thermophiles in question have come up from a deeper area of soil? Are thermophiles found in seams of minerals or at depth in mines?

[@hdvictoryford5329]

We were just there August 2022. 5 people left 1 home, a church, and the municipal building. We drove as many streets as we could. You really have to imagine there was a town here. If you look carefully, you will finds some remnants of the town. A piece of sidewalk, stone walls, some fence here and there. The rest is imagination. Graffiti Highway is completely covered. And we were warned to stay away. If you got caught on the highway you will be fined 200-250.00. We were told the fire is gone from the town and moving towards Mt Carmel.

[@robertsharp1511]

This is absolutely fascinating.

[@gotcha4688]

The people go to this super spooky and famous place to look at the soil. I love this.

[@ocelot1333]

I have lived in pa my whole life. Granted i live in erie. But in all 22 years of my life i have never heard of this place in PA. This is very sad.

[@jameskissane1209]

I heard about a research team studying thermophiles in Iceland. Then, they went back to the US, took some samples off of boilers in suburban homes, and found the same bacteria and archea.

[@hermanozenaide19]

The editing of those videos are top quality. Amazing!

[@adityamishrafb]

Celsius is the way to go !

[@rhrabar0004]

This town was what Silent Hill was based on. Rural anytown America completely abandoned due to underground flames and toxic fumes. Very cool.

[@Rilumai]

Silent Hill the movie, but not the game.

[@HaritTrivedi7]

Earth was a warm warm place back then ..so maybe they were always there ..just sleeping

[@HaritTrivedi7]

@White Rice you should have supported your reply of "NO"

[@HaritTrivedi7]

@White Rice firstly the organism was not found under the Centralia but on its "warm" surface . Secondly pre Jurassic age earth had oceanic temperature of 55 and above °C. So maybe you need more research :)

[@jesuschrist8904]

​@@HaritTrivedi7 the organism thrives much deeper than the surface of centralia, you do know how colonies don't just stay in one place and that it's bigger than 1 unit of depth? the extremophiles in centralia have been found to withstand temperatures of over 300 celcius, ~150 hotter than most found can withstand. it is not an organism that's been "sleeping", at least for how long you're presuming as all evidence points towards these being a recently mutated species. do i have to be the second person to do your research for you ?

[@jesuchristo94]

ummm they are a new mutartion

[@_Hal9000]

@White Rice Eehhh... "never was" Oh it was a hotball once.

[@dfpguitar]

an important bit of info left out here, is that out of the bacteria sampled in a non hot/extreme environment, the same amount would be unknown.

[@jasondaniel918]

Good video. Thank you. It is nice to see something productive coming out of a woefully sad scenario.

[@OwenRULESSS]

This is my new favorite youtube account its just great

[@Subwoofer101]

My theory is that they exist in regular soil already, but don't necessarily thrive over any other organism. Just a regular Joe type microbe, in a regular Joe microbial neighborhood, nothing special. Exposure to extremes allows potentially extreme organisms to thrive, or at least survive, while regular microbes die out, leading to more of a monoculture rather than a healthy, diverse ecosystem, which explains the smell. A healthy microbial soil ecosystem, with plenty of balance and diversity, smells good. Imbalance usually stinks. Humans can be the same way. Apply pressures, and typically beneficial "organisms" become opportunistic. Also, imbalance stinks. Famine and poverty can bring out extreme behavior in the best of people. The movie "Trading Places" is a comedic portrayal of people creating "extreme" behavior from a typically "beneficial organism" through pressures. If you go to the scariest places on our planet, where war and instability exist, you are bound to find more extreme humans where "regular" humans would not survive. They may not have started out extreme, but they adapted to the environment where others might not. I imagine if you took a large enough sample, you could culture "potentially extreme" microbes from nearly anywhere. You can find a concentration of them in Centralia due to the prolonged extreme conditions, where they have propagated wildly in absence of typical competition.

[@tfsheahan2265]

What about the practicality of walking around with an infrared camera at night? Wouldn't the warm spots be brighter than the not-so-warm areas?

[@darkshadowsx5949]

you should have said both Celsius and Fahrenheit... The difference of cold and hot at 0-100 scale is far more understandable than Celsius's small scale.

[@epocheo]

Microbial ecologist. My thought is the heat selected for the Thermophiles. Similar to how antibiotics can select for antibiotic resistant microorganisms

[@Nash1a]

Go there after a heavy rain and you will see the steam. Its very easy to find the hot spots that way.

[@chiaradina]

Awesome video! Thank you!

[@aga5897]

Celcius . Even the British Empire from which the Imperial unit of German-derived Farenheit no longer uses it. To be fair, even Celcius is becoming abandoned, with Kelvin taking it's place.

[@MottyGlix]

* Celsius * its

[@aga5897]

Ah yes. Thanks for the correction. @@MottyGlix

[@festivite]

In before the comments are Celsius vers- nope not early enough I guess.

