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6 of the world’s most beautiful (and surreal) landscapes

<p>With unreal colours and dizzying visual tricks, these places look like they have come from a film set. But these amazing landscapes are all real and show the true majesty of nature.</p> <p><strong>Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia</strong></p> <p>The largest salt flat on earth, Salar de Uyuni covers over 10,500 square kilometres near the crest of the Andes. The whole area is covered in salt crusts a few metres thick and there is almost no variation in altitude across the entire surface. The ground and the sky seem to merge into one, creating mind boggling optical illusions and a mirror-like effect across the sparkling surface. There are even hotels made of carved salt blocks, from the walls and floors right through to the furniture.</p> <p><strong>Lavender fields in Provence, France</strong></p> <p>Provence is the world’s largest producer of lavender and each year between June and August you can find endless rows of bushes bursting with bright purple flowers. Drive or cycle along the unofficial “Lavender Highway” – the Plateau de Claparédes – for an endless carpet of lavender fields, with the occasional charming chateau or farmhouse perched within the blooms.</p> <p><strong>Tianzi Mountains, China</strong></p> <p>These eerie peaks look like they belong on the set of Avatar, rising dramatically from narrow bases to over 1,200 metres in the air. A cable car runs to the top giving birds’ eye views over the deep valleys and thundering waterfalls that run down many of the mountains. The area is often covered in clouds, creating a mystical atmosphere and giving the impression that the rocks are floating in a foggy sea.</p> <p><strong>Grand Prismatic Spring, Yellowstone National Park, USA</strong></p> <p>Yellowstone is home to numerous hot springs and gushing geysers, but what sets this one apart is its startling colour pattern. The water radiates out from the centre in bands of blue, green, yellow, orange and red – a pattern that matches the rainbow dispersion of white light through a prism, hence the name. The colours are a result of the pigmented bacteria that live around the edge of the spring and thrive in the 70 degrees Celsius water.</p> <p><strong>Sossusvlei sand dunes, Namibia</strong></p> <p>These remote dunes are said to be the tallest in the world with some rising to almost 400 metres. You can climb them, but the sand is soft and fine as talcum powder so it’s torture on the legs. The surrounding desert is stark and forbidding, and the winds will blow away any footprints almost as soon as they are made. The dunes are best viewed at sunrise or sunset when the red sand seems to glow from within.</p> <p><strong>Lake Hillier, Western Australia</strong></p> <p>This bubblegum pink lake is found on Middle Island off the coast of Esperance and is the most famous of a number of pink lakes found across the state. Scientists are unsure why the water is such a vibrant hue, but speculate that it might be from a dye created by the bacteria that live in the lake’s salt crust. It is most spectacular when seen from above – just a thin strip of lush green vegetation separates it from the blue of the Southern Ocean.</p> <p><em>Images: Getty</em></p>

International Travel

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20 of the most surreal natural phenomena – explained

