(Image courtesy of The Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth, Image Science and Analysis Laboratory, NASA-Johnson Space Center.)

For some inexplicable reason, when we saw this image of Botswana's Makgadikgadi Salt Pans, we thought that someone had finally appropriated industrially scaled salt evaporation ponds as a garden. Gigantic Suprematist geometries filled with salt-loving algae vacillating through hues of pinks, reds, yellows and oranges as the new tapis vert. Bleached, saltwind-whirled ridges as the new allée. And loyal feng shui advisers with tons of disposable money as the new superpatron for landscape design. Inexplicable, indeed.

In any case, head over to Google Maps to explore, according to Earth Observatory, “one of Africa's major producers of soda ash (sodium carbonate) and salt.” It is also “an easily recognizable visual feature for astronauts aboard the ISS.”

Also check out other salt ponds in the Dead Sea and San Francisco Bay. Better yet, stimulate your visual cortex into catatonic ecstasy with David Maisel's photographic series Terminal Mirage.