10 of the Fascinating places on the face of Earth

Man has and has been creating wonders. But, there are somethings in the world which are not man made but, placed in such an elite zone that replicating them is just impossible.
Below are some of the examples of such things which are created by nature that awes us......

1) Bimmah Sinkhole of Oman:

Bimmah Sinkhole in Oman

Sinkholes usually become the headlines for swallowing cars, houses and occasionally the whole street. But, there are some sinkholes which are famous for a different reason. Their picturesque nature, one such Sinkhole is found in Oman which is so stunning that, it has been turned into a tourist attraction.

The beautiful limestone hollow, in Bimmah, boasts the kind of clear waters normally seen only on holiday postcards.

A concrete stairway leads to the base of the picturesque sinkhole, which is considered more beautiful than many others of its type

A number of tourists have a swim in the emerald-tinted waters in Bayt al-Afreet, Oman where the Bimmah sinkhole is found

Sinkholes like the stunning one in Oman are formed when groundwater travels through easily-dissolved rock

2) Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia:

Salar de Uyuni (or Salar de Tunupa) is the world's largest salt flat at 10,582 square kilometers (4,086 sq mi). It is located in the Potosí and Oruro departments in southwest Bolivia, near the crest of the Andes, and is at an elevation of 3,656 meters (11,995 ft) above mean sea level. The Salar was formed as a result of transformations between several prehistoric lakes. It is covered by a few meters of salt crust, which has an extraordinary flatness with the average altitude variations within one meter over the entire area of the Salar. The crust serves as a source of salt and covers a pool of brine, which is exceptionally rich in lithium. It contains 50 to 70% of the world's lithium reserves, which is in the process of being extracted. The large area, clear skies and the exceptional flatness of the surface make the Salar an ideal object for calibrating the altimeters of Earth observation satellites. Salar de Uyuni is also a climatological transitional zone, for towering tropical cumulus congestus and cumulus incus clouds that form in the eastern part of the massive salt flat during the summer, cannot permeate beyond the salt flat's considerably more arid western edges, near the Chilean border and the Atacama Desert.

The salar is composed of a salt surface crust overlying brine saturated sediments

When covered with a little water, the Salar becomes one of the largest mirrors on Earth

The Salar serves as the major transport route across the Bolivian Altiplano and is a major breeding ground for several species of pink flamingos.

3) Morning Glory Pool (Geyser) in Yellow Stone National Park of Wyoming, USA:

A geyser is a spring characterized by intermittent discharge of water ejected turbulently and accompanied by a vapour phase (steam).

Morning Glory Pool is a hot spring in the Upper Geyser Basin of Yellowstone National Park in the United States.

Morning glory pool is considered the most beautiful pool and a must-see of Yellowstone National Park. Its colors are because of the existence of heat-thriving bacteria making a stunning display of hues. The delicate blue water is created by thermophilic bacteria, which thrive in the pool’s searing heat.

The original name of the Morning Glory Pool was Convolutus. Recently, however, the pool has started to go by another name "Fading Glory."

The trash has slowly built up and blocked some of the thermal vents and reduced the heat of the pool, allowing other bacteria to begin working their way in at the edges, creating a red and yellow ring around the pure blue center. While this rainbow hue is indeed beautiful, it is a fragile beauty, as the invasive yellow bacteria continues to close in.

Long a major tourist stop in Yellowstone National Park, the Morning Glory Pool suffers from inconsiderate visitors who have thrown coins, bottles, and trash into the pool for over a century. The trash has slowly built up and blocked some of the thermal vents and reduced the heat of the pool, allowing other bacteria to begin working their way in at the edges, creating a red and yellow ring around the pure blue center. While this rainbow hue is indeed beautiful, it is a fragile beauty, as the invasive yellow bacteria continues to close in.

Occasionally, often following seismic activity, the pool erupts in a geyser. There is hope that these eruptions may clear the pool of trash. Attempts have been made to artificially induce geysers, but have met with mixed results.

4) Fly Ranch Geyser in Nevada, USA:


Fly Geyser, also known as Fly Ranch Geyser is a small geothermal geyser that is located approximately 20 miles north of Gerlach, Nevada. The Geyser is located in Hualapai Flat, about 1/3 of a mile from State Route 34. It is large enough to be seen from the road.

Fly Geyser is located on the private Fly Ranch and is accessible only by a small private dirt road. The ranch is currently owned by Todd Jaksick. There is a high fence and a locked gate topped with spikes to exclude trespassers. Despite the booby traps, some people jump the fence to get a better look. Several organizations have tried to purchase the land for conservation and make it open to the public, but have been denied.

Fly Geyser is a little-known tourist attraction, even to Nevada residents. It is located near the edge of Fly Reservoir and is only about 5 feet high, counting the mound on which it sits.

The Geyser is not an entirely natural phenomenon, and was accidentally created in 1916 during well drilling. The well functioned normally for several decades, but in the 1960s geothermally heated water found a weak spot in the wall and began escaping to the surface. Dissolved minerals started rising and accumulating, creating the mount on which the geyser sits, which continues growing.

