World's Only Moving Mud Puddle

A mud puddle started moving across the California desert, and no one knows why. Dianna visited the mud spring to find out how a puddle became declared a natural disaster.

Special thanks to our Sally Ride level patrons: Carlos Patricio, David Cichowski, Eddie Sabbah, Fabrice Eap, Jeremy Glowacki Margaux Lopez, Matt Kaminski, Patrick Olson, reddragonlr, Tommy Joseph, Vincent Argiro, Vikram Bhat, wc993219.

0:00 - Where is it?
1:07 - What does it look like?
2:19 - Where it began
2:44 - What is it?
4:03 - Why all the rock sunk
4:38 - What happened to the wall?
5:05 - Why you'd suffocate
5:49 - A mysterious push from the other side
7:24 - What can we do?
8:37 - Relief well disaster
9:12 - Why is it moving?
10:29 - Sneak peek of new video

Creator/Host: Dianna Cowern
Editor: Levi Butner
Production Assistant: Hope Butner

Thanks to Caltrans and Shannon & Wilson

Sources:
Salton sea:
Earthquake swarms:

[physicsgirl]

Is it alive?! Y'all, of course a mud spring is not sentient. But the big question I had was, why is this mud spring MOVING? And now that we've seen Earth's moving pimple, where should we go next??

[SeanHodgins]

I would love to see a timelapse of it moving.

[brandonkim]

I love how obviously upset the geologist is that she missed the event. She truly loved what she does. Respect.

[PracticalEngineeringChannel]

Love this. You got some great shots! I remember reading about this in Civil Engineering magazine last year. Such a crazy problem for a geotechnical engineer. I just kept thinking how lucky we are that it's not in the middle of a city.

[skinwalkerskating]

Wishing you a good recovery sweetheart. It's heartbreaking to see what you are going through. Keep on fighting, the world needs you

[abebuckingham]

California, where the cost of living is so high even the mud has to move.

[RealEngineering]

This was great Dianna. Loved the new content form

[DirtFlyer]

As a geological engineer, I would sit through a two-hour long documentary on this. Definitely the most interesting mud puddle I have ever seen.

[salvadorcuevas-macias]

I am a native of the Imperial Valley and have seen this or these mud springs since I was a child. Depending on the year that we went out to see them, it either looked like an active spring or a grouping of a myriad of 'mud-spitting stalagmites' that looked like 'little active mud volcanoes'

[wuddadid]

We used to play in mud puddles as children. Then we grew up and moved on. We abandoned them. The mud puddle is tired waiting for us to come back. It will come to swallow us all. It will not rest until we are all finally together in it again. There is no escape.

[CSGhostAnimation]

Free water

Nestlè: This looks like a job for me

[XEOnyx]

girl drove so far to see a mud puddle

that is dedication

[myphone]

As a geology nerd, thank you! This is awesome...I love the idea of mixing things up. It's always fun to think about challenges from different perspectives.

[alexwalker]

A sink hole isn't a predictable occurrence, at least this one alerts you to its presence before it hits it's target.

[hoptanglishalive]

Student of the school that got cut off: "I'm sorry, teacher. A moving mud puddle ate my homework."

[javianiki]

Me googling "half the size of a football field" again... Oh right, 403.84 bananas, I just keep forgetting.
Amazing storytelling, ty for the video haven't seen one in my feed for months and loved it!

[sergiv]

There was a story i heard about recently, where a lake had a massive pocket of CO2 under it. One day, the gas vented out super fast, and within a few hours, a thick layer of CO2 flooded into the area and across a few towns. I believe like 1700 people and 3500 livestock were all killed in a few surrounding towns. This happened in Cameroon, it was called Lake Nyos i believe.

[Grenthor_The_Mighty]

as a fellow kyle, ill just say they wont be able to stop him. just toss in a few cans of monster energy and let him tire himself out.

[Kenwill]

I love the moment they yelled "Get that train outta here". That poor train operater.

[dio]

I took geology in college to fill a requirement because I didn't have advanced enough math to do physics. Turned into one of those rare things that transforms the way you view the world. This kind of science is absolutely fascinating, so don't stop making videos like this just because it's not hard physics.