Sir Walter Raleigh stumbled upon a massive, naturally occurring lake of liquid asphalt on the island of Trinidad in 1595 and immediately realized it was the perfect substance for caulking his leaky wooden ships.

A closer look

Sir Walter Raleigh stumbled upon a massive, naturally occurring lake of liquid asphalt on the island of Trinidad in 1595 and immediately realized it was the perfect substance for caulking his leaky wooden ships. The Indigenous population had known about Pitch Lake for centuries, correctly viewing the bubbling, stinking tar pit as a deeply cursed geological anomaly, but European explorers saw it as a magical hardware store. The lake spans roughly one hundred acres and is hundreds of feet deep, constantly churning out hot, gooey pitch that has trapped prehistoric sloths, ancient trees, and careless tourists. Millions of tons of asphalt have been extracted from this single weird puddle over the centuries to pave roads across the entire globe. You have probably driven over chunks of Trinidadian tar without ever realizing you were cruising on the sticky leftovers of an Elizabethan explorer's makeshift boat repair kit