<p><strong>Behold</strong><br />I don’t know about you, but being cooped up in the house has made me yearn for the majesty of nature like I’ve never quite yearned in the past. Sure, prior to quarantine I might’ve gone weeks without seeing moss and not thought twice about it, but now that I cannot venture out of my home to see salt flats or rainbow eucalyptus trees, I am simply beside myself. But that doesn’t mean I can’t use this time to educate myself about them – I dare you to try to stop me from marvelling at Skógafoss waterfall in Iceland and other natural phenomena. Take a look at some of nature’s most dream-like creations, and maybe they’ll earn a spot at the top of your bucket list.</p> <p><strong>Moonbows</strong><br />Much like rainbows, these colourful nocturnal arches occur when light (from the moon, in this case) reflects and refracts off water droplets in the sky. But moonbows are much more rare than rainbows – the natural phenomenon happens only when the moon is very low, the sky is dark, and rain is falling opposite the moon.</p> <p><strong>Sun halos</strong><br />Similar to moonbows, sun halos, or a circle rainbow, form much higher in the sky when light reflects through ice crystals forming a perfect circle. They appear as a large circle of white or coloured light around the sun.</p> <p><strong>Brinicles</strong><br />What Alec Baldwin describes on Frozen Planet as “icy fingers of death,” brinicles are underwater stalactites, or hollow icicles, that form when cold salt water freezes. In the right conditions, brinicles can reach and pool on the ocean floor, eventually freezing slow-moving bottom-dwelling creatures like starfish.</p> <p><strong>Shooting stars</strong><br />Shooting stars are actually meteors, or small rocks that have entered the Earth’s atmosphere. The light you see is the particles heating up and burning. Stargazers can expect to see a shooting star every ten to 15 minutes.</p> <p><strong>Sinkholes</strong><br />A perfect example of how a natural phenomenon can be dangerous is the Florida man who was swallowed by a sinkhole under his bedroom. Sinkholes most commonly occur when water, made acidic by contact with plants or carbon dioxide in the air, erodes soft rock such as limestone, gypsum or dolomite underground, forming a deep cavern.</p> <p><strong>Whirlpools</strong><br />Formed at the meeting of opposing currents, whirlpools are often much more ominous in fiction than in real life. The most powerful whirlpools, called maelstroms, are formed in narrow, shallow straits with fast flowing water, or at the base of waterfalls, but the speed of the swirl rarely exceeds 30km/ph.</p> <p><strong>Glowing beaches</strong><br />Some beaches around the world glow at night. This natural phenomenon is caused by phytoplankton in the water that gives off light when agitated by the movement of waves and currents. These microorganisms can be seen at beaches in Australia, Malaysia, Thailand and many more around the world. The image above is a long exposure shot of a blue fluorescent wave of bioluminescent plankton in Thailand.</p> <p><strong>Light pillars</strong><br />Light pillars are colourful beams of light that shine down from the sky, typically during sunrise. They are sometimes also referred to as solar pillars or sun pillars. Light pillars occur in colder climates when light reflects off ice crystals in the air.</p> <p><strong>Waterspouts</strong><br />Some might mistake a waterspout for a tornado moving over a body of water, but in reality, a waterspout is a type of cloud. Waterspouts are rotating columns of air over water and are much weaker than tornados. They mainly occur in tropical and subtropical climates.</p> <p><strong>Volcanic lightning</strong><br />Thunderstorm lightning has nothing on volcanic lightning which appears during a volcano explosion. This lightning forms in the volcanic plume – the cylinder-shaped column of volcanic ash – after it erupts, according to National Geographic. The particles that make up the plume compress underground. Once these particles eject above ground the density changes. Plus, the friction between particles charges them. They separate as they go up, creating space for electricity or lightning to flow between particles, per National Geographic.</p> <p><strong>Blood falls</strong><br />In Antarctica, the famous Blood Falls – a blood-red waterfall pouring out of the Taylor Glacier, are found in the McMurdo Dry Valleys. Scientists and geologists first thought that the water was the colour red because of algae, according to Atlas Obscura. Research by the University of Alaska Fairbanks, however, found the red colour is thanks to oxidised iron in the brine saltwater. We see the falls thanks to a fissure allowing the water to flow from the small, trapped body.