![]() ![]() Another potential problem could be a soda-ash extraction operation. 75% of the entire lesser flamingo population is born on Lake Natron. When a hydroelectric power plant was proposed, environmentalists feared it would drive the flamingos away, who would likely not be able to find another home. However, as could be expected, humanity is threatening the birds’ salty habitat. ![]() The Tanzanian Lake So Caustic It Can Burn Your Skin: Two Lesser Flamingos Lesser flamingos love the lake because it’s a good place for building nests and it’s isolated from predators. Unadapted creatures that do happen to find themselves at the lake will suffer burns, but they won’t suddenly calcify into salty objects. This is clearly not true because of all the lesser flamingos that call the place home. This has led to countless articles calling Lake Natron a “medusa” lake or a lake that turns animals to stone with a single touch. Brandt would find various corpses and pose them, so it looked like the animals became instantly mummified upon touching the lake. This gives them an appearance that some compare to statues carved in startling detail. The high level of sodium carbonate in the lake literally mummifies creatures that die in or around the lake. LAKE NATRON TURNS ANIMALS TO STONE SERIESLake Natron has become famous for a series of photographs by Nick Brandt. Even the salt that forms on the shores and surface of Lake Natron is pink. This leads to deep red hues in the deep part of the lake, and orange in the shallower parts. The pigment responsible for photosynthesizing the algae is red. For food, the flamingos eat lots of algae. If the birds can’t find freshwater, they have special glands in their head that filter out the salt through their nasal cavities. LAKE NATRON TURNS ANIMALS TO STONE SKINThe skin on their legs is very tough, so they don’t burn, and they can even drink water from various springs around the lake that are close to boiling. The lesser flamingo is specially adapted to live in this harsh environment. Evaporation in the area is also high, which leaves concentrated levels of two types of sodium – natron and trona – to flow into the lake from the hills. So the water and surrounding shore become alkalinized. This rock is primarily made of carbonate (sodium). The reason this lake is so caustic is that during the Pleistocene period, a bedrock made of trachyte lavas formed. The water has such high alkalinity, it can burn the flesh right off a person’s legs. While the lake is kind to these birds, its water holds a painful secret for animals that have not evolved to live there. It’s home to millions of beautiful flamingoes who flock to its shores to breed and feast on the abundant algae. Reanimated, alive again in death.The Tanzanian Lake So Caustic It Can Burn Your SkinĪt first glance, Lake Natron looks like paradise. “I took these creatures as I found them on the shoreline, and then placed them in ‘living’ positions, bringing them back to ‘life’, as it were. The soda and salt causes the creatures to calcify, perfectly preserved, as they dry.” The water has an extremely high soda and salt content, so high that it would strip the ink off my Kodak film boxes within a few seconds. No-one knows for certain exactly how they die, but it appears that the extreme reflective nature of the lake’s surface confuses them, and like birds crashing into plate glass windows, they crash into the lake. “I unexpectedly found the creatures – all manner of birds and bats – washed up along the shoreline of Lake Natron in Northern Tanzania. Photographer Nick Brandt, discovered this phenomenon in Tanzania, featuring his finds in a new collection of photographs of east African animals, Across the Ravaged Land. As new salt islands form within the lake, flamingos flock to the area to mate and snack on fish and algae. But as the photographs reveal, even flamingos die and come to rest in this watery grave, calcifying within the lake’s shallow waters. Only the Alkaline tilapia, an extremophile fish, and bacteria are adapted to survive in such a harsh, poisonous environment. Although Lake Natron may seem completely inhospitable to birds, it is a nesting hotspot for the lesser flamingo. When an animal dies and falls in the lake, the high concentration of salt inhibits complete decay and begins to crystalize on the remains, protecting them from further decomposition. Created by a mixture of hydrous sodium carbonate and baking soda (sodium bicarbonate), it results from volcanic ash that accumulated from the Great Rift Valley. This extremely basic pH level deters decomposition and in turn helps preserve remains.īut why? Well, the lake gets its name from natron, a natural salt compound commonly used by ancient Egyptians in their preservation and embalming process. Temperatures in the lake can reach 60 ☌ (140 ☏), with an alkalinity between pH 9 and pH 10.5. ![]()
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