Gandom Beryan volcanic plateau - lut desert

 volcanic crater / caldera, extinct volcano, UNESCO World Heritage Site, volcanic plateau

video .. VLOG :
www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-477Qlkf_E
unesco :
whc.unesco.org/en/list/1505/gallery/
Gandom Beryan is a 480 km² large plateau covered with dark lava. The source of this rock is a bit of a mystery as there are no volcanoes in vicinity.

Plateau is located in Shahdad Desert - part of Lut Desert. No roads lead to this remote plateau.
Temperatures on the top of plateau are bearable only in November - April. It is extremely silent here. Sky in the night is unusually clean and filled with stars - after all this is one of the driest places on Earth and water vapour does not disturb the view.

There are seen no life forms and it seems that there are no microorganisms here. Sterilised milk dries out without getting sour. There are stories about mummified corpses of animals lying on stones for years.

Theoretically the maximum temperatures of soil, if they exceed 70°C, should be enough to fry an egg.

Down, right next to the base plateau, there is a river valley with green plants in it - thus it is not true that Lut desert is totally lifeless. Also air and soil temperatures below are more bearable. But it is also true that in many other places Lut desert is completely lifeless too.

Scorched wheat
Name of the plateau means "Scorched Wheat". There is a story that the name originated from the following event:

In 1950ies a caravan with camels bringing a load of wheat was going through the desert from Shahdad to Khorasan. Due to an accident they had to leave the wheat in the desert near the Gandom Beryan hill. Few days later drivers of another caravan noted the abandoned load - the grains were scorched due to the heat. Since then the hill got its present name.

Surroundings of Gandom Beryan have otherworldy beauty and lately are turning into a popular eco-tourism place.