The Lake of Death and its victims: the macabre side of nature.

The Lake of Death turns the animals that bathe in its water into statues of salt.

 Photo © Nick Brandt

Animals that are immersed remain calcified , no one knows what the cause.

According to Dante (author of Divine Commedy), the Styx is not just a river, but a vast swamp deadly that fills the entire fifth circle of hell , and in which the wrathful are immersed and the slothful submerged . Maybe some of us will see it when it is our time, but , until then, Lake Natron in northern Tanzania does a good job to illustrate the vision of Alighieri.

 

 Photo © Nick Brandt

Unless you are an "alkaline tilapia" - a fish that is well adapted to the extreme conditions - the lake is not the best place to live. The temperatures can reach 60 ° C , and its alkalinity is between pH 9 and pH 10.5.

Photo © Nick Brandt

The lake takes its name from the natron , a natural compound made ​​primarily from carbonate hydrate of sodium that has accumulated in the valley of the Great Rift volcanic ash . Animals that are immersed in the water die and remain calcified , they look like real pillars of salt .

Photo © Nick Brandt

Photographer Nick Brandt, who lived in East Africa for years- and has directed the video for Michael Jackson's ' Earth Song ' in 1995 - was impressed when he discovered perfectly preserved birds and bats on the shoreline . "I could not help but photograph them , " he says. " Nobody knows for sure how to die , but it seems that the highly reflective surface of the lake is mistaking them , as when birds crashed into the windows, and fall into the lake."

Photo © Nick Brandt

When the salt islands appear on the lake , flamingos take the opportunity to nest - but it's a big risk , as you can see from the pictures of the birds calcified . The animals were all put posing by the photographer."

info taken from: leggilo.net (originally written in Italian)