[@Epiqe]

FLIR camera should be handy too in this situation :)

[@recklessroges]

Celsius. (Put "other" temperature scales in the captions.) I love how good scientist are seeing that temperature change can have unpredictable effects upon microbial life, but others feel confident that there is no way that GMOs are going to have undesirable side effects. Everyone has their hubris replaced with humility one way or another. The sooner you escape that cocoon the clearer your progress will be.

[@FortunateWalker]

Bring an infrared camera next time

[@feraudyh]

I have the impression an infrared thermometer like what he was using is more precise in its measurement of temperature than an infrared camera. The precision announced for the latter, at are around +/- 2 degrees C whereas an infrared thermometer is rated at +/-1 degrees, at least in the price brackets I could afford!!

[@FortunateWalker]

@@feraudyh a combination of both would be ideal. As a person that has both, I think thé camera would help to find warm spots faster and then for very precise location: use the handheld thermometer with its laser. ( i have a "cheap" Compact Seek )

[@feraudyh]

@@FortunateWalker Sounds right to me. I'm actually fascinated by the idea of looking at heat maps of the world (and buildings in particular), but I'm waiting before I buy an infrared camera. The prices seem to have gone down a lot over the past years. In general, it's fascinating to look at the world in a way that normally escapes your usual vision.

[@FortunateWalker]

@@feraudyh totally get it. It's like a sixth sense / so much information that we just skip everyday

[@feraudyh]

@@FortunateWalker Yes, and an analogous phenomenon happens when we apply mathematical transformations to signals to see hidden structures.

[@HillBillyBrown]

Theres actually still ALOT of coal under Centralia, they stopped mining because demand went down with the rise of natural gas and other power sources.

[@MottyGlix]

The rise of the alternative sources came DECADES after the Centralia shutdowns.

[@NoName-ze4qn]

Centralia seems eerily beautiful...

[@EduardoEscarez]

As always good content in this channel 👍

[@RalfStephan]

It's a pity that you couldn't show the sequencing equipment, and talk about the process and the software used. It's not terribly difficult, but it's on the edge of today's science, and would have been interesting.

[@OF01975]

For real that would of made me straight cream my underwear

[@RalfStephan]

@@OF01975 more dollars in pr0n than in biotech anyway

[@oscarp2972]

50 thousand people used to live here, now it's a ghost town

[@purpleturnip3016]

Great work guys, very interesting; subscribed! And yes, celcius.

[@Jcewazhere]

Could they be bacteria/archaea that normally lay dormant until there is a forest/brush fire but now have capitalized on the constant heat from the underground fire to grow constantly? Like desert plants that bloom crazily in the rare rainstorms but otherwise barely grow or even stay seeds until the rain comes.

[@AdventSeph]

That opening line was almost word for word out of COD

[@shanelee3754]

Being more tightly packed into smaller cells probably allows them to absorb the heat more readily and more evenly

[@brad2887]

great video!

Need to get an aerial thermography map of the area.

[@TracksideViews]

How does the snow accumulate if the ground is so warm?

[@IsaacRizard]

The main takeaway from the video is about standardised measurement unit system. Neat.

[@patrickfle9172]

Didn't you consider using a thermal camera to find hot spots?

[@johnortiz6129]

Very educational thank you

[@FerdinandZebua]

So like, is the Centralia fire still burning, or has it pretty much died down already by now..?

[@LostieTrekieTechie]

Still burning underground, and it will keep burning for some time.

[@kolby4078]

Wait, am I the only one that didn't know a coal seam can ignite and burn under a city for decades?

[@PhilJonesIII]

It happens in spoil-heaps from coalmines as well. Slow burning and very dangerous because of the gasses and collapse.

[@jameswhite3415]

+kolby4078 Decades? This fire is suppose to burn for centuries, and thousands of years atleast if it burns gas enough as its connected to one of the largest coal veins in the world.

[@xitro20xx]

maybe yes. there are underground fires raging in africa and especially in china right now. both are the effect of coal mining.

[@Brennzan]

I’ve been here a few times My great grandmother and her family lived here when she was a child after immigrating from Ukraine I still have some distant family members that live in the surrounding areas and I pass by that way every few years for family reunions. It’s actually pretty quiet there. Mostly just overgrown roads. It’s not the silent hill people assume haha

[@chacmool2581]

Here's an idea. A drone with an infrared camera surveys the geography rather than you walking randomly hoping to happen upon a hot spot.

[@stone1andonly]

My guess is that the thermophiles were in or directly next to the coal seam, lying dormant after the heat and pressure that formed the seam slowly eased off.

[@GrandmasScrotum]

I live 30 mins from here, pretty mysterious place

[@ReptilianLepton]

Nah... *mysterious* is Mt. Carmel or Shamokin on a Saturday night.

[@mirdeu4687]

interesting mini doc.Can you cultivate land on a thermophiles rich soil .do the veggies get a different taste?Is the thermophiles a negative or a positive for the land? many questions