When you purchase through links on our internet site , we may earn an affiliate commission . Here ’s how it works .

Name : Travertines of Pamukkale

positioning : Denizli state , southwest Turkey

View of the Pamukkale travertines in orange-pink light. We see rocky mountains in the background and pools of spring water in the foreground.

The Pamukkale travertines are situated in southwestern Turkey.

Coordinates:37.92387293371705 , 29.123346443836517

Why it ’s unbelievable : Despite their white coming into court , the travertines hold boiling caloric weewee .

Pamukkale is a town in Turkey that ’s famous for its bedazzle travertine terrace and thermal water pools . The name , which imply " cotton castle " in Turkish , wind at the height and snow - white color of the landmark , which stands in stark contrast to the surrounding arid knit .

a photo of an eye looking through a keyhole

Travertine is a type of rock ‘n’ roll made mostly of Ca carbonate that is deposited from mineral - plentiful outpouring H2O . Pamukkale is home to red-hot leap that babble up at the top of a 660 - understructure - tall ( 200 meters ) drop overlook the town . The piddle drip down over the mountainside , surface the rocks in atomic number 20 carbonate that has accumulated over millennia to take form a white limestone crust .

The travertines of Pamukkale have grown so thick , they resemble a small glacier from above and afar .

Related : Fairy Chimneys : The stone spires in Turkey that form ' the world ’s most unusual high-pitched - rise neighborhood '

a tiger looks through a large animal�s ribcage

Pamukkale ’s travertines may look like a winter wonderland , but they ’re situate in a ardent , sunshine - snog part of southwestern Turkey .

The water flowing down the side is also warm — between 66 and 135 degree Fahrenheit ( 19 to 57 degrees Celsius ) , accord toNASA ’s Earth Observatory — and can contact boiling temperatures . It garner in lavatory that have formed within the terraced gradient , produce natural hot tub and infinity pools . These shower into each other , with stalactites and other limestone formations raise along ledges up to 20 feet ( 6 m ) tall where water has dripped down for yard of years .

Pamukkale islisted as a UNESCO World Heritage Site , but the listing spotlight far more than the situation ’s effervescent bathing pools . The travertines have drawn visitant since antiquity , with the ancient Greeks , in particular , build thermic baths , monument and a complex system of canals to institute the spring water system to nearby hamlet and fields .

a rendering of a computer chip

The Attalid Martin Luther King of Pergamon — an ancient Hellenic state that ruled large share of Asia Minor during the Hellenic period — established a thermal health club town called Hierapolis near the travertines in the 2nd hundred B.C. , the ruins of which still live today and are also number by UNESCO . Previously , the site hosted an ancient religious cult , consort to the U.N. delegacy .

— Marble cave : Chile ’s aery aquamarine caverns with ' mineral ice emollient ' on the walls

— Diamond Beach : Iceland ’s spellbinding black Amandine Aurore Lucie Dupin beach covered in sparkle trash gem

a photo of burgers and fries next to vegetables

— Carlsbad cavern : New Mexico ’s otherworldly cave with gypsum flowers and ' soda straws ' dangling from the roof

Hierapolis get through its heyday in the 2d and third one C A.D. , after theancient Romanstook over and rebuilt the townspeople fall out an earthquake . Remains dating back to Greco - popish rule and the laterByzantine periodinclude several bath , a monumental archway , a field of operations , a necropolis , a nymphaeum ( a repository dedicate to piss nymph ) and temple break .

Notably , some of these monument , like the Temple of Apollo , stand on top of a geological fault that likely leak out noxious gases into the distance between their wall , accord to UNESCO .

an infant receives a vaccine

The ruins at Pamukkale are in the main well preserved , but Brobdingnagian act of visitors threaten the integrity of the website , according to UNESCO . An area where holidaymaker can drown between ancient column and marble decorations that collapsed after an earthquake in the seventh one C is especially vulnerable .

describe moreincredible places , where we highlight the fantastic history and science behind some of the most dramatic landscape on Earth .

El Cono : The mysterious sanctified ' Great Pyramid ' hidden late in the Amazon rainforest

An artist�s illustration of a satellite crashing back to Earth.

Yellowstone holds potentially untapped cache of ' carbon paper - free ' atomic number 2 for rockets , reactors and superconductors

Could a planet really break a brain ?

a photo of a group of people at a cocktail party

A photo of the Large Hadron Collider�s ALICE detector.

An illustration of a satellite crashing into the ocean after an uncontrolled reentry through Earth�s atmosphere

A photograph of downtown Houston, Texas, taken from a drone at sunset.

A detailed visualization of global information networks around Earth.