</p> <p><strong>Frozen lake bubbles</strong><br />Lake Abraham in Alberta, Canada, features some beautiful frozen, trapped, bubbles of methane. Methane bubbles form in water when bacteria feasts on leaves and animals in the water. The bacteria eat the matter and ‘poops’ out methane, which turn into floating bubbles in frozen water, according to Smithsonian Magazine.</p> <p><strong>Salt flats</strong><br />There are some well-known and beautiful salt flats, also known as salt lakes in Western Australia, South Australia, the Northern Territory and Victoria. No matter their location, salt flats are all thanks to the evaporation of water and the concentration and precipitation of salts and other minerals dissolved in it, according to the New York Times. They can differ in their water source which could be a lake, groundwater, or one of many other water sources.</p> <p><strong>Glow-worm caves</strong><br />Even worms, although small and slimy, are a natural phenomenon – especially glow-worms and their caves. Most of these caves are in New Zealand and Australia. The Waitomo Caves in New Zealand are the most well-known, having formed more than 30 million years ago. The science behind the glow-worm caves is interesting. In fact, they technically aren’t ‘glowing worms’ at all. According to the New York Times, fungus gnat eggs hatch, their larva constructing mucus. That mucus coughs up silk strings collecting droplets of more mucus. This is the net that illuminates and attracts flies or other victims for the worms.</p> <p><strong>Rainbow eucalyptus trees</strong><br />Rainbow eucalyptus or rainbow gum trees hails from the Philippines and Indonesia. The colourful tree stripes are actually strips of old and new bark. As the thin bark layers peel away, they reveal younger ones with brighter colours. The youngest bark is green then purple, red and brown as the tree ages and loses chlorophyll. Eventually, the bark becomes totally brown again before repeating the shedding cycle, according to nature.com.</p> <p><strong>Travertine terraces</strong><br />Travertine forms as a result of calcium carbonate precipitation from geothermal waters, according to New Zealand’s University of Waikato. The travertine builds up forming terraces over time. When hot water full of carbon dioxide flows through limestone, it dissolves. It carries calcium carbonate to the surface of the travertine, per Atlas Obscura. Still, more research shows there might be other reasons for their formation. Bacteria in the water could catalyse the minerals, forming the terraces, according to Science Magazine.</p> <p><strong>Sandstone waves</strong><br />These sandstone waves were originally dunes in Arizona, USA. Dating back more than 190 million years, the ‘waves’ are made up of intersecting troughs of sandstone turned to rock. According to Atlas Obscura, the dunes form vertically and horizontally, and slow erosion, thanks to wind and rain over time, reveals their wave-like look. Sandstone waves are a must for avid hikers in the American Southwest.</p> <p><strong>Desert roses</strong><br />Desert roses are a special crystal group formed by rain or flooding in desert regions where there are trapped sand particles. Switching between wet and dry conditions forms the crystals while trapping grains of sand. Although most form from gypsum, baryte and celestite roses exist, too.</p> <p><strong>Nacreous clouds</strong><br />Nacreous clouds look like light waves of various colours. They are rare since they’re only visible within two hours after sunset or before dawn. However, they’re more common during winter time in places with high altitudes, like in Antarctica, Scandinavia, Iceland and Canada.</p> <p><strong>Permafrost explosions</strong><br />This natural phenomenon is thanks to frozen, trapped methane, similar to the bubbles seen here in Lake Abraham, Canada. Heating these larger-scale bubbles results in huge bursts, according to Business Insider. The warming temperatures in Arctic zones thaw the ice, releasing the gas and creating permafrost explosions.</p> <p class="p1"><em>Written by Beth Dreher. This article first appeared on <a href="https://www.readersdigest.co.nz/culture/20-of-the-most-surreal-natural-phenomena-explained?pages=1"><span class="s1">Reader’s Digest</span></a>. For more of what you love from the world’s best-loved magazine, <a href="http://readersdigest.co.nz/subscribe"><span class="s1">here’s our best subscription offer</span></a>.</em></p>

