![]() The beguiling lesser flamingo feed on algae found in soda lakes across eastern Africa but choose to breed almost exclusively at Lake Natron. Guests can take early morning or sunset walks to the lake flats. Here are the top activities to do with your stay at Lake Natron CampĬool off in any one of the natural plunge pools in front of the accommodation units or dining/ bar area. There is also larger pool suitable for swimming further down stream as well as endemic cyclids – bring some goggles or ask our team for a pair! Volcanism around the Great Rift Valley produces soda (Sodium Carbonate), which is washed down by rain and ground water. ![]() Oldoinyo Lengai (Mountain of God) is the only active volcano in Tanzania. Volcanoes and craters of different ages are scattered around the valley. The prominent escarpment in this area lies to the west. The valley is created by two tectonic plates moving apart causing the valley floor to drop down leaving intact and fragmented valley walls or escarpments. The Great Rift Valley stretches from northern Ethiopia to Mozambique in the south, a distance of about 5600km. The lake is also surrounded by scattered springs, some of which are fresh enough to provide drinking water for many species of animals, large and small. The combination of remoteness and the hostility of the soda mud-flats provides the flamingos with a relatively safe area to breed and rear chicks. Algae and zooplankton thrive in this water, which in turn supports great numbers of flamingos. Here the water evaporates leaving behind very high concentrations of soda. Only the flamingos can survive in this arid vesicular environment moving barely in alkaline water searching for the abundant algae that make up their nourishment.Lake Natron sits at the lowest point of the valley in East Africa at an altitude of 600m or 2000feet above sea level. Imagery of Lake Natron from derived from Sentinel-2 where salt crust are visible. These features can be seen in the underlying detailed satellite image of Lake Natron. After the rains, a thin layer of water remains, which splits the salt into floating crust or `trona’. In the dry season, the reverberation of the white and irregular salt surface becomes blinding. ![]() The erosion of the surrounding volcanic rocks has enriched the waters of the rivers with large quantities of dissolved salts, which, transported into the lakes, have crystallized due to the high evaporation caused by the strong insulation. The red areas are due to the presence of algae, the white areas are salt flats and salt islands, and the dark areas are lagoons around the lake’s margin. Sentinel-2 RGB `true’ colour composite image of the maximum extent of Lake Natron, 804 km2. In fact, it is the red photosynthesizing pigment in the cyanobacteria responsible for the deep reds of the open water of the lake and the orange colors of the shallow parts of the lake. The lake is characterized by a wide stretches of water, which will highlight in red during the seasonal flowering of algae. One of the most mysterious places in the world is the Lake Natron (02 025 ‘S 36 000 ‘E), located along the branch of the Rift Valley, known also as Gregory Rift, in the northern Tanzania.
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