Cyprus, the third-largest island in the Mediterranean, exposes at the surface an ancient fragment of the ocean floor. It is an ophiolite, a piece of oceanic crust and upper mantle that was uplifted and left exposed on land, offering a direct window into the composition and structure of a primitive seafloor.

Ophiolites are valuable to geology because they allow researchers to study in situ materials that are normally submerged thousands of metres deep or buried beneath sediments. In Cyprus, this exposure turns the island into a natural laboratory for observing the complete sequence of oceanic rocks, from pillow lavas on the seafloor to mantle rocks.

The island is also home to a notable population of cats, a feature NASA highlights alongside its geological interest in the description of this image.