Deadly Lake Turns Animals To Stone

Sounds like it is straight out of a fantasy novel but it is true. There is a lake that turns any animal that dies in it, to stone.

Lake Natron is a salt lake in Northern Tanzania, where the temperature can reach 140 degrees. The brutal conditions are even worse because of how severely salty the water is. Where seawater has a pH of 7 or 8, Lake Natron has a pH between 9 to 10.5. Sometimes when it gets really hot and the water evaporates, salt islands appear in the lake. A certain type of flamingos actually breed on these salt islands.

Some animals they don't know how they die, it seems some birds get confused by how reflective the surface o the water can be and they crash into it. When animals die in the lake, their bodies actually calcify in the water, forming a petrified carcass. Like a frozen statue of what the animal looked like at the exact moment of death. All types of animals from fish, birds, bats and more die in the waters, making these animal statues.

Photographer Nick Brandt went to this lake to photograph the animals that died. He put them back in poses, as if the animals were still alive and the result is creepy beyond belief. The pictures were for his new book, Across The Ravaged Land, which documents the disappearing animals and natural world in East Africa.

Tanzania's Deadly Lake Natron Turns Animals Into Calcified Statues