The hook
A vast geological bullseye in the Sahara, concentric rings of rock nearly forty kilometres across, so perfectly formed that astronauts use it as a landmark from orbit and it long baffled the people who lived beside it.
01Why it's worth it
The Richat Structure, nicknamed the "Eye of the Sahara," is one of the planet's strangest-looking landforms: an enormous set of concentric ridges of differently-eroded rock forming a giant circular pattern in the Mauritanian desert, so huge, tens of kilometres wide, that its full form only reveals itself from high above, which is why it is famous as a landmark seen by astronauts and in satellite imagery. Once mistaken for a meteorite impact crater, it is now understood to be a deeply eroded geological dome, an uplift of rock layers laid bare by the desert wind over vast spans of time. On the ground it is less a single dramatic sight than a subtly banded landscape of ridges and valleys, best appreciated from a high point or, ideally, from the air, and geologically fascinating up close. Reaching it means genuine remote desert travel deep in the Adrar, and it appeals above all to those drawn by the sheer oddity and scale of the Earth itself, one of the most extraordinary things our planet has drawn on its own surface.
02How to experience it
Reach it by 4x4 with a local guide as part of an Adrar desert trip, and try to get high ground for a sense of the rings; a light-aircraft flight, where available, reveals the full "eye." Combine it with Chinguetti and the oases. This is remote travel, so plan carefully and check current regional advice.