It seems the stuff of legend, animals drink
from an enchanted lake and turn to stone. However, at first glance, that’s
exactly what photographer Nick Brandt has captured in in his book, Across the Ravaged Land.
During his travels to Lake Natron, a
Tanzanian lake near the Kenyan border, Brandt unexpectedly found the calcified
animals, mostly birds and bats, washed to shore. He then posed them in lifelike
positions and photographed them in this eerie photo series.
What
happened to the animals?
The lake in Tanzania is extremely alkaline,
with a pH that can reach 10.5, enough to burn skin. This alkalinity is caused
by sodium carbonate (used in Egyptian mummification) from a nearby volcano and
surrounding hills that run into the lake.
However, it’s not a case where animals
drink from the water, die, and are immediately calcified, it’s actually a much
longer process where they are coated with the sodium carbonate, making them
feel like stone.
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