Mummified birds wash up on shore of the eerie Tanzanian Lake Natron.
The lake has a Ph level of 10.5, the alkaline water can burn the skin and eyes of animals that are not adapted to the harsh conditions, LiveScience reported.
The alkaline conditions come from sodium carbonate and other mineral runoff from nearby hills and inclines. Sodium carbonate was used to mummify bodies in ancient Egypt.
The lake is named after its high mineral concentration, natron is "a naturally occurring compound made mainly of sodium carbonate, with a bit of baking soda," New Scientist reported.
Contrary to a number of media reports, the lake does not kill any animal that touches its alkaline surface, but it will calcify the body of a dead body that is immersed in the water, LiveScience reported. While the lake doesn't immediately kill resident creatures, it can be a death trap.
"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," author and photographer Nick Brandt said, New Scientist reported.
"I unexpectedly found the creatures - all manner of birds and bats - washed up along the shoreline of Lake Natron," Brandt wrote in his book "Across the Ravaged Land," LiveScience reported "No one knows for certain exactly how they die, but ... 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 photographer's pieced portray mummified birds sitting by the lake as if they had been petrified right there.
"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," Brandt wrote.
The lake, and the salt marsh ecosystem it supports, houses a number of flamingos tilapia, algae, and other species.
