Most Unreal Landscapes On Earth

Unreal landscapes on our very much real Earth are like gates to different worlds. These places blow our minds and cross the limits of our imagination.

Here is a collection of ten most alien-looking landscapes on Earth:

Iceland

Steam, bubbles, rocks and ice combine into breathtaking, though, alien-looking landscape. This is Iceland. The island with no trees, few people and the biggest glacier in Europe called Vatnajökull. Yes! This is Europe, not the moon.

Iceland by stuckincustoms

Vatnajökull by eir@si

By menesis

Uzbekistan

The hole filed with burning gas called by locals “the door to hell” is in Uzbekistan but could be as well quiet spot somewhere on Venus.

Gate to Hell. Credit: englishrussia

 

Burning gas looks like landscapes of Venus. Credit: englishrussia

Not to be groundless...Venus

Mauritania

Eye of the Sahara called Richat Structure has a diameter of almost 50 kilometers (30 miles). Placed in Mauritania, it is so huge it can be visible from the space. A meteorite impact? An effect of erosion? A symmetrical uplift? Or maybe three in one? Geologists do not really know how the structure was created.

The Eye

Credit: Viva NOLA

Socotra Island

A long geological isolation and dry, hot and harsh climate made Socotra Island looks like a grotesque computer animation. Hyperbolic plants, funky-looking trees and pink flowers can be great inspiration for graphic designers. The island is situated in the Indian Ocean 250 km from Somalia and 340 km from Yemen and it was isolated from mainland Africa for the last 6 or 7 million years.

Trees on Socotra by soqotra

By soqotra

Socotra beach by Marco Pavan

Spain

An ancient, acidic river in Spain - Rio Tinto – is a favourite environment for acid- and metal-loving extremophiles. It does not look like human-friendly and, in fact, it is not, but surely it could quench the Terminator's thirst.

Rio Tinto by ganso.org

Arizona

The Antelope Canyon, located on Navajo land near Page, Arizona looks more like an oil painting than a rock formation. Not without reasons it is the most visited canyon in the southwest America.

Picturesque rocks by paphio

By smileywhiley05

Yellowstone National Park

The terraces of Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone National Park, in the USA, are created by heat, water, limestone, and rock fracture. The formation is like a living sculpture that is constantly changing by flowing water and erosion. Well...the trees are very much alive as well.

Mammoth Hot Spring by v1ctory 1s m1ne

By v1ctory 1s m1ne

A tree on a walk. By v1ctory 1s m1ne

Planet Earth

The icy forms of glaciers are located around the world. That’s how I imagine Pluto and Neptune, the coldest planets in the solar system.

Hubbard Glacier is the longest tidewater glacier in Alaska by bob...

Grey Glacier, Chile by tom holub

Le Perito Moreno Glacier, Argentina by ricardo.martins

Denmark

The Mars’ landscapes of Skagen in Denmark do not really fit into the image of the richest and most developed country in the world. The moving dunes and deserted beaches run into the end of Europe where the Baltic Sea clashes with the North Sea.

Somewhere in Skagen

Where Baltic meets North Sea by goandgo

Skagen or Mars? by cmdrcord

Mars or Skagen? Credit: apod

Bolivia

Salar de Uyuni, the world's largest salt flat, is located in southwest Bolivia. The salt desert surrounded by cactuses, volcanoes and geysers looks as if it was a remote planet, far from our solar system.

So the salt does not come from the supermarket. By calimero74

Yellow plants around Salar de Uyuni by Calvin-C

By Calvin-C