International Travel

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Sludge, snags and surreal animals: a voyage to the abyss of the deep blue

<p><em><strong>Tim O’Hara is a senior curator of Marine Invertebrates at the Museum of Victoria.</strong></em></p> <p>Over the past five weeks I led a “<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="https://www.nespmarine.edu.au/abyss-landing-%20page" target="_blank">voyage of discovery</a></strong></span>”. That sounds rather pretentious in the 21st century, but it’s still true. My team, aboard the CSIRO managed research vessel, the <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="http://www.csiro.au/RV-Investigator-virtual-tour/rv_investigator.html" target="_blank">Investigator</a></strong></span>, has mapped and sampled an area of the planet that has never been surveyed before.</p> <p>Bizarrely, our ship was only 100km off Australia’s east coast, in the middle of a busy shipping lane. But our focus was not on the sea surface, or on the migrating whales or skimming albatross. We were surveying The Abyss – the very bottom of the ocean some 4,000m below the waves.</p> <p>To put that into perspective, the <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="http://www.gnb.nsw.gov.au/place_naming/placename_search/extract?id=KWwGjzsETR" target="_blank">tallest mountain</a></strong></span> on the Australian mainland is only 2,228m. Scuba divers are lucky to reach depths of 40m, while nuclear submarines dive to about 500m. We were aiming to put our cameras and sleds much, much deeper. Only since 2014, when the RV Investigator was commissioned, has Australia had the capacity to survey the deepest depths.</p> <p>The months before the trip were frantic, with so much to organise: permits, freight, equipment, flights, medicals, legal agreements, safety procedures, visas, finance approvals, communication ideas, sampling strategies – all the tendrils of modern life (the thought “why am I doing this?” surfaced more than once). But remarkably, on May 15, we had 27 scientists from 14 institutions and seven countries, 11 technical specialists, and 22 crew converging on Launceston, and we were off.</p> <p><strong>Rough seas</strong></p> <p>Life at sea takes some adjustment. You work 12-hour shifts every day, from 2 o’clock to 2 o’clock, so it’s like suffering from jetlag. The ship was very stable, but even so the motion causes seasickness for the first few days. You sway down corridors, you have one-handed showers, and you feel as though you will be tipped out of bed. Many people go off coffee. The ship is “dry”, so there’s no well-earned beer at the end of a hard day. You wait days for bad weather to clear and then suddenly you are shovelling tonnes of mud through sieves in the middle of the night as you process samples dredged from the deep.</p> <p style="text-align: center;"><img width="500" height="333" src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/41245/discovering-the-deep-blue-in-text-1_500x333.jpg" alt="Discovering The Deep Blue In Text 1"/></p> <p style="text-align: center;"><em>Shifting through the mud of the abyss on the back deck. Image credit: Jerome Mallefet.</em></p> <p>Surveying the abyss turns out to be far from easy. On our very first deployment off the eastern Tasmanian coast, our net was shredded on a rock at 2,500m, the positional beacon was lost, tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of gear gone. It was no one’s fault; the offending rock was too small to pick up on our <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="http://mnf.csiro.au/Vessel/Investigator-2014/Equipment/Marine-acoustics-seafloor-mapping-and-fisheries-acoustics.aspx" target="_blank">multibeam sonar</a></strong></span>. Only day 1 and a new plan was required. Talented people fixed what they could, and we moved on.</p> <p>I was truly surprised by the ruggedness of the seafloor. From the existing maps, I was expecting a gentle slope and muddy abyssal plain. Instead, our sonar revealed canyons, ridges, cliffs and massive rock slides – amazing, but a bit of a hindrance to my naive sampling plan.</p> <p>But soon the marine animals began to emerge from our videos and samples, which made it all worthwhile. Life started to buzz on the ship.</p> <p><strong>Secrets of the deep</strong></p> <p>Like many people, scientists spend most of their working lives in front of a computer screen. It is really great to get out and actually experience the real thing, to see animals we have only read about in old books. The tripod fish, the <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="https://www.nespmarine.edu.au/faceless-fish-looks-happier-and-heartier-it-did-1887" target="_blank">faceless fish</a></strong></span>, the shortarse feeler fish (yes, really), red spiny crabs, worms and sea stars of all shapes and sizes, as well as animals that <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="https://www.nespmarine.edu.au/beam-us-j%C3%A9r%C3%B4me" target="_blank">emit light</a></strong></span> to ward off predators.</p> <p>The level of public interest has been phenomenal. You may already have seen <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-05-30/researchers-drag-faceless-fish-up-from-the-abyss/8572634" target="_blank">some of the coverage</a></strong></span>, which ranged from the <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="http://www.npr.org/2017/06/15/533063615/explorers-probing-%20deep-sea-%20abyss-off-australias-coast-find-living-wonders" target="_blank">fascinated</a></strong></span> to the amused – for some reason our discovery of <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="http://mashable.com/2017/06/18/peanut-worm-looks-phallic/#GAkg8P.vh8qC" target="_blank">priapulid worms</a></strong></span> was a big hit on <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPgVtWDljcU" target="_blank">US late-night television</a></strong></span>. In many ways all the publicity mirrored our first reactions to animals on the ship. “What is this thing?” “How amazing!”</p> <p>The important scientific insights will come later. It will take a year or so to process all the data and accurately identify the samples. Describing all the new species will take even longer. All of the material has been carefully preserved and will be stored in museums and CSIRO collections around Australia for centuries.</p> <p style="text-align: center;"><img width="500" height="375" src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/41243/discovering-the-deep-blue-in-text-2_500x375.jpg" alt="Discovering The Deep Blue In Text 2 (1)"/></p> <p style="text-align: center;"><em>Scientists identifying microscopic animals onboard. Image credit: Asher Flatt.</em></p> <p>On a voyage of discovery, video footage is not sufficient, because we don’t know the animals. The modern biologist uses high-resolution microscopes and DNA evidence to describe the new species and understand their place in the ecosystem, and that requires actual samples.</p> <p>So why bother studying the deep sea? First, it is important to understand that humanity is already having an impact down there. The oceans are changing. There wasn’t a day at sea when we didn’t bring up some rubbish from the seafloor – cans, bottles, plastic, rope, fishing line. There is also old debris from steamships, such as unburned coal and bits of <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="http://www.ehow.com/info_12152358_causes-clinkers-coal-fired-boilers.html" target="_blank">clinker</a></strong></span>, which looks like melted rock, formed in the boilers. Elsewhere in the oceans there are plans to mine precious metals from the deep sea.</p> <p>Second, Australia is the custodian of a vast amount of abyss. Our marine <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="http://www.ga.gov.au/scientific-topics/national-location-information/dimensions/oceans-and-seas#heading-1" target="_blank">exclusive economic zone (EEZ)</a></strong></span> is larger than the Australian landmass. The Commonwealth recently established a <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="http://www.environment.gov.au/topics/marine/marine-reserves" target="_blank">network of marine reserves</a></strong></span> around Australia. Just like National Parks on land, these have been established to protect biodiversity in the long term. Australia’s <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="https://www.nespmarine.edu.au/" target="_blank">Marine Biodiversity Hub</a></strong></span>, which provided funds for this voyage, as been established by the Commonwealth Government to conduct research in the EEZ.</p> <p>Our voyage mapped some of the marine reserves for the first time. Unlike parks on land, the reserves are not easy to visit. It was our aim to bring the animals of the Australian Abyss into public view.</p> <p>We discovered that life in the deep sea is diverse and fascinating. Would I do it again? Sure I would. After a beer.</p> <p><em>Written by Tim O’Hara. First appeared on <a href="http://www.theconversation.com" target="_blank"><strong><span style="text-decoration: underline;">The Conversation</span></strong></a>.<img width="1" height="1" src="https://counter.theconversation.edu.au/content/79924/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-advanced" alt="The Conversation"/></em></p>

