Like swirls of paint on an enormous canvas, shallow lakes, mudflats, and salt marshes share the sinuous valleys on Iran’s largely uninhabitated Dasht-e Kavir, or Great Salt Desert.

This image was acquired by Landsat 7’s Enhanced Thematic Mapper plus (ETM+) sensor.

Image provided by the USGS EROS Data Center Satellite Systems Branch as part of the Earth as Art II image series