There is an adage about King Midas golden touch. Everything he touched turned into gold and took life out of living. Fossilising them forever. But does this archaic theory really exist?
The answer is yes, there exists a Lake in Arusha Region of Tanzania, Africa; named LAKE NATRON. That is so salty, alkaline or caustic that any living creature drinks water from it, in fraction of minutes turn into stone. The unpleasant Lake Natron, in northern Tanzania, is a salt lake—implying that water streams in, yet doesn’t stream out, so it can just escape by evaporation. After some time, as water evaporates, it deserts high convergences of salt and different minerals, as at the Dead Sea and Utah’s Great Salt Lake.
In contrast to those different lakes, however, Lake Natron is very antacid, because of high measures of the synthetic natron (a blend of sodium carbonate and preparing pop) in the water.The alkaline water in Lake Natron has a pH as high as 10.5 and is so scathing it can consume the skin and eyes of creatures that aren’t adjusted to it. The water’s alkalinity originates from the sodium carbonate and different minerals that stream into the lake from the encompassing slopes. Furthermore, stores of sodium carbonate — which was once utilized in Egyptian embalmment — additionally goes about as a fabulous kind of additive for those creatures sufficiently unfortunate to pass on in the waters of Lake Natron.
According to one hypothesis migrating birds crash to the surface of the lake assuming it to be a plain surface. The chemicals present in the water give it a reflective surface and once any creature crashes on to it turn into fossil.
Regardless of certain media reports, the creature didn’t just go to stone and bite the dust in the wake of coming into contact with the lake’s water. Actually, Lake Natron’s alkaline waters bolster a flourishing biological system of salt swamps, freshwater wetlands, flamingos and other wetland feathered creatures, tilapia and the green growth on which enormous herds of flamingos feed.
Another hypothesis says during reproducing season, in excess of 2 million lesser flamingos (Phoenicopterus minor) utilize the shallow lake as their essential rearing ground in Africa. The flamingos’ homes are based on little islands that structure in the lake during the dry season.
Lake Natron is one of two basic lakes around there of East Africa; the other is Lake Bahi. Both are terminal lakes that don’t deplete out to any stream or ocean; they are taken care of by underground aquifers and little waterways. As shallow lakes in a hot atmosphere, their water temperatures can reach as high as 106 degrees Fahrenheit (41 degrees Celsius).
The peacefulness of Lake Natron — and its flamingo populace — are compromised by a proposed hydroelectric power plant on the Ewaso Ngiro River, the primary waterway taking care of the lake. As disconnected as the lake may be (it wasn’t found by Europeans until 1954), there are no assurances set up for the lake or its undermined flamingo populace.
Why Lake Natron is red?
The shade of the lake is normal for those where high evaporation rates happen. As water vanishes during the dry season, saltiness levels increment to the point that salt-adoring microorganisms start to flourish. Such halophile living beings incorporate some cyanobacteria that cause their own food with photosynthesis as plants to do. The red adornment photosynthesizing shade in the cyanobacteria delivers the profound reds of the untamed water of the lake and the orange shades of the shallow pieces of the lake. The soluble base salt hull on the outside of the lake is likewise regularly hued red or pink by the salt-cherishing microorganisms that live there. Salt swamps and freshwater wetlands around the edges of the lake do bolster an assortment of plants.
