Then there are the razor-sharp clumps of salt that almost left camera operator Matt Aeberhard stranded in the caustic waters after his hovercraft got shredded while filming the BBC's A Perfect Planet.

First of all, there’s the heat with the water in Lake Natron sometimes reaching a scalding 60☌ (140☏). The resulting pH is enough to burn the skin and eyes of most animals and spell death for those who linger too long, but if a person jumped in would it turn them to “stone” like Brandt’s animals? What would happen if you jumped into Lake Natron?įlamingos have tough, scaly skin that protects them from the water, but humans are a little too soft and squishy to fare so well. Image credit: Thomas Kraft, Kufstein, - Transferred from de.wikipedia to Commons., CC BY-SA 3.0 Solidified natrocarbonatite lava in the crater of Ol Doinyo Lengai. Over time, the salty lake has absorbed sodium carbonate and other minerals in natrocarbonatite from the surrounding hills making the water a strong alkaline. Owl Steals Stick Horse And Flies It Around Neighborhood Like A Witch On A BroomstickĪs for why the water is so wild, the otherworldly environment sits in the wake of Ol Doinyo Lengai, the only volcano on the planet to belch out one of Earth’s weirdest lavas: Natrocarbonatite.

Why is lake natron so deadly