The strange beauty of the salt mines

Salt is an essential element for all people and animals. It is found in abundance here on Earth, but still requires extraction from rock deposits or salt water. Salt mining can create beautiful landscapes, including deep, rugged caves, colorful pools, and geometric carvings. Some of these places have even become popular with tourists, acting as concert halls, museums and health centers offering halotherapy services. Collected in this article are photos from salt mines around the world, above and below ground.

(Total 31 photos)

1. One of the colorful salt pools at Uyuni Salt Lake, part of a pilot lithium salt plant located at an altitude of 3656 meters above sea level, which owns the world's largest lithium reserve, in southwest Bolivia, November 5, 2012 (Reuters/David Mercado)

2. An aerial view of the salt basin and process areas of the Soquimich lithium mine in the Atacama Salt Plateau, the second largest salt plateau in the world, in the Atacama Desert in northern Chile, January 10, 2013. (Reuters/Ivan Alvarado) #

3. A pond with salt water in a salt mine in Nemocon, Cundinamarca, Colombia, on November 22, 2012. An 80-meter mine with more than 500 years of history has become the new center of tourism in Colombia. (Eitan Abramovich/AFP/Getty Images)

4. Tourists visit the chapel of St. Kinga in the Salt Mines in Wieliczka near Krakow, Poland, December 15, 2011. According to the Supervisory Board of the Salt Mines in Wieliczka, the historic mine extends for a total of 300 km and functioned continuously from the Middle Ages until 1996, when the salt pad was completely out of use. The mine, which is included in the list of cultural and natural heritage of UNESCO, is currently used for tourism and health purposes, as well as a museum. (Reuters/Kacper Pempel)

5. Two employees of the Federal Office for Radiation Protection stand in storage room number 7 in the former Asse salt mine in Remlingen, Germany, Wednesday June 24, 2009. The former mine is used as a deep geological repository for radioactive waste. (AP Photo/Joerg Sarbach)

6. A worker walks through a salt basin at the Maras mines in Cusco, Peru, on July 3, 2009. The Maras mines have been a source of salt since ancient pre-Inca civilizations, and now consist of 3,000 small pools carved into a mountainside in the Urubamba Valley in the countries Andean region of Cusco. (Reuters/Enrique Castro Mendivil)

7. Salt pools at the Maras mines in Cusco, Peru, February 17, 2010 (Reuters/Enrique Castro-Mendivil) #

8. A tourist takes pictures inside the Praid Salt Mine, 350 km north of Bucharest, March 4, 2013. Part of the mine, located at a depth of 160 meters and 1.3 km from the entrance, is open to tourists and is also used as a place of treatment respiratory diseases such as bronchitis or asthma, as it has a high degree of air ionization and atmospheric pressure is higher than on the surface. (Reuters/Radu Sigheti)

9. Salt layers are reflected in the waters of the Turde Inland Lake in a salt mine in the city of Turda (450 km northwest of Bucharest), December 9, 2010. One of the most important salt mines in Transylvania, central Romania, Salina Turde has been known since ancient times. , but was commissioned for underground mining during the Romanesque period. (Daniel Mihailescu/AFP/Getty Images)

10. A small jetty on a lake at the bottom of the Turde salt mine in Turda, Romania on December 9, 2010. (Daniel Mihailescu/AFP/Getty Images) #

11. An aerial view of the salt fields of the village of Palibelo, on the outskirts of Bim, the Indonesian island of Sumbawa, November 22, 2012 (Reuters/Beawiharta)

12. Salt bowl Danakil in Ethiopia, near the volcano Dallol, November 29, 2004 Dallol has no analogues in the world because it is the only volcano located below sea level in the Danakil depression, also known as Afar - one of the hottest places in world where temperatures in the sun sometimes exceed 60 degrees Celsius. (Reuters/Michel Laplace-Toulouse)

13. A camel caravan walks along the edge of a salt bowl in Ethiopia's Danakil Depression, near the Dallol volcano, on November 29, 2004. (Reuters/Michel Laplace-Toulouse) #

