34
POPSDarvaz, Uzbekistan: The Door to Hell I couldn't find much more on this. One blog entry I read from someone who'd been to Darvaz: "Used to be a mining town, then there was an ENORMOUS gas explosion (the crater is more than 30 metres across and almost twice as deep) so the Soviets pulled out. Now there are just people living in houses in the shadow of rusting industrial equipment and Soviet vehicles with no tyres. And the wind blows....." The blog entry: http://www.h4ppy.com/blog/archives/2002_09_01_h4ppy.html
8
POPSNamib Desert: The Tallest Dunes In the northern part of the desert, the landscape is dominated by ashy dunes with dark brown edges, while the southern desert is flat and stony. Sand storms are common. The sand of Namib varies from yellow to orange and ocher, due to the richness in iron oxides. The dunes of Sossusvlei are the tallest in the world: 300 m (1,000 ft).