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They say that truth is stranger than fiction — and you could argue just as strongly that Mother Nature comes up with much more bizarre stuff than we ever could. Here are just a few of Earth's weirder wonders.

Just getting to Mono Lake, near the Nevada border, means an eerily isolated drive through ghost-town country. But the lake takes weirdness to another level: Rising from the surface are gnarled spires of limestone called tufa towers. Normally an underwater feature, the formations have become visible since water diversions began shrinking the lake in 1951.

White Desert, Egypt

Western Egypt's White Desert gets its name from the chalk that whitewashes the place. Besides making the Sahara settlement look virtually snowed under, the chalk stands tall in formations that have been battered by sandstorms into unbelievable shapes — mushrooms, spires, pinnacles and anvils.

The Chocolate Hills, Philippines

The island of Bohol is home to hundreds and hundreds of closely clustered limestone domes called the Chocolate Hills because of their carpet of grass, which turns brown in the dry season. Scientists aren’t sure how they formed, but hopefully it wasn’t due to a giant water buffalo that got a bad case of food poisoning, as one local legend holds.

Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah

If you think the Great Salt Lake is salty, head a little ways west and checks out the Bonneville. This 30,000-acre area is encrusted with a layer of salt up to five feet thick, the leftovers from a Pleistocene-era lake that covered parts of three states. It's estimated that the salt flats hold 147 million tons of salt, enough to keep your shaker filled for quite awhile.

Shilin, China

Shilin translates to “stone forest,” and this set of karst formations in southwestern China’s Yunnan Province really does look like a forest of stone. The stone pinnacles, some of which reach nearly 100 feet toward the sky, are believed to be more than 270 million years old. Visiting after sunset is an especially unearthly experience.

Split Apple Rock, New Zealand