"The water comes from the chemistry of all the volcanic rocks in the area," said Liutkus-Pierce. The name of the lake itself isn't named after anything in Swahili, but is actually named after an abundant mineral, natron, dissolved in the water. "Water at the surface evaporates, and the high concentration of minerals in the water end up crystallizing." "We see insects fall onto the mud flats at the edges of the lake," she said. Liutkus-Pierce has seen other "petrified" animals while collecting fossils near the lake. "You'll want to wash it off because it will irritate your skin." "You might feel a little bit of a tingle," she told ABC News. (A pH of 7 is neutral and 14 is the most alkaline.) Cynthia Liutkus-Pierce, an associate professor of geology at Appalachian State University in North Carolina, said that a person won't immediately burn their hand after being splashed by Lake Natron's waters. Lake Natron itself is an alkaline environment, with a pH between 9 and 10. He discovered the preserved wildlife along the shore of Lake Natron and posed them for his photographs.īut why do they look like stone and not roadkill? "I could not help but photograph them," said Brandt in an interview with New Scientist. A series of eerie black and white photographs taken by Nick Brandt show birds on Lake Natron in Tanzania, as if they had looked into Medusa's eyes. 2, 2013— - The Dead Sea may be one of the saltiest lakes on earth, but at least it doesn't turn animals to husks of their former selves.
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