# What would cause severely cracked skin?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-cause-severely-cracked-skin/622416>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [May 19, 2012, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-cause-severely-cracked-skin/622416 "2012-05-19T12:42:51Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Ogmoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a9adbd/32.png) [@Ogmoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogmoth)\
**Post date:** [May 19, 2012, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-cause-severely-cracked-skin/622416/1 "2012-05-19T12:42:51Z")

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Yesterday I saw a woman with severely cracked skin and I’ve been wondering what might cause that. Ichthyosis is the first thing that came to mind but it looked a bit different from other cases of ichthyosis I’ve seen. Her skin looked like that of [The Thing](http://www.google.com/search?q=the+thing&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=8JS3T4GKNIGsgweM6v3mCg&biw=1366&bih=667&sei=85S3T5mQNYKK6QGMyYHMCg) but it was darker. What might cause one’s skin to look that way?