Phone battery creates striking alien landscapes (2021) (bbc.com)

Oh, come on. Salt flats are some of the oldest groundworks you can find in the world. You can see them all over the Mediterranean, on many islands, wherever it's relatively warm and close to a salty see/ocean.

I'm sure these are larger and probably all around more dangerous but things as old as civilization itself are hardly alien.

It's the natural salt flat itself that strikes me as more alien, but I guess it depends what you are used to.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_pan_(geology)

Volcanoes, dunes and a variety of other natural locations are regularly used as alien backdrops in TV and Film.

For more imagery of lithium mining landscapes, I strongly recommend Edward Burtynsky’s “Anthropocene” project:

https://www.edwardburtynsky.com/projects/the-anthropocene-pr...

What a beautiful world we live in!

Although this one is a lot larger, it doesn't look that different from the saltworks I visited with my dad some 50 years ago.

I didn’t know about the potash ponds near Moab until I was biking in the area, and saw the blue pools off in the distance.

https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gQfcNbm4Y_0/YMcTl_PGLXI/AAAAAAAAP...