Our planet is full of mysterious places, some so much so that they don’t even look like they belong here. From alien-like salt lakes and icebergs to otherworldly desert rock and thermal features, here are landscapes on all seven continents that will make you marvel at the Earth’s diversity and enigma.
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The Stone Forest, China
The geologic features of this area of China were created around 270 million years ago, the result of sandstone deposits overlaid with limestone and shaped by water and wind.
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Lake Dumbleyung, Australia
This Australian salt lake with a name that seems straight out of a Harry Potter novel is about a three-hour drive southeast of Perth.
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Skógafoss Waterfall, Iceland
If it wasn’t for the human silhouetted in this shot, this Aurora Borealis-inspired waterfall photo, taken in southern Iceland, would seem even more otherworldly.
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Antelope Canyon, Arizona
Famous for its dramatic and supernatural-looking rock formations, northern Arizona’s Antelope Canyon continues to inspire photographers and adventurers alike.
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Channel Country, Australia
This sparsely populated desert region in the Outback of Queensland comes alive with color when it gets rainfall.
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Zhangye Danxia National Geopark, China
Located in the country’s north-central region, this park is known for its colorful sandstone rock formations.
Ice Cave, Iceland
This Nordic country is renowned for its coolly glowing ice caves, which melt and reform every year to reveal new features and shapes.
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Feicui Salt Lake, China
An aerial view shows this lake in the Haixi Mongolian and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of the Qinghai Province.
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Fairy Chimneys, Turkey
These geological formations are in the central Turkish region of Cappadocia, named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1985.
Cuevas del Drach, Mallorca
The stalactite-laden caves on this Spanish island look like something out of a science fiction movie scene.
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Ama Dablam, Nepal
With a summit more than 22,300 feet above sea level, this dramatic Himalayan peak is about as otherworldly as it gets on this planet.
The Richat Structure, Mauritania
This NASA-provided image shows what is often also called The Eye of the Sahara. Located on the desert’s Adrar Plateau, it is an eroded dome of igneous rock that dates to tens to hundreds of millions of years ago.
Iceberg, Greenland
This shot of an iceberg at sunset looks like it could have beens shot on Mars (if Mars had more water).
Austfonna Ice Cap, Norway
This is a piece of Europe’s third-largest glacier, covering more than 3,200 square miles.
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Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia
This South American salt flat is the world’s largest. The remnants of a prehistoric lake that went dry, it contains more than half of the world’s lithium reserves.
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Marble Caves, Chile
Water and time have created this cave system in the Patagonian region of the country.
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Pamukkale Travertine Pools, Turkey
These naturally occurring mineral springs and travertine terraces in southwestern Turkey have been constructed over millennia.
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Death Valley, California
The temperatures in Death Valley can reach upward of 130 degrees, giving it an arid and cracked landscape that looks preternatural.
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Strangler Fig Tree, Vietnam
This tree, native to the world’s tropical forests, looks like something straight out of a Ridley Scott film.
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White Sand Desert, Egypt
This desert in North Africa, also known as Sahara el Beyda, is also a national park known for these strange limestone rock formations.
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Moeraki Boulders, New Zealand
These boulders on the country’s Otago coast’s Koekohe Beach look like they could hatch aliens. They’re actually a combination of mud, silt, and clay that’s been cemented by calcite.
Caño Cristales River, Colombia
It looks like a doctored photo, but this South American river, also known as the River of Five Colors or the Liquid Rainbow, has plants in a number of different shades. The dominant reddish-pink shown here is the result of a proliferation of Macarenia clavigera plants.
Giant’s Causeway, Ireland
This UNESCO World Heritage Site formed around 50 million to 60 million years ago and was the result of major volcanic activity followed by cooling.
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Chocolate Hills, Philippines
Sunlight and mist enshrouds these more than 1,200 ancient geologic formations in the Bohol province. The hills are made of grass-covered limestone, and the name comes from when the grass dies and turns brownish.
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Waitomo Glowworm Caves, New Zealand
Arachnocampa luminosa, a glowworm population found only in New Zealand, are responsible for the otherworldly nature of these caves.
The Wave, Arizona
This northern Arizona sandstone rock formation can be reached via a rugged, 5.5-mile hike. That trek, however, requires a permit through a daily lottery system administered by the Bureau of Land Management.
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The Danakil Depression, Ethiopia
This place, one of the hottest and most inhospitable parts of the Earth, lies around 300 feet below sea level and is characterized by extremely hot, salty, and acidic conditions.
Grand Prismatic Spring, Wyoming
Located in Yellowstone National Park, this is the third-largest hot spring in the world and is renowned for its red, orange, yellow, green, and blue hues.
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Mount Zao, Japan
The formations, often called “snow monsters,” are actually the result of Siberian winds blowing freezing snow onto the mountain’s trees.
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Fly Geyser, Nevada
In Washoe County, this small geothermal geyser is about 5 feet tall by 12 feet wide and is the result of human drilling in 1916. The land it sits on is owned by the Burning Man Project, which offers limited public access to the site.
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Eroded Iceberg, Antarctica
This massive Wilhelmina Bay-located iceberg shows just how dramatic of an artist Mother Nature can be.
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Darvaza Gas Crater, Turkmenistan
It looks like an asteroid-impacted planet, but this crater, also known as the Door to Hell, is the result of a natural gas field that collapsed into a cavern. It was intentionally set on fire by geologists to prevent the spread of methane gas, and has burned continuously for nearly 50 years.
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The Dead Sea, Israel
Salt crystals form on the surface in this dramatic shot of the Jordan River Valley’s biblical salt lake.
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Hell, Grand Cayman
These jagged black rocks cover an area about the size of a football field in this, dare we say, appropriately named town in the Caribbean. The formations are actually the result of a type of algae interacting with limestone.
White Sands National Monument, New Mexico
Alabaster gypsum sand covers 275 square miles of dune fields in this southern New Mexico site run by the National Park Service.
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