Another Planet

ETHIOPIA'S VOLCANIC VENTS (mentalfloss.com)

    I must admit that when I first read the location, I had to do a double take in startled surprise as the name Europa, a moon of Jupiter, leapt into my subconscious recalled from my Astronomy class. With it came a keen remembrance of the picture of Io’s strange volcanic surface; stinking with sulfur accompanied by alien intrigue.

    Once my eyes and and brain were reinformed correctly, Ethiopia, I grew amazed that such a place was not in fact on a different planet, but on our own; Earth. Further research undergone revealed only more intriguing facts.

Two hundred and sixty-nine feet below sea level, caught in the Danakil depression of Ethiopia (geology.com) lies this amazing location, “Dallol Hydrothermal Field [,...] look[ing] like something out of a Seussian nightmare”(mentalfloss.com).

    The whole area is drenched in heat, claiming the status as the hottest place on Earth. (volcanodiscovery.com)

Colors explode against the plain eye, bursting with vividity and vitality.

    Salt is the magic fairy dust in this enchanted land. It builds itself up in mounds, crusting steadily into odd shapes, and affecting strange colors in the strange pool mixtures.