Thor's Well at Cape Perpetua on the Oregon coast, USA

© Cavan Images/Offset by Shutterstoc

Whose 'well' is this?. The drainpipe of the Pacific

We are looking out at Thor’s Well, on the USA's craggy Oregon coast, with the help of a photographer’s telephoto lens. Only the most daring of visitors would stand this close at high tide, while the Pacific Ocean raged around them. Dubbed a ‘gaping sinkhole’, the ‘drainpipe of the Pacific’ and even a ‘gate to hell’, Thor's Well is not actually a bottomless pit. It is about 20ft (6m) deep and is accessible by foot at low tide, when you can peer in to see its mechanisms at work.

Geologists believe it was a sea cave carved in the basalt rock by ocean waves. The ‘well’ was formed when the cave’s roof collapsed, creating openings at the top and bottom through which the ocean surges and sprays like a geyser, only to recede, creating the waterfalls we see here.