Cruising

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Artist seamlessly blends classic art with the modern world

<p>A surreal art project has gathered momentum on social media, depicting Renaissance art figures in modern settings, like parks, streets, book stores and more.</p> <p>Bringing classical art to the contemporary world, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/the.canvas.project1/" target="_blank"><strong><span style="text-decoration: underline;">The Canvas Project</span></strong></a> creates stunning collages of famous art subjects from artists like Rembrandt, Botticelli, Renoir and countless others.</p> <p>The project is the brainchild of Portuguese artist Gabriel Nardelli Araujo, who was inspired by a trip to the UK. “I had the opportunity to spend some time in London and wanted to produce something beyond simple travel photos or architecture,” he said.</p> <p><a href="https://www.instagram.com/the_canvasproject/" target="_blank"><strong><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Click here</span></strong></a> to see his stunning artworks, or take a look at the gallery above.</p> <p>Which is your favourite classic artwork? Tell us about it in the comments below.</p> <p><strong>Related links:</strong></p> <p><a href="/entertainment/art/2016/05/computer-creates-a-new-rembrandt-painting/"><strong><em><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Computer creates a new Rembrandt painting</span></em></strong></a></p> <p><a href="/entertainment/art/2016/03/famous-paintings-redone-with-cartoons/"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><em><strong>Famous paintings redone with cartoons</strong></em></span></a></p> <p><a href="/entertainment/art/2016/01/classic-art-reimagined-in-modern-times/"><strong><em><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Artists reimagines classical paintings in modern times</span></em></strong></a></p>

Art

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Artist transforms Australia’s Red Centre into surreal alien landscape

<p>Bruce Munro is an internationally acclaimed British artist who’s known around the world for his ambitious, immersive, light-based installations.</p> <p>For his latest project, Mr Munro has taken to Australia’s famous red centre, using fairy lights to turn the desert into a surreal, almost alien landscape.</p> <p><img width="497" height="280" src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/18341/uluru-2-_497x280.jpg" alt="Uluru 2 -" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"/></p> <p>50,000 light stems, covering a surface equivalent to four football pitches, were used to create the stunning installation, with Uluru looming on the horizon.</p> <p>To see some of the other work Mr Munro has created, scroll through the gallery above. The images are captivating, but it mustn’t have been a lot of fun to clean up afterwards!</p> <p><em>Image credit: Facebook / brucemunrostudio</em></p> <p><strong>Related links:</strong></p> <p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><em><a href="/lifestyle/family-pets/2016/02/vintage-photos-capture-pure-innocence-of-children/">Vintage photos capture the pure innocence of children</a></em></strong></span></p> <p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><em><a href="/lifestyle/family-pets/2016/02/how-to-bring-up-a-happy-child/">22 tips for bringing up a happy child</a></em></strong></span></p> <p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><em><a href="/lifestyle/family-pets/2016/02/heartwarming-photos-that-prove-every-child-needs-a-pet/">15 heartwarming photos that prove every child needs a pet</a></em></strong></span></p>

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