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Tag: Lake Natron

  • Lake Natron Turns Animals To Stone

    Photographer Nick Brandt was traveling across Africa doing a photo shoot for a new book he was working on when he came across an amazing sight. While visiting Lake Natron in Tanzania, he noticed birds and animals that appeared to have turned to stone. He knew he had to photograph them.

    Lake Natron has a pH as high as 10.5 and can burn the skin or eyes upon contact. Brandt’s photos may look like the animals were instantly turned to stone, but he admits that they are not as they were originally found.

    When I saw those creatures for the first time alongside the lake, I was completely blown away,” says Brandt. “The idea for me, instantly, was to take portraits of them as if they were alive.”

    “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.” “Reanimated, alive again in death.”

    Lake Natron is a salt lake so water flows into the lake but does not flow out, making it very alkaline. It’s pH balance is almost as high as ammonia.

    So how did these animals get this way? Well they certainly didn’t turn to stone overnight. Many birds fly into the water on accident. The water is reflective and the birds do no realize that they are flying into water and think they are flying through an empty space instead. When the water levels go down, the lake reveals the bodies of the dead birds and other animals that wander into the waters, perfectly preserved.

    If you want to see more photos of the stone creatures, watch the video above.

    Image from Smithsonian Magazine.

  • Weird Toxic Lake in Tanzania Turns Animals Into Statues

    The New Scientist reports that a bizarre lake in northern Tanzania is turning animals into calcified statues. Lake Natron, named for the compound that occurs naturally in its waters, looks like a description directly out of Dante’s Divine Comedy: a black, sullen swamp where the cruel and vindictive meet their fate, although the birds who perish there could hardly be labeled as such.

    Unless you’re a species that’s adapted to extremely harsh conditions, Lake Natron is a difficult environment to survive. The waters’ alkalinity tested somewhere between pH 9 and 10.5, dangerously basic due to years of volcanic ash spreading sodium carbonate throughout the Great Rift valley.

    Although the lake is home to thousands of flamingos that nest near its waters and feed on a diet of alkaline tilapia, any other animals that make the mistake of swimming there will die and become petrified statues.

    Photographer Nick Brandt participated in a 2011 photo-eye blog which featured his images from the alkaline part of the lake. BE WARNED: these images may be slightly disturbing.

    Nick Brandt Lake Image 2

    Brandt posed the animals as part of his photography. This image features a dove on the left, and a sea eagle on the right. When photo-eye asked Brandt about his recent work, he said that “The photos, darker in tone than previous work, reflect the further ongoing diminishing of the natural world of Africa.”

    Nick Brandt Lake Image 1

    When he discovered their skeletons strangely preserved on the shores of the lake, Brandt recalled, “I could not help but photograph them… 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.”

    Brandt’s series of photos about the animals has been called ‘The Calcified,’ which is itself part of his “Across The Ravaged Land” exhibition on east African animals, which you can find dates and places for right here.

    [Main Image via this hi-def YouTube footage of the beautiful part of Lake Natron with living animals]
    [Article images via Nick Brandt/New Scientist]