Unforgiving temperatures of up to 60℃ (140℉) beat down on these saltminers on a daily basis. The mines, situated in the Afar Triangle in Ethiopia, stretch across 38,000 sq miles and at their lowest point are more than 300ft below sea level. Joel Santos travelled to capture the area’s dry, brutal beauty. Here: Dromedaries and donkeys are used to transport the salt. (Photo by Joel Santos/Barcroft Images)

Workers transport a model of a dinosaur at the exhibition “World of Dinosaurs” at a former lignite surface mining area in Grosspoesna near Leipzig, central Germany, Wednesday, October 29, 2014. A 100-foot long statue of a dinosaur had to be moved Wednesday because German authorities had deemed it a safety risk. Officials feared the sculpture could cause traffic accidents by distracting drivers on a nearby highway. The reptile, one of 50 species on show in the World of Dinosaurs exhibit near Leipzig, was moved to a less conspicuous position further from the road. (Photo by Jens Meyer/AP Photo)

“They’ve been obsessing me for years. I searched and found them in Benares, on the banks of the river Gange (India). They arrive here to get rid of everything and to wait for death. This existence can last for years, sometimes decades, almost a life. Opposite to mine, well organised and filled as a human life can be, to try in vain to push the limits of its end”. – Denis Rouvre. (Photo by Denis Rouvre)

Russia-backed separatists stand at the site of the crashed Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 plane, near the village of Hrabove, eastern Ukraine, Thursday, July 16, 2015. The fighters said they have arrived to protect the media and make sure the MH17 crash site is clear of ammunition and mines. A year since a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 was blown out of the sky over war-ravaged eastern Ukraine, killing 298 people, there has been little official word of progress in determining what brought down Flight MH17. (Photo by Antoine E. R. Delaunay/AP Photo)

A Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force Type 92 Mine sweeping vehicle fires a rocket behind a Type 74 armoured tank during an annual training session, which is based on a scenario to defend or retake islands in Japanese territory, near Mount Fuji at Higashifuji training field in Gotemba, west of Tokyo, August 18, 2015. (Photo by Yuya Shino/Reuters)

Photo taken on November 5, 2015 shows flood in Bento Rodrigues, a town in the southeastern Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, after a dam at a mining waste site burst early Thursday. An iron ore tailings dam in the southeast Brazilian state of Minas Gerais collapsed Thursday, killing at least 15 people, according to local media reports. (Photo by Agencia Estado/Xinhua Press/Corbis)

In this July 23, 2013 photo, sand fills an abandoned house in Kolmanskop, Namibia. Kolmanskop, was a diamond mining town south of Namibia, build in 1908 and deserted in 1956. SInce then, the desert slowly reclaims its territory, with sand invading the buildings where 350 German colonists and more than 800 local workers lived during its hay-days of the 1920s. (Photo by Jerome Delay/AP Photo)

In this August 1, 2014 photo provided by the National Park Service are male caribou antlers in the Oolah Valley, likely the result of a grizzly kill as he migrated south for the winter at the Arctic National Park and Preserve in Alaska. The nation's northernmost national park says its new management plan will have to consider the effects of a new industrial road to the mining district of Ambler, the first road that would be constructed within its Maryland-sized boundaries. (Photo by Cadence Cook/AP Photo/National Park Service)