1. Tanzania's Lake Natron actually a
mix of chemicals and it contains mainly sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) and
sodium carbonate de-cahydrate (soda ash). The lake Natron is fed by mineral hot
springs and a river, but no water flows out except through evaporation. The
results are totally havoc and the caustic waters create deadly outcomes.
Deadly Lake Waters Turn Birds to Stone |
2. Calcified Fish Eagle
It may look like this bird was gripped
by the icy hand of death, but actually it was calcified in the caustic waters
of Tanzania's Lake Natron. The unexpectedly found the creatures all
manner of birds and bats washed up along the shoreline of Lake Natron in
Northern Tanzania.No one knows 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.The water has a tremendously high soda
and salt content, the soda and salt causes the creatures to calcify, perfectly
preserved, as they dry. Across The ravaged land is to give these clearly
lifeless creatures an air of reanimation.
Calcified Fish Eagl |
3. Calcified Bat
The Lake Natron waters can reach high
temperatures up to 120 degrees Fahrenheit. And during dry spells the PH can go
up to 10.5, just shy of the alkalinity of ammonia. Sometimes the mineral to
water ratio is so high that the water becomes almost thick to the touch.
Calcified Bat |
4. Calcified Songbird
Some living things can survive the super
salty waters, with the exception of certain red-colored cyanobacteria a type of
blue green algae which give the lake a rust colored appearance from space. A
single species of endemic fish can thrive in the corrosive environment.
Calcified Songbird |
5. Calcified Flamingo
Lesser flamingos take advantage of the
inhospitable environment as a breeding ground. They feed off the blue-green
algae in the lake and nest on islands of evaporated salt, or even along the
dry, salty shorelines. It's such a good spot for nesting, indeed, that this
lake area where these 2.5 million birds will breed. There are no needs to fear
predators because there are none. However; saline waters themselves can prove
toxic if the birds aren't careful. The lesser flamingo is now categorized as
"near threatened" by the International Union for Conservation of
Nature.
Calcified Songbird |
6.Calcified Swallow
The Gelai Volcano sits on the
southeastern shore of the 35-mile lake, towering 9,652 feet above the caustic
waters. Due to its exclusive ecosystem, the Lake basin is on the Ramsar List of
Wetlands of International Importance. The significance of birdlife and other
species to big threats from nearby development, which include a proposed
hydropower plant on the Ewaso Ngiro River, just over the border into Kenya, and
a mill to process the soda ash from the lake itself.
Calcified Songbird |
7. Calcified Dove
Today nomadic peoples occasionally herd
cattle through the region, but public do not live in the Lake Natron basin. The
existing lake is a highly poisonously concentrated remnant of what used to be a
massive, freshwater lake 5,000 to 6,000 years ago. Even go to more in past,
people did occupy this area. Just west of the lake is the resting place of
Australopithecus boisei and the early East African hominin whose
1.75-million-year-old jaw and full set of teeth were uncovered in 1959. His
dried bones are not unlike the calcified remains of Brandt's birds.
Calcified Dove |