Colors of Hormuz Island

Off the Iranian coast in the Persian Gulf, about 8 km from the mainland, is Hormuz Island, a small drop-shaped mound of rock salt, gypsum, and anhydrite. Its location in the middle of the strait of the same name, adjacent to the mainland, allowed the island of Hormuz to turn into a major trading port, which it remained for several centuries. But its heyday as a strategic outpost is long gone. Today, most of all, the island attracts not traders, but tourists.

10 PHOTOS

1. Hormuz Island is a geological wonder.

2. The entire island is a salt dome that has risen up through the overlying layers of rock.

3. Rock salt, or halite, is weak and buoyant, so it loses its fragility and flows more like a liquid under high pressure.

4. The rising mass is not only made of salt.

5. It contains layers of clay, carbonates, shale, and iron-rich volcanic rocks, some of which took on fantastic shades of red, yellow, and orange as they moved upward and interacted with water and minerals from other rock layers.

6. The most prominent of these colors is ocher red, which is found everywhere from beaches to rocky cliffs.

7. The natives call him Golak and they use the land for artistic and culinary purposes.

8. Sand from the island of Hormuz was used in paints, cosmetics, ceramic tiles, and for decoration of building facades.

9. Residents of the province of Hormozgan also bake Tomshi bread.

10. One of the ingredients of this bread is colored earth from the island of Hormuz.