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sherbetbizarre Great Old One Joined: 04 Sep 2004 Total posts: 1418 Gender: Male |
 Posted: 02-10-2013 11:53 Post subject: The Petrifying Lake |
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| Quote: | Any Animal That Touches This Lethal Lake Turns to Stone
There's a deceptively still body of water in Tanzania with a deadly secret—it turns any animal it touches to stone. The rare phenomenon is caused by the chemical makeup of the lake, but the petrified creatures it leaves behind are straight out of a horror film.
Photographed by Nick Brandt in his new book, Across the Ravaged Land, petrified creatures pepper the area around the lake due to its constant pH of 9 to 10.5—an extremely basic alkalinity that preserves these creatures for eternity. According to Brandt:
I unexpectedly found the creatures - all manner of birds and bats - washed up along the shoreline of Lake Natron in Northern Tanzania. No-one knows for certain 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 an extremely high soda and salt content, so high that it would strip the ink off my Kodak film boxes within a few seconds. The soda and salt causes the creatures to calcify, perfectly preserved, as they dry.
I took these creatures as I found them on the shoreline, and then placed them in ‘living’ positions, bringing them back to ‘life’, as it were. Reanimated, alive again in death.
The rest of the haunting images follow and they feature in Brandt's book, available here. Or, you could go and visit for yourself—but keep a safe distance from the water, please. |
http://gizmodo.com/any-animal-that-touches-this-lethal-lake-turns-to-stone-1436606506
| Quote: | Deadly lake turns animals into statues
ACCORDING to Dante, the Styx is not just a river but a vast, deathly swamp filling the entire fifth circle of hell. Perhaps the staff of New Scientist will see it when our time comes but, until then, Lake Natron in northern Tanzania does a pretty good job of illustrating Dante's vision.
Unless you are an alkaline tilapia (Alcolapia alcalica) – an extremophile fish adapted to the harsh conditions – it is not the best place to live. Temperatures in the lake can reach 60 °C, and its alkalinity is between pH 9 and pH 10.5.
The lake takes its name from natron, a naturally occurring compound made mainly of sodium carbonate, with a bit of baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) thrown in. Here, this has come from volcanic ash, accumulated from the Great Rift valley. Animals that become immersed in the water die and are calcified.
Photographer Nick Brandt, who has a long association with east Africa – he directed the video for Michael Jackson's Earth Song there in 1995 – took a detour from his usual work when he discovered perfectly preserved birds and bats on the shoreline. "I could not help but photograph them," he says. "No one knows for certain 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."
When salt islands form in the lake, lesser flamingos take the opportunity to nest – but it is a risky business, as this calcified bird (top) illustrates. The animals are all arranged in poses by the photographer. Above, on the right we have a sea eagle and on the left a dove, in what is surely the most horrific depiction of the "bird of peace" since Picasso's Guernica.
Brandt's new collection of photos featuring animals in east Africa, Across the Ravaged Land, is published by Abrams Books. |
New Scientist |
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| RyoHazuki Grey Joined: 24 Sep 2013 Total posts: 4 Location: Last refuge of the Druids Gender: Male |
| Posted: 02-10-2013 13:51 Post subject: |
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So, are they burnt to death by the alkali, or just killed by the water impact?
Also, if they're calcified, how does he manage to 'pose' the bodies - surely they'd be too brittle?
Damn good photos, though. |
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| cherrybomb Skating the thin crust
Great Old One Joined: 26 Aug 2009 Total posts: 1005 Location: Sitting on the roof at dusk Gender: Female |
| Posted: 02-10-2013 15:53 Post subject: |
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| Amazing images |
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| Spudrick68 Great Old One Joined: 08 Jun 2008 Total posts: 1110 Location: sunny Morecambe Age: 45 Gender: Male |
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