After emission, when it comes into contact with water, the colour of natron-carbonatite lava changes rapidly to white, so that the top of the volcano seems to be cloaked in snow. When the lava is flowing it resembles a kind of very fluid, dark “river” that some have likened to a stream of mud. The area is extremely arid and dominated by the perfect cone of Oldoinyo Leng’ai, the volcano sacred to the Maasai people, who consider it the abode of the divinity Leng’ai.Īt an altitude of nearly three thousand metres above sea level, Oldoinyo Leng’ai is the only volcano in the world that emits natron-carbonatite lava, rich in sodium carbonate, with very low viscosity and temperatures since it rises at 500–590 ☌. Natron is the usual nesting area for millions of lesser pink flamingos who are fond of the cyanobacteria present in high concentration in the lake water, especially during the dