![]() These birds are pink because they feed on pigmented phytoplankton in. If they fall into the lake, that's where they'll stay, encased in salty cement, until Natron decides it's time to let them go. In fact, Lake Natron is a primary breeding site for the worlds lesser flamingos, an estimated 75 of which are born here. Even in a good year, some flamingos that make the trip will die. If the water level's just right, they court on the temporary salt islands and make mud nests from volcanic dust. So, after feasting on spirulina algae from nearby lagoons, the flamingos flock to this barren wasteland. Except for one extreme-living bacterium, nothing lives in the eerily still Natron, which drives away other larger animals that would stop by to feed or fish. The deadliness of Lake Natron is exactly what makes it a peaceful mating spot for the flamingos. ![]() The water would "strip the ink off my Kodak film boxes within a few seconds," Brandt said. Other volcanoes usually spew silicates, but the Ol Doinyo Lengai is the only one on the planet that spills "natrocarbonatites" as cool, runny, dark washes.Īshy runoff collected by rainwater winds up in the lake, which explains why the washed-up animals look like they've been dropped in a bucket of cement. It's a favorite among petrologists because it's the only one of its kind, Hannes Mattsson, a researcher at the Swiss Institute of Technology in Zurich, told NBC News. The culprit is Ol Doinyo Lengai, a million-year old volcano just south of Lake Natron. Each was taken on a different occasion over the course of 18 months. The following three images show Cathedral Rock, a volcanic structure that sits within the northern reaches of Lake Logipi. Nick Brandt / Courtesy of Hasted Kraeutler Gallery Lake Natron and Logipi are prime examples of this. A calcified dove, from Nick Brandt's book Across The Ravaged Land, published by Abrams, New York. How did the lake get this hostile? The "salt" in it isn't the regular table variety harvested from seawater, but magmatic limestone that's been forged deep in the Earth, poured out in runny lava flows and blasted into the air to become ash clouds 10 miles high. The lake has a maximum length of 56km and a width of 22km. The landscape is dominated by Ol Doinyo Lengai, an active volcano which is just south of Lake Natron. Water levels fluctuate easily because it's so hot - when the levels drop, the corpses are left behind on the shores, coated in salt, exactly how Brandt found them. Located in northern Tanzania, near the border with neighbouring Kenya, Lake Natron is situated north east of the Ngorongoro Crater. ![]() Small birds or bats that try and fail to cross the 12- by 30-mile lake fall in, as do insects like beetles and locusts. Nick Brandt / Courtesy of Hasted Kraeutler Gallery Flamingos are some of the lucky birds that can make the trip across the lake which is 30-miles wide at its longest point. "If a body falls anywhere else it decomposes very quickly, but on the edge of the lake, it just gets encrusted in salt and stays forever," David Harper, an ecologist at the University of Leicester who has visited Lake Natron four times, told NBC News.
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