"The surreal colors come from the sulphur, potash, and other minerals that saturate the Dallol hydrothermal field."

"It sits amid crusty salt plains in the Danakil Depression, a 3,800-square-mile bowl that dips more than 400 feet below sea level, thanks to three slowly separating tectonic plates. As those plates pull apart, hot springs bubble up into acidic pools that form ethereal crystals and pillars as the briny waters evaporate."

Photographs of Ethiopia (in Wired).