NASA captures divine ‘yin-yang’ symbol sitting atop Turkish volcano

NASA's International Space Station captured a rare image of an unusual crater or caldera which gets created on the Mount Nemrut volcano in Turkey.

The image captured showed how the entire area gets split into two halves - asolidified lavaregion and a lake - like ayin-yang symbol from Chinese philosophy.

How was this unusual crater formed?

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Mount Nemrut, which has been named after the biblical figure King Nimrod, is 9,672 feet (2,948 metres) in height and is located at the intersection between the Eurasian and the Arabian tectonic plates.

According toNASA's Earth Observatory, in 1650, the dormant stratovolcano had majorly erupted for the last time.

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The large caldera of the volcano is around 5.3 miles (8.5 kilometres) from its widest point and is nearly 2,000 feet (610 metres) deep. According to a study conducted in 2012, it was largely carved around 250,000 years ago after a single massive eruption took place.

The eruption also led to the release of a huge lava flow which blocked off a river and led to the formation of Turkey's largest lake, Lake Van, which is located at the east side of the mountain.

Smallereruptions continued after that from vents in the eastern half of the caldera and led to the creation of solidified lava which flowson one side of the crater.

After some time, the caldera's other side was filled with waterandled to the formation of a crater lake.

The stark difference between the two sides of the volcano's peak is most visible when snow covers the mountain. When this occurs, it is generally seen as the yin-yang symbol from Chinese philosophy.

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The snow coverage also created folds in the lava flows, which are called pressure ridges. These were formed by the molten rock's flowing and cooling.

These ridges are very different in size and thickness because of the differences in the lava's viscosity across various eruptions, as per the Earth Observatory.

The maximum depth of Nemrut's crater lake is around 577 feet (176 m) and it covers similar lava flows from earlier eruptions. This is, however, not the only lake present in the caldera.

Another smaller lake, which is 36-foot-deep (11 m), is located between a series of lava flats close to the centre of the caldera's northern edge.

The lake is fed by hot springs which reflect the presence of life beneath the caldera even though the volcano is dormant.

(With inputs from agencies)