And, just like the Great Salt Lake, Lake Natron is hardly lifeless.īoingBoing’s Maggie Koerth-Baker has already covered the peculiar fish that live in the alkaline waters of the strange lake. Dead pelicans, seagulls, and other birds take on a similar appearance as salt covers their bodies along the margins of the Great Salt Lake near my home. The flamingos and bats didn’t really become petrified in place, as if calcified by ominous clouds of salt-filled smog.
But as Brandt himself has noted, the images are more art than science, and these pictures obscure the resiliency of life in and around the lake.Īs Brandt told New Scientist and other news sources, he collected the dead animals and posed them on their dark perches. The gloomy images make the lake look like a living museum where animals fall into the water and immediately turn to stone.
There are a number of campgrounds near the lake, which is also the base for climbing Ol Doinyo Lengai.If you’re a natural history fan and have been online at all this week, chances are you’ve seen photographer Nick Brandt’s stunning photos of mummified birds and bats along the shores of Tanzania’s Lake Natron. Walks around the lake and to the streams and waterfalls along the nearby escarpment make for a fantastic adventure off the beaten track. This has allowed the lake to concentrate into a caustic alkaline brine The lavas have significant amounts of carbonate but very low calcium and magnesium levels. The surrounding bedrock is composed of alkaline, sodium-dominated trachyte lavas that were laid down during the Pleistocene period. The alkalinity of the lake can reach a pH of greater than 12. High levels of evaporation have left behind natron (sodium carbonate decahydrate) and trona (sodium sesquicarbonate dihydrate). The lake and its ecosystem provides a source of livelihoods to the local communities. Food is plentiful, nesting sites abound – and above all, the lake is isolated and undisturbed. East Africa has 1.5-2.5 million Lesser Flamingos, representing three-quarters of the world population and most of them are hatched at Lake Natron.
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