You’ve taken some pretty hot showers in your day and you’re ready to withstand any temperature of water that isn't boiling. Such temperature is strong enough to cause serious damage! Just six seconds of exposure to water of that temperature can leave you with third degree burns! But let’s say you could somehow handle the heat. First, the lake’s temperature can reach as high as 140 degrees Fahrenheit. So if an animal can survive living in Lake Natron, why can’t you hop in for a little swim? Well, there’s more than one reason why this isn’t your ideal swimming hole. Three kinds to be precise.Ī small species of fish, algae, as well as a group of flamingos that love to feed off the algae. There are, though, a few animals that can survive and even thrive in it. Lake Natron is a strange place that has just the right geological conditions to make it filled with chemicals, salts, and minerals, all of which come together to make it very toxic and hard for humans to even live near. And when the water evaporates, it leaves behind large amounts of minerals like natron, which was one of the main elements used by Ancient Egyptians during the mummification process. Because water flows into the lake, but does not flow out, the lake’s water levels vary purely from evaporation. Lake Natron is fed by the Ewaso Ng’iro River as well as hot springs that are full of minerals. No, as you’ll see, Lake Natron is one of the strangest, and potentially one of the most deadly, places on earth. ![]() Lake Natron is known for its beautiful colors, serenity, and for being one of the most inhospitable places for life on the whole planet! But how could that be? What could possibly be so bad about a naturally occurring body of water? Jaimi Butler, of the Great Salt Lake Institute at Westminster College in Utah, said that on the shoreline of the northern arm of the Great Salt Lake, she has found birds that are «pickled»-so encrusted in salt you can pick them up and they will stay in the same position they were lying in.īutler added that healthy birds do frequent the lake, so the dead animals may be ones that succumbed due to sickness or other causes.Lake Natron is a natural lake located in northern Tanzania - a country in east Africa. Lake Natron is named for the mineral natron, or hydrated sodium carbonate, which was used in the making of mummies in ancient Egypt. «There is almost no calcium in the lake, although the inflowing fresh waters have calcium, which precipitates as it mixes with the high-pH alkaline waters of the lake.»Ī bat seems Halloween-ready in a 2012 portrait taken by Brandt. The animals probably aren’t truly calcified, but are coated with sodium carbonate or sodium bicarbonate, said Cerling, who has researched the chemistry of Africa’s Rift Valley lakes. So he believes the birds and bats were confused by the sky’s reflection in the lake and killed when they hit the water. However, Brandt said that many people in the region have seen birds crash-land into the water. ![]() Since there are few predators in the area, their bodies remain and become salt-encrusted when the lake’s water level drops. Thure Cerling, professor of geology and geophysics at the University of Utah, said by email that the animals in Brandt’s photographs likely died of natural causes. Lake Natron’s unusually harsh composition comes from a unique neighboring volcano, Ol Doinyo, which spews alkali-rich natrocarbonatites that end up in Lake Natron via rainwater runoff. (Also see « Pictures: Best Wild Animal Photos of 2012 Announced.») ![]() The photographs, taken between 20, appear in Brandt’s new book Across the Ravaged Land. ![]() A «calcified» swallow sings in stony silence along northern Tanzania‘s Lake Natron (map), which contains so much soda and salt that it would «strip the ink of my Kodak film boxes in a few seconds,» according to photographer Nick Brandt.īrandt unexpectedly found the dead animals that had washed up on the shore, preserved by the lake, and posed them as they had been in life.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |