Mother Nature usually sticks to a pretty basic formula: green trees, blue oceans, but sometimes she lets her freak flag fly with swirling geological oddities and naturally psychedelic masterpieces.
From a lake dotted with bubblegum-pink pools to an entire theme park dedicated to toilets and poop, check out these strangest natural places in the world.
Danakil Depression
In a world of swirling crimson deserts, glowing oceans and god-like mystery monoliths, there’s no place on Earth more bizarre than the Danakil Depression. Located in the Afar region of northern Ethiopia, the depression sits at the intersection of three tectonic plates and is surrounded by an extraordinary landscape of acid pools, lava lakes, geysers, vast salt plains, and other otherworldly volcanic formations.
The area was once a sea and now sits 410 feet below sea level, but the tectonic plates still move, causing rifting and volcanic activity. As the plates pull apart, they create a tortured landscape of otherworldly colors and textures. Sulfurous hot springs, abysses, geysers and acid pools ooze from every crevice.
One of the most surreal features is the colorful lava lake at Erta Ale. It glows with a mesmerizing blend of yellows and greens, but its noxious gases make it impossible to swim in. Another strange sight is the Dallol crater, which looks more like an art exhibit than a dangerous and toxic natural phenomenon.
While scientists have long studied plate tectonics in the area, more recently it’s been used to search for extremophile microbes in the blistering heat of the depression. These “extremeophiles” are organisms that can thrive in environments that would kill most other organisms. They could help scientists understand the origins of life on Earth and even find evidence of early-stage life on Mars.
Death Valley National Park
With millions of acres of wilderness, Death Valley National Park offers solitude, natural quiet, dark night skies and wild nature. It also offers some truly incredible landscapes including huge sand dunes, technicolor rocks and canyons, endemic wildlife and one-of-a-kind evaporative elements.
Located in eastern California and Nevada, the park is famous for its extremes. It is home to the lowest point in North America at Badwater Basin and vast salt flats where intricate crystal formations can be viewed. The spiky salt mounds known as Devil’s Golf Course are another popular attraction.
The park’s many canyons are filled with rock art and well-preserved petroglyphs, while old charcoal kilns are scattered around the ghost town of Titus Canyon. There are also the sand dunes of Mesquite Flat and the jaw-dropping Telescope Peak trail.
The best time to visit Death Valley is November through March when the temperatures are cooler. However, the summer heat is scorching. Death Valley is also a great place to witness the spectacular phenomenon of a super bloom. This happens when rainstorms bring water to the parched desert, turning the ground green and bringing flowers that would otherwise never have grown in such harsh conditions.
Thor’s Well
Located on the coast of Oregon, Thor’s Well is an intriguing natural phenomenon that looks like a bottomless sinkhole swallowing up the Pacific Ocean. Often dubbed as “the drainpipe of the Pacific,” the rocky formation is named after Odin’s thunder god son and is one of the most fascinating and bizarre natural wonders in the world.
The unusual sight was likely formed when the thrashing waves eroded a sea cave, causing its roof to collapse, leaving openings at both the top and bottom of the formation. The bowl shaped hole is filled by the constant surge of ocean waters from beneath and sometimes bubbles up to the surface, spraying water with dramatic force.
During high tide or storms, Thor’s Well is at its most spectacular, as water shoots out of the rocky formation and sprays water over the surrounding rocks. The incredibly cool natural wonder is best viewed from the nearby Cape Perpetua Scenic Area and can be accessed by a 0.8-mile round trip paved trail.
Though the sight is incredible, getting too close to the hole can be dangerous and is not recommended. Sneaker waves and large sprays have been known to sweep unprepared visitors into the Pacific. For your own safety, always assess the weather and ocean conditions before exploring Thor’s Well or any other natural wonder along the rugged Oregon coastline.
Bhangarh Fort
A popular haunted place, Bhangarh Fort is not for the faint of heart. It has numerous legends associated with it, which many say have resulted in horrendous misfortune and terrible accidents to the people who dared venture into its premises after sundown. As a result, the Archaeological Survey of India has put up several boards cautioning travelers not to stay in the fort premises after sunset.
Another legend, and arguably more terrifying, is related to Princess Ratnavati of Bhangarh. The princess is said to have been a beautiful and charming woman who had a lot of suitors, including members of royal families. However, she fell for a local black magician who tried to bewitch her with a cosmetic. When the princess smelled something fishy, she threw the bewitched cosmetic over a boulder that crushed the black magician to death. The fort is also believed to be haunted by the ghost of the dead magician.
Today, the fort is in complete ruins, and a visit to it can be a bit frightening, especially after dark. The fort is surrounded by ruins of temples, palaces, and a bazaar. There is even a twisted banyan tree that is growing in the midst of the ruins.
Nazca Lines
Across the arid plains of Nazca, Peru lies one of the world’s greatest mysteries. Thousands of miles of lines and figures, some of them up to 300 meters long, are etched into the ground. The shapes have sparked more than one conspiracy theory, from alien landing fields to astrological charts.
The geoglyphs first came to light in 1926 when Toribio Mejia Xesspe began a systematic study of them. But they didn’t gain wide popularity until the 1930s, when pilots began flying over them. From then on, there have been many theories on the purpose of the Nazca Lines.
For the longest time, most archaeologists believed that the lines referred to astronomical cycles, such as constellations and movements of the stars. Johan Reinhard, a cultural anthropologist at National Geographic, points out that the Nazca people lived in an arid area where finding water was vital, so it is possible they used the lines to pray for rain.
Other researchers have also suggested that the Nazca lines were a form of art or religious symbolism. American historian Paul Kosok studied the figures from both land and air and called them the largest astronomy book in the world. He then fed the positions of a few lines into a computer and found that they were very close to astronomical events, but it didn’t completely prove the theory. Sadly, Maria Reiche, the foremost researcher of the lines, died in 1998 CE after dedicating over half her life to them.
Devil’s Kettle Waterfall
A geological riddle in Minnesota has baffled visitors for decades. High above Lake Superior in Judge C. R. Magney State Park near Grand Marais, the Brule River plunges down rock formations and falls into beautiful waterfalls, but at one point a thick knuckle of rhyolite (the igneous equivalent to granite) splits the river dramatically. One side of the Brule drops through the rocks like a traditional waterfall, while the other flows into a giant pothole known as Devil’s Kettle. The other half of the river disappears, and until recently no one knew where it went.
Dye, ping pong balls, and GPS trackers have been tossed into the hole, but they never reappear. Some people think the water enters a hidden cave system or meets up with an underground river/water system and eventually emptying into Lake Superior about a mile and a half away. Others simply don’t believe that the water ever resurfaces, even though the water that goes into the kettle isn’t all that different than the water that is just a few hundred feet downstream.
But in 2016 researchers from the Department of Natural Resources used stream gauging equipment to measure the amount of water flowing above and below Devil’s Kettle. The results were virtually identical, leading scientists to conclude that the water that goes into the hole definitely re-enters the river and ends up back at or below the waterfall.
