Rainbow cake mountain

摘要

Yes, this is a real place. Yes, it's on this planet. The vibrant colours of the mountains dotting China's Zhangye Danxia Landform Geological Park in Gansu Province lend the peaks their nickname: the rainbow mountains. The strata were originally laid down horizontally, one on top of another, like the layers of a cake. The mountains' startling hues came from waterand oxygen interacting with iron and other elements in the sediment, along with tiny amounts of other minerals left behind by groundwater creeping through the deposits.