Sigh!
Imagine it. A beautiful summer day at the lake. The sky is a deep, clear blue,
the sun bakes your shoulders, your toes are buried in warm, golden sand, and
the bright, pink waves lap up at your feet.
Paints
quite a picture, doesn’t it? Yet it is something you could conceivably
experience.
Believe
it or not, there are eight different lakes in the world that are quite bright
pink! The pictures of them are actually pretty startling and stunning. They
show thick swatches of wild forest, and sometimes mountains, just as you would
see in a million other places in the world. Only in these photos, right in the
middle, is a big old misshapen patch of perfect bright pink, like a huge wad of
bubble gum someone dropped on the ground, or a huge pool of indigestion remedy.
The lakes are in such far removed places as Senegal, Spain, Canada, and
Azerbaijan (I’ve never even heard of that last one, frankly!). But for some odd
reason, the heaviest concentration of these unusual lakes is in Australia.
They’ve got four of them.
Interestingly
enough, they’re perfectly normal salt lakes in every other way. People swim and
boat in them, fish make their homes in the water, and some have even been
declared bird areas because of the large number of birds who live there. One or
two have even played host to salt plants. The only thing that makes them at all
different from the thousands of other lakes that dot the planet, is the fact
that they are bright pink.
Which
brings us to the most important question. It’s the first question that no doubt
pops into the mind of anyone seeing one of these lakes for the first time, is
WHY are these lakes pink? One might wonder if humankind’s prolific talent for
creating unending sources of pollution is a contributing factor, but not this
time. These wonderfully unique bodies of water are all the doing of the
endlessly creative Mother Nature. Most, the scientists tell us, are created by
a pinkish algae or a bacteria that loves the salt. The one in Canada, Dusty
Rose Lake in the province of British Columbia, is made pink by stuff in the
glacier that feeds it. The rocks around it are said to be pink and purple, and
if you look at an areal photo of the lake, you can actually see a bright pink
stream wending its way through countryside and forest to empty itself in the
lake.
But one
of these lakes presents more than a little bit of a mystery. Lake Hillier in
Australia has scientists a wee bit flummoxed.
To
begin with, many of the other lakes are not pink all the time. When the climate
is just right, and the light is at the perfect angle, and the algae reached a
peak, you might be in for an exciting treat. Lucky you! The rest of the time
they’re just regular bodies of water.
Lake
Hillier, however, never takes a break from its great pinky-ness. And it hasn’t
for over two centuries, according to early explorer’s journals.
Other
lakes really only look bright pink from a distance. Close up, they look a lot
more like water.
Lake
Hillier is always bright pink no matter what angle you view it from. Even when
you scoop up a jar of water what you have is a big, bright jar of pink water.
So what
is it that makes Hillier pink that’s so different from the other lakes? What is
that elusive quality that makes this lake so unique, even amongst the most
unique lakes in the world?
Well,
the scientific jury is still out on that one, and until they reach a verdict,
we’ll have to satisfy ourselves with amazing pictures of these most amazing of
lakes.
And
while we’re doing that, we can ask ourselves, why wouldn’t we want to take better care of this most amazing planet of
ours?
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