Don't let its beautiful pink hues fool you. Visit one of the world's deadliest lakes at your own peril. This body of water can turn an animal to stone if they fall in.
Located in Tanzania, Lake Natron is a natural marvel. It sits near the volcano Ol Doinyo Lengai. It's not the lake itself that is dangerous but the algae called cyanobacteria located inside of it. Cyanobacteria is deadly and targets the cells of any living organism that drinks it. Additionally, the lake contains sodium carbonate as well, which has the strange ability of turning animals to stone if they fall in. This salt isn't like the seawater that you find at the beach. Instead, it comes from limestone in the Earth. The nearby volcano plays a part in creating this limestone from lava flows underground.
Turning Animals To Stone
The chemical nature of the lake will cause burns and also calcification over time. Basically, living creatures become stone. Nick Brandt, a wildlife photographer told NBC News about his experience there. He's captured plenty of animals that underwent this process.
"I unexpectedly found the creatures — all manner of birds and bats — washed up along the shoreline of Lake Natron in Northern Tanzania," Brandt told NBC News in an email. "I took these creatures as I found them on the shoreline, and then placed them in 'living' positions, bringing them back to 'life.'"
Officials estimate that thousands of mummified animals probably sit at the bottom of the lake. Basically, the water stops all decomposition, turning them into preserved specimen.
"If a body falls anywhere else it decomposes very quickly, but on the edge of the lake, it just gets encrusted in salt and stays forever," David Harper, an ecologist at the University of Leicester, told NBC News.
You may find everything from bats to birds to even insects in the lake. Sometimes, when the water levels drop, the corpses get exposed to dry land. This is how people discover these stone animals. It sounds like a pretty ghastly sight to come across. But that's nature — beautiful but deadly.
