lake natron in tanzania turns animals to stone

The water level is naturally low, causing many birds, bats and insects – that try to cross the river, to end up falling and dying. Since the beings that die there are preserved and automatically become salt statues. Sodium carbonate was already used in mummification processes in Egypt, which gave the animals killed in the lake the reputation of mummies. Just like birds colliding with glass windows, these fell into the lake.”ĭavid Harper, an ecologist at the University of Leicester who has visited Lake Natron four times, came to a conclusion in his research on the site: “If a body falls somewhere else, it decomposes very quickly, but at the lake’s edge, it gets encrusted. No one is quite sure exactly how they die, but it seems that the lake reflects light a lot and this confuses them.

In the post titled All Over the Wasteland, the photographer wrote: “I unexpectedly encountered the creatures – all manner of birds and bats – along the shores of Lake Natron in northern Tanzania. The photographer and expert on the African continent, Nick Brandt, produced some images of the statues of animals that died in the lake, his work went viral on the internet and generated curiosity to understand what this lake has. But appearances can be deceiving: its waters hold a fatal secret.ĭue to the rare chemical composition, the lake ends up petrifying the animals that enter it. Lake Natron, situated in northern Tanzania, close to the Kenyan border, in the Great Rift Valley, is one of the most peaceful places in Africa. While this lake remains deadly to most, it is still a vital ecosystem.With high temperatures, the lake turns any animal that decides to take an unpretentious dip into stone. The proposed construction of a hydroelectric plant on the Ewaso Ng’iro River and a soda ash plant on its shores threatens the lake’s salinity and the flamingos. If they spent any longer in the lake, they would have died.Ĭurrently, Lake Natron is under threat. It burned their eyes and skin, but they managed to drag themselves ashore. Everyone survived the crash but they were in the water unprotected. In 2007, a helicopter carrying a group of wildlife videographers wishing to get footage of the flamingos crashed into the lake. People have occasionally survived the lake’s potency. Lake Natron would have saved pharaonic embalmers a lot of work. The ancient Egyptians used sodium carbonate and bicarbonate in the mummification process. Photo: Shutterstockįor most humans, the lake’s qualities are more suitable for the dead than the living. The lake doesn’t quite have that instant effect. The graphically eerie positions looked like the finger of Medusa had really touched them. Wildlife photographer Nick Brandt made headlines in 2013 by staging photos of the mummified remains of the poor creatures around Lake Natron. They drown in the toxic potion, and their outsides and insides calcify. The mirror-like surface tricks them into diving into the red waters for food. Some alkaline tilapia (a member of the cichlid family) can sustain themselves in the cooler parts of the lake.īut to some wildlife, especially birds, Lake Natron can be a death trap. Somehow, a few species of fish, invertebrates, and algae manage to live in the lake. In Lake Natron, their pigment paints the water a striking red. Generally, cyanobacteria carry different pigments. The lake’s salinity has welcomed salt-consuming, halophilic microorganisms called cyanobacteria, which need photosynthesis to survive. Lake Natron’s deceptively glassy surface. Its average alkalinity is 10.5, its pH surpasses 12, and its water temperature ranges from 40˚ to 60˚C. This concentrated the trona (sodium sesquicarbonate dihydrate) and natron (hydrated sodium carbonate) in the leftover water, creating a highly toxic brine. Since the lake had no outflow and received irregular rainfall, it endured thousands of years of intense evaporation from the heat. During the Pleistocene period, a rare type of lava rich in sodium and potassium carbonates ran down the slopes of the Ol Doinyo Lengai volcano and into the lake. It’s fed by the Southern Ewaso Ng’iro River in Kenya. This shallow but wide lake is just three metres deep but 22km wide. Tanzania has no less than four alkaline lakes, but Lake Natron is the most famous. Lake Natron is a hypersaline and highly alkaline lake located in the eastern section of the volatile East African Rift. In North Tanzania, a unique inland lake turns wildlife to stone. That’s a legend, but a natural wonder in Africa today does just that. We all know about the Greek monster Medusa, whose deadly gaze turned men to stone.

Lake natron in tanzania turns animals to stone