14. People collect blocks of salt from the Danakil salt bowl in Ethiopia, January 29, 2007. Generations of Afar merchants carry blocks of salt along the treacherous camel caravan routes from the depression to the highlands of Tigray. (Reuters/Michel Laplace-Toulouse)

15. Tourists, guarded by local policemen, visit formations of sulfur and mineral salts created by the rising springs of the Dallol volcano on January 29, 2007. (Reuters/Michel Laplace-Toulouse) #

16. A mountain biker competes during the 21st Extreme Mountain Race November 17, 2007 at Glueck Auf, a former salt mine in Sondershausen, Germany. About 50 athletes took part in the competition at a depth of 800 meters, where the temperature reaches 30 degrees Celsius and the humidity is only 20%. Jens-Ulrich Koch/AFP/Getty Images)

17. Salt falls in the Nemocon salt mine, September 26, 2012. The mine is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Colombia. (Reuters/Jose Miguel Gomez)

18. The Donbass Symphony Orchestra of the Austrian Kurt Schmid plays in a salt mine chamber - 300 meters deep, 120 meters long and 30 meters high - during a concert in Soligorsk, Donetsk region, October 2, 2004. The concert was organized in the mine because of its good acoustics. (Sergei Supinsky/AFP/Getty Images)

19. A heart-shaped salt crystal illuminated from within in the Nemocon salt mine in Colombia, September 26, 2012. (Reuters/Jose Miguel Gomez) #

20. A worker works at a salt factory in Nangqian county, in northwestern China's Qinghai province, July 24, 2007. (Reuters/Simon Zo) #

21. Pools of colored mineral water, collected on a salt plateau in pits dug during the collection of salt, on the coast of Senegal near the border with the Gambia, June 12, 2006. The women collect the salt by hand in 50kg bags, which sell for about $2 and trade with neighboring Gambia and Mauritania, where the salt is used mainly to preserve fish in areas where there is no electricity. (Reuters/Finbarr O'Reilly)

22. Miners walk in the Polkowice-Sieroszowice salt mine in Polkowice, near Lubin, Poland, on July 29, 2011. (Reuters/Kacper Pempel) #

23. Part of the salt sculpture "The Last Supper" is depicted in the chapel of St. Kinga in the Salt Mines in Wieliczka near Krakow, Poland, December 15, 2011. (Reuters/Kacper Pempel) #

24. A woman walks through a salt flat collecting white crystals near the village of Ngae Ngae, 10 km south of the Senegalese northern city of St. Louis, April 9, 2007. About 3,000 people, mostly women, spend long hours under the blinding sun, collecting salt with sticks and hands, earning the equivalent of a dollar or two a day. (Reuters/Finbarr O'Reilly)

25 Trucks drive between ponds at Rio Tinto's Dampier Salt Limited facility in Port Hedland, about 1,600 kilometers north of Perth, Australia, May 26, 2008. (Reuters/Tim Wimborne) #

26. Underground lake Wessel in the Wieliczka salt mine, July 10, 2007 in Poland. (Janek Skarzynski/AFP/Getty Images)

27. Abid, a worker covered in powdered salt, poses for a photograph while cutting rock salt for decoration in Khewra, Pakistan, on August 4, 2007. The Khewra salt mines are the second largest in the world. (Reuters/Adrees Latif)

28. Mohammad Shabbir, 36, puts the finishing touches on a rock salt sculpture on the outskirts of Lahore, Pakistan, June 29, 2011. (Reuters/Mani Rana) #

29 Workers build a salt block hotel in the Salar de Uyuni, the world's largest salt desert in southwestern Bolivia, on July 14, 2007. (Reuters/Jose Luis Quintana) #

30. A visitor offers prayers at a salt brick mosque inside Pakistan's centuries-old Khewra salt mine on March 30, 2010. The centuries-old salt mine offers an experimental treatment for allergic asthma, attracting patients from all over the world. The clinic claims that asthma patients and people suffering from other respiratory diseases benefit from inhaling antibacterial salt particles in a sterile environment, which helps loosen mucus and clear the lungs. (AP Photo/BK Bangash)

31 A worker's son plays on a salt flat near Bhavnagar, in the western Indian state of Gujarat, March 5, 2009. (Reuters/Arko Datta) #