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That means it's almost deserted, except for a particularly hardy fish, the microbes that make it look red, and lesser flamingoes. (The birds actually use the lake as their only breeding ground — not just because they're color coordinated, but because there aren't very many predators around to eat the chicks.)

But animals that do die in the lake end up so coated in baking soda and similar chemicals that they look like they've been turned to stone.

Formally known as the "Richtat structure," the Eye of the Sahara is in Mauritania. Scientists are still trying to confirm how it was formed, but they think it's the eroded remains of a giant dome of rock. If so, it would have originally formed when magma pushing up towards the surface of the Earth created a bulge, like a pimple.

Each band of the ring is made of a different type of rock that erodes at a different speed. It's also the "almost home" signal for astronauts landing in Florida. In fact, astronauts are mostly responsible for teaching us there's something there in the first place, since the formation is difficult to recognize when you walk over it.

As the climate is changing, new phenomena are developing — none quite so explosively as this one.

It turns out that if you heat frozen methane trapped in the Siberian permafrost enough, it turns into a gas, eventually building up so much pressure that the ground explodes. The loud boom and giant hole these bursts create were first reported in 2013.

Blood Falls, in one of the driest regions of Antarctica, is fed by an underground lake. It's full of bacteria scientists want to study because they fuel themselves with sulfates, instead of sugars like we do.

The water has so much iron in it that it literally rusts when it meets air, giving the waterfall its trademark color.

These ice spikes, called penitentes, form in high altitudes, where sunlight turns ice directly into water v***r, rather than melting it to water.

Sun beams v***rize small dimples in the snow's surface. Then, the uneven surface directs sun into the dips and away from the peaks, exacerbating the trend.

Penitentes can grow as tall as 15 feet.

It's pretty clear how this phenomenon got its nickname: It looks like a tornado, but it's made of fire. "It's just like a spinning column of flames," forecaster Michael Watkins told the Los Angeles Times.

They form when wind patterns twist an active fire into a column.

About once a year, the US sees one large fire whirl — as tall as 1000 feet. Fire whirls can spread fires not only directly, but also by scattering burning debris.

5. Penitentes

Like fire rainbows, halos require just the right formation of ice crystals in clouds high above the surface of the Earth to bend light from the sun into a perfect ring.

The same phenomenon can also happen with moonlight, although moon halos are usually white and sun halos can be rainbow-colored, like this one.

These beautiful sky paintings have nothing to do with fire or rain, as weather-loving people are very quick to point out.

They're actually caused by the sun, very high in the sky, shining through a particular type of ice cloud formation. That means that how rare they are varies with how far north or south you are.

That's right, volcanoes can produce lightning.

It's pretty hard to study, but researchers have a few ideas about what causes it. One of the most common is that during an eruption, ash picks up so much friction that the build-up of static electricity causes lightning.