Seven Coloured Earths, Mauritius
The Seven Coloured Earths, a small region near the village of Chamarel, Mauritius, is a geological curiosity and a major tourist attraction of Mauritius. This relatively small area of about 7,500 square meters comprises of sand dunes of seven distinct colours (approximately red, brown, violet, green, blue, purple and yellow).
The sands were formed from the decomposition of volcanic rock (basalt) gullies into clay, further transformed into ferralitic soil by total hydrolysis (chemical break- down of minerals by water). The two main elements of the resulting soil, iron and aluminium, are responsible for red/anthracite and blue/purplish colours respectively. The different shades of colour are believed to be a consequence of the molten volcanic rock cooling down at different external temperatures.
An unusual property of the sands is that they settle in different layers even if mixed together that gives the dunes a surrealistic, striped colouring. This strange phenomenon can be observed even on a smaller scale, if one takes a handful of sands of different colours and mixes them together, they'll eventually separate into a layered spectrum. The cause of their consistent spontaneous separation is yet to be explained. Another interesting feature of Chamarel's Coloured Earths is that the dunes seemingly never erode, in spite of Mauritius' torrential, tropical rains.
Ice Cave In Skaftafell, Iceland
Ice caves are temporary structures that appear at the edge of glaciers. They look amazingly beautiful from the inside. This particular cave is located on the frozen lagoon of the Svínafellsjökull glacier in Skaftafell, Iceland. The centuries old ice coming down the slopes of Öræfajökull via Svínafellsjökull glacier has metamorphosed into highly pressurized glacier ice that contains almost no air bubbles. The lack of air means that it absorbs almost all visible light, apart from the blue fraction which is then visible to the naked eye. However, this blue ice can be seen only under certain circumstances. It can be seen in winter after long periods of rain when the surface layer of the glacier has been washed away. It can be seen in ice-caves like this one and on floating icebergs that have recently rolled over.
This cave in the glacier ice is the result of glacial mill, or Moulin where rain and melt water on the glacier surface are channeled into streams that enter the glacier at crevices. The waterfall melts a hole into the glacier while the ponded water drains towards lower elevations by forming long ice caves with an outlet at the terminus of the glacier. The fine grained sediments in the water along with wind blown sediments cause the frozen meltwater stream to appear in a muddy colour while the top of the cave exhibits the deep blue colour. Due to the fast movement of the glacier of about 1 m per day over uneven terrain, this ice cave cracked up at its end into a deep vertical crevice, called cerrac. This causes the indirect daylight to enter the ice cave from both ends resulting in homogeneous lighting of the ice tunnel.
Magical Floating Faucet Fountains
The floating tap fountain is a clever illusion. It consist of a faucet mysteriously hovering above a pool or basin with an endless supply of water gushing out of it from seemingly nowhere. The faucet remains surprisingly steady despite having no visible support and where is all this water coming from? This spectacular effect is achieved by a transparent tube in the middle of the water column that holds the tap in place and, at the same time, keeps feeding it with water pumped from below. The water goes up through the tube and exits at the top. The water column, which is usually turbulent, effectively hides the tube from view.
Several giant floating tap fountains can be found around Spain, Belgium, US, Canada and other parts of the world. Some are permanent installation, others are temporary art pieces. The one below is located at Aqualand, Puerto de Santa María, Spain.
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