There is a lake in Tanzania that turns animals into stone

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/ Image Credit & Source : http://todayilearned.co.uk