Of microbes and Mars

Though this crater lake is among the deepest in Türkiye, its crystal shallows are the main draw for most. Lake Salda's wide white-sand beaches are havens for swimmers and sunbathers—and have even caught the attention of NASA scientists. Much of the mineral-rich shore is encrusted with microbialites: fossilized microbe mats that represent some of Earth's earliest known life. Before the Perseverance rover was sent to Mars in 2020 to explore the Jezero Crater—once also a crater lake—researchers studied Salda's microbialites to better understand the shapes that extinct microscopic Martians might've taken.