Seven Coloured Earths

The Seven Coloured Earth(s)(Terres des Sept Couleurs in French) are a geological formation and prominent tourist attraction found in the Chamarel plain of the Rivière Noire District in south-western Mauritius. It is a relatively small area of sand dunes comprising sand of seven distinct colours (approximately red, brown, violet, green, blue, purple and yellow). Another interesting feature of Chamarel's Coloured Earths is that the dunes seemingly never erode, in spite of Mauritius' torrential tropical rains.

The sands formed from the decomposition of volcanic rock (basalt) gullies into clay.