Something similar in Kansas City. Years ago they were doing some digging and opened up some old sewer tunnels, lined with brick, they didnt even knew existed.
It makes you wonder what old tunnels are hidden or if you dig into an old houses foundation might you uncover an old secret cellar or something.
Then some of Canada’s north is unexplored. Surveyed by air or sat, yes, but tromped about up close and personal, no.
Let’s see:
[ol]
[li]The Guiana Highlands in Venezuela and Northern Brazil - Most of this area is too rugged and too remote to explore.[/li][li]The Siberian Arctic - too remote and too inhospitable to explore.[/li][li]The Sahara Desert - In many places outside of the few oases and populated areas haven’t been explored.[/li][li]The Andaman Islands - There are thousands of them,many of them are small and some like North Sentinel Island are inhabitated by fierce tribes who have killed outsiders who attempt to land on them.[/li][/ol]
A lot of this comes down to what “explored/unexplored” mean.
For example, an island/valley/etc… may not have had people literally walk, drive or ride through them on the ground, but may have had multiple airplane, helicopter and satellite overflights, showing us the lay of the land well enough to map it and know that there isn’t anything particularly remarkable there. Would you call it unexplored?
For example, the interior of Inaccessible Island is tough(impossible?) to get to via boat, but I imagine it’s pretty trivial for a ship-based helicopter to overfly the place and show that there’s not much up there of interest except to biologists. It would technically be unexplored, but the elevations, forests, etc… would be easily mapped out. Same thing in large desolate areas like the Sahara- aerial overflights show that there isn’t squat but sand dunes and scrub. No real point in packing up a Land Rover and driving out there is there?
Blatant hijack:
Reminds me of a fictional Leonard Wibberly story, Feast of Freedom, when the Vice-Prez of the US made a goodwill visit to some obscure South Pacific islands. The VP was so friendly that he affectionately patted the native Chief on the head, not a wise move.
They ate him. Hilarity ensued.
and…I’ve just purchased it (Fragment) on my Kindle. Great suggestion, thank you!
I would call it unexplored. As I said above, I would regard “explored” to mean visited on foot and visually surveyed. At close range, there are features that may not be apparent from the air or space, especially in forested terrain. More importantly, you would have little idea of the species of plants and animals present.
Yes, only some Americans have this misconception. :rolleyes:
Just a note in case anyone missed it: The OP died two months after starting this thread.
Pellucidar?
With relatively recent stories of lost tribes in Papua New Guinea, I always kinda called bullshit. How could that be, in this day and age?
Until I flew over PNG. Mountains of Amazon-density rainforest with valleys so much deeper than they were wide, that they were so dark as to be black to look at in broad daylight, and with Hollywood-effect mist rising out of them. Sure, they’ve probably been photographed to the metre by aerial and satellite photography, but the idea of no human ever having set foot on some of that ground certainly seemed a lot more believable then. I could imagine being a “lost tribe” is not as far-fetched as I thought.
The Catacombs under Paris. They’re still largely un-mapped and have 5 known levels, according to Linda Blair (“Scariest Places on Earth.”)
Addendum: I didn’t read the OP’s qualifiers, and I thought restricting it to the Earth’s day lighted surface isn’t much fun.
Yup, New Guinea is the last frontier indeed!
Guess you didn’t read posts #29 or #31 either.
Heck, in New Guinea the tribes often speak completely different languages from one valley to the next, and scarcely know there is a next valley, with people in it.
And when you think about it, from the perspective of those tribes, the rest of the entire world remains unexplored.
Also, note that the ocean floor is theoretically part of the Earth’s surface.
The terrain under the Antarctic ice cap (in fact, most of the ice cap itself) certainly qualifies. We have a vague idea of the largest terrain features - mountains, etc. - but given that it’s all under 2 miles of ice, there could be an entire ancient civilization under there and we wouldn’t know it.
Edit: Not human civilization, I grant you…
That pretty much describes the five foot space under my chalet. A couple of times a year, I mount an expedition under there, but there are still areas that are unexplored.