A photograph by Nick Brandt
It's absolutely amazing that there is a lake in Tanzania where animals turn into stone. Actually the PH level of the water of the lake is extremely higher (about 10.5). And for this reason it burns the skin upon contact and gradually turn the animals into solid state. Birds and other animals that come in contact with the lake’s waters – often by mistake – die and get mummified into stones.
Nick Brandt wrote in his blog about this-
"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. "
Some other photographs taken by Nick Brandt -
Reference : http://todayilearned.co.uk/2013/10/08/there-is-a-lake-in-tanzania-that-turns-animals-into-stone/
All Image Credit & Source : http://todayilearned.co.uk