World’s Weirdest and Most Bizarre Geological Formations

Grand County Mesa: Colorado, USA

Image Source

This brightly colored and extremely unique geological formation is called ‘mesa’. It is located in Grand County, Utah, USA. A mesa, Spanish for table, is an elevated area of land with a flat top and sides that are usually steep cliffs.

Devil’s Golf Course: California, USA

Image Source

Do you want to play extreme golf in an extreme golf course? Invite Tiger Woods and try playing at the Devil’s Golf Course – a golf course that only the devil could play. This unusual land formation is a large salt pan in Death Valley National Park in California, USA. Its rough surface was formed from large salt crystals. The salt and gravel beds of the Devil’s Golf Course extend to a depth of more than 300 meters. Recent studies suggest that in places the depth ranges up to 2,700 meters.

White Sand Dunes: New Mexico, USA

Image Source

Most sand dunes color is brown. It’s very rare that a sand dune is white. The White Sands National Monument in New Mexico, USA is one of the very few sand dunes with white sands. This field of white sand dune which is composed of gypsum crystals is 710-km² in area. This landform is quite bizarre because gypsum is rarely found in the form of sand for it is water-soluble.

Coral Pink Sand Dunes: Utah, USA

Image Source

If white sand dune is very rare, the same is true with pink sand dune. Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park in Utah, USA is characterized by coral-hued sand dunes. The park is located beside red sandstone cliffs where the dunes are formed from the erosion of pink-colored Navajo Sandstone surrounding area.

Lencois Maranhenses: Brazil

Image Source

This is quite amazing, blue and green lagoons in the middle of a desert. The Lençóis Maranhenses National Park in Brazil, a treeless area that looks like an archetypal desert although it is not, is about 1,000 km² wide. The area receives regular rain during the beginning of the year but no vegetation exists. Although the area has no vegetation; it is surprisingly home to a variety of fish which, despite the almost complete disappearance of the lagoons during the summer, have their eggs brought from the sea by birds.

La Garita Caldera: Colorado, USA

Image Source

The odd-looking La Garita Caldera, a large volcanic caldera, is located in Colorado, USA. The eruption that created it about 25 million years ago was, perhaps, the largest known explosive eruption in all of Earth’s history. This eruption is 10 times more powerful than the most powerful human-made explosion – the Tsar Bomba.

Flaming Mountains: China

Image Source

The Flaming Mountains or Gaochang Mountains is located in Tian Shan Mountain Range in Xinjiang, China. They are unusual for their red sandstone and for their striking gullies and trenches which were formed through years of volcanic activity that caused molten lava to course down the mountainsides, giving the mountains a flaming appearance at certain times of the day.

Image Source

The mountains’ climate is very hot in summer. They have an average height of 500 meters, a length of 98 kilometers and a width of 9 kilometers. A large thermometer is on display adjacent to the mountain, tracking the surrounding air temperature

Lake Fryxelle: Antarctica

Image Source

The 4.5 kilometer long Lake Fryxell in Antarctica is covered with blue ice that comes from glacial meltwater from the Canada Glacier and Commonwealth Glaciers. The briny water below is sealed by the frozen fresh water that stays on top of the lake.

White Desert: Egypt

Image Source

There are plenty of oases in Egypt and its smallest oasis is the Farafra Oasis – one of the countries main geographic attractions. Farafra is noted for its White Desert which has a white, cream color and has massive chalk rock formations that have been created as a result of occasional sandstorms. The Farafra Desert is frequented by Egyptian schools for camping trips.

Nakalele Point: Hawaii, USA

Image Source

Nakalele Point in the famous Maui Island in Hawaii is popular for a blowhole. This blowhole has a powerful geyser-like water spouts with the waves and tides. Water spewed can rise as high as 100 feet in the air.

Dungeness Spit: Washington, USA

Image Source

The 8.9 km long Dungeness Spit (a deposition landform found off coasts with one end connected to land while the other exists in open water) is located in Washington, USA is the largest spit in the country. It has a land area of 1,271,454 m².

Bonneville Salt Flats: Utah, USA

Image Source

The 412 km² wide Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, USA, which is a public land, has a recorded depth of 1.8 meters. The area is the location where many land speed records have been set. There is no vegetation in the area and each rainfall erases tire marks and flattens the densely-packed slat pan. Bonneville Salt Flats is extremely flat and aligned nearly perfectly with the shape of Earth.

See also

Geological Wonders: Amazing Natural Holes

World’s Most Impressive Rock Formations

World’s Most Spectacular Balanced Rock Formations

World’s Most Spectacular Natural Arches and Bridges