12 of the World’s Strangest & Most Unusual Bodies of Water

Taal Lake, Philippines

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(images via: wikimedia commons)

It’s a lake within a lake within a lake within a lake. Encircled by a ridge within the island nation of the Philippines, Taal Lake has its own little island called Volcano Island. And on Volcano island’s crater lake is another island, called Vulcan Point. Taal Lake occupies a volcanic crater with a width of 15 miles, at less than 10 feet above sea level.

Jellyfish Lake, Palau

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(images via: wikimedia commons 1 + 2)

Swimming in a lake full of jellyfish may not seem like a good time when you’re imagining all of the painful stings that could result. But at Palau’s Jellyfish Lake, which is teeming with millions of the billowy sea creatures, you can snorkel, dive and float among hundreds of jellyfish that can’t hurt you. These golden jellyfish (Mastigias sp) have a sting that’s too mild to feel. It’s on one of the mostly uninhabited islands in Palau’s Southern Lagoon.

The Dead Sea, Israel and Jordan

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(images via: babeltravel)

The unusually high salt concentration in the Dead Sea of Israel and Jordan makes for a harsh environment in which most life cannot flourish, hence the name. But it also enables even the heaviest of humans to feel light as air, floating effortlessly along the surface. The mineral content of the Dead Sea is very different from that of ocean water, containing calcium chloride, potassium chloride, magnesium chloride and other minerals thought to have therapeutic value.

Lake Vostok, Antarctica

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(images via: wikimedia commons)

The water in the freshwater sub-glacial Lake Vostok may have been isolated for up to 30 million years. Located at the southern Pole of Cold in Antarctica, Lake Vostok’s surface is approximately 13,000 feet under the surface of the ice that tops it, placing it about 1,600 feet below sea level. In February 2012, a team of Russian scientists claimed to have pierced the ice shield to the surface of the lake with the world’s longest ever ice core (12,400 feet). Samples of the water will be taken at the end of 2012, when the Antarctic summer starts.