Today water is constantly spewing, reaching 5 feet in the air. The geyser contains several terraces discharging water into 30 to 40 pools over an area of 74 acres.

The geyser has a complex mineral composition, including sulfur dioxide, which gives it its amazing colors.

5) Great Blue Hole in Belize


The Great Blue Hole is a large submarine sinkhole off the coast of Belize. It lies near the center of Lighthouse Reef, a small atoll 70 km (43 mi) from the mainland and Belize City. The hole is circular in shape, over 300 m across and 124 m deep.

It was formed during several episodes of quaternary glaciation when sea levels were much lower. Analysis of stalactites found in Great Blue Hole shows that formation took place 153,000, 66,000, 60,000, and 15,000 years ago. As the ocean began to rise again, the caves were flooded. The Great Blue Hole is a part of the larger Belize Barrier Reef Reserve System, a World Heritage Site of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

This is a popular spot amongst recreational scuba divers, who are lured by the opportunity to dive in crystal-clear water and meet several species of fish, including giant groupers, nurse sharks and several types of reef sharks such as the Caribbean reef shark and the Blacktip shark. Other species of sharks, like the bull shark and hammerheads, have been reported there, but are not regular sightings.

Usually, dive trips to the Great Blue Hole are full-day trips, which include one dive in the Blue Hole and two further dives in nearby reefs.

Recently diving has also been offered from the island Long Caye in the Lighthouse Reef only a couple of miles away from the Great Blue Hole. They offer 2 dives in the Blue Hole: North side and South side.

The Great Blue Hole in Belize is a Mecca for those wanting to dive among its giant stalactites and stalagmites, which were formed during the last Ice Age.

6) Fantastic Pit (Cave) of Georgia (Vertical Cave):


A pit cave, or vertical cave — or often simply called a pit — is a type of natural cave which contains one or more significant vertical shafts rather than being predominantly a conventional horizontal cave passage. Pit caves typically form in limestone as a result of long-term erosion by water. They can be open to the surface or found deep within horizontal caves. Among cavers, a pit is generally defined as a vertical drop of any depth that cannot be negotiated safely without the use of ropes or ladders.

Exploration into pit caves ("vertical caving", also called "pit caving") requires the use of equipment such as nylon kermantle rope or cable ladders. More specialized caving techniques such as the single rope technique (SRT) are common practice and the preferred method of pit exploration for cavers worldwide. The SRT involves the use of 9–11 mm nylon static rope and mechanical descenders/ascenders.

Vertical caving is a specialized sport that should be undertaken only after acquiring knowledge of, and expertise in, proper vertical caving equipment and its use.

For obvious reasons, vertical caving is more dangerous than "horizontal caving". Vertical caving requires the intimate understanding of ropes, knots, anchors, rappelling devices and ascending systems. Veteran cavers typically are knowledgeable in self rescue techniques including change-overs (the act of switching from rappel to climb while on rope) and pick-offs (the act of rescuing a stranded caver from his rope and returning him to the ground).

7) Valley of Flowers:


Valley of Flowers National Park is Situated near Badrinath, in the state of Uttrakhand in India. It is at a height of 11,000 feet to 14,000 feet above sea level in western Himalayas.

Valley of Flowers

The park stretches over an expanse of 87.50 km². The entire Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve lies within the Western Himalayas Endemic Bird Area (EBA). The Valley of Flowers National Park is the second core zone of the Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve. Seven restricted-range bird species are endemic to this part of the EBA. This Reserve is in the UNESCO World Network of Biosphere Reserves since 2004.

Nestled high in West Himalaya, India’s Valley of Flowers National Park is renowned for its meadows of endemic alpine flowers and outstanding natural beauty. This richly diverse area is also home to rare and endangered animals, including the Asiatic black bear, snow leopard, brown bear and blue sheep. The gentle landscape of the Valley of Flowers National Park complements the rugged mountain wilderness of Nanda Devi National Park. Together they encompass a unique transition zone between the mountain ranges of the Zanskar and Great Himalaya, praised by mountaineers and botanists for over a century and in Hindu mythology for much longer.

The Nanda Devi and Valley of Flowers National Parks are exceptionally beautiful high-altitude West Himalayan landscapes with outstanding biodiversity.

One of the most spectacular wilderness areas in the Himalayas, Nanda Devi National Park is dominated by the 7,817 m peak of Nanda Devi, India’s second highest mountain which is approached through the Rishi Ganga gorge, one of the deepest in the world.

The Valley of Flowers National Park, with its gentler landscape, breath-taking beautiful meadows of alpine flowers and ease of access, complements the rugged, inaccessible, high mountain wilderness of Nanda Devi. Apart from some community-based ecotourism to small portions of these parks, there has been no anthropogenic pressure in this area since 1983. This property therefore acts as a control site for the maintenance of natural processes, and is of high significance for long-term ecological monitoring in the Himalayas.

8) Derweze - "Door to hell" in Turkmenistan:


Derweze is a village in Turkmenistan of about 350 inhabitants, located in the middle of the Karakum Desert, about 260 km north from Ashgabat.

Darvaza inhabitants are mostly Turkmen of the Teke tribe, preserving a semi-nomadic lifestyle.

The Derweze area is rich in natural gas. While drilling in 1971, Soviet geologists tapped into a cavern filled with natural gas. The ground beneath the drilling rig collapsed, leaving a large hole with a diameter of 70 metres (230 ft).

To avoid poisonous gas discharge, it was decided the best solution was to burn it off. Geologists had hoped the fire would use all the fuel in a matter of days, but the gas is still burning today. Locals have dubbed the cavern "The Door to Hell".

The gas burns and burns even today.

Derweze: Video

9) Mount Roraimo in Guyana, Brazil and Venezuela


Mount Roraima giant flat-topped mountain, or mesa, in the Pakaraima Mountains of the Guiana Highlands, at the point where the boundaries of Brazil, Venezuela, and Guyana meet.
About 9 miles (14 km) long and 9,094 feet (2,772 metres) high, it is the source of many rivers of Guyana, and of the Amazon and Orinoco.

Mount Roraima is a pretty remarkable place. It is a tabletop mountain with sheer 400-metre high cliffs on all sides.
There is only one ‘easy’ way up, on a natural staircase-like ramp on the Venezuelan side – to get up any other way takes and experienced rock climber.
On the top of the mountain it rains almost every day, washing away most of the nutrients for plants to grow and creating a unique landscape on the bare sandstone surface.

This also creates some of the highest waterfalls in the world over the sides (Angel falls is located on a similar tabletop mountain some 130 miles away).

Though there are only a few marshes on the mountain where vegetation can grow properly, these contain many species unique to the mountain, including a species of carnivorous pitcher plant.

The mountain marks the border between Venezuela, Brazil and Guyana, although more than three quarters of the mountain is in Venezuelan territory.

It is the highest mountain in Guyana, but Venezuela and Brazil have higher mountains.
Roraima lies on the Guiana Shield in the southeastern corner of Venezuela's 30,000 km² Canaima National Park, which is roughly located in the Gran Sabana region.
The tabletop mountains of the park are considered some of the oldest geological formations on Earth, dating back to the Precambrian Era, some two billion years ago.
The average height of the plateau is about 2,500 metres (8,200 feet), making it the highest point for distance of 549.44 kilometres (341.48 miles) in any direction.
Despite the fact the steep sides of the plateau make it difficult to access, it was the first major tepui to be climbed: Sir Everard im Thurn walked up a forested ramp in December 1884 to scale the strangely wind-and-water sculpted plateau. This is the same route hikers take today
It is thought that the reports from early Victorian expeditions to the mountain inspired Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to write his classic adventure yarn, The Lost World, in 1912 - now made into countless films.
Since long before the arrival of European explorers in Venezuela the mountain has held a special significance for the indigenous people of the region and it is central to many of their myths and legends.
The Pemon Indians of the Gran Sabana see Roraima as the stump of a mighty tree that once held all the fruits and tuberous vegetables in the world. Felled by one of their ancestors, the tree crashed to the ground, unleashing a terrible flood. "Roroi" in the Pemon language means blue-green and "ma" means great.
Mount Roraima has been climbed on a few occasions from the Guyana and Brazil sides, but as the mountain is entirely bordered on both these sides by enormous sheer cliffs that include high overhanging (negative-inclination) stretches, these are extremely difficult and technical rock climbing routes.


10) Socotra - Republic of Yemen:


Socotra has been described as one of the most alien-looking place on Earth, and it’s not hard to see why. Socotra also spelled Soqotra, is a small archipelago of four islands in the Indian Ocean.

The largest island, also called Socotra, is about 95% of the landmass of the archipelago. It lies some 240 kilometres (150 mi) east of the Horn of Africa and 380 kilometres (240 mi) south of the Arabian Peninsula.

The island is very isolated and through the process of speciation, a third of its plant life is found nowhere else on the planet. It is very isolated with a harsh, dry climate and as a result a third of its plant-life is found nowhere else, including the famous Dragon’s Blood Tree, a very-unnatural looking umbrella-shaped tree which produces red sap.

There are also a large number of birds, spiders and other animals native to the island, and coral reefs around it which similarly have a large number of endemic (i.e. only found there) species.

Socotra is considered the most biodiverse place in the Arabian sea, and is a World Heritage Site.

Socotra is considered the jewel of biodiversity in the Arabian Sea. In the 1990s, a team of United Nations biologists conducted a survey of the archipelago’s flora and fauna. They counted nearly 700 endemic species, found nowhere else on earth; only Hawaii and the Galapagos Islands have more impressive numbers.

The island was recognised by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as a world natural heritage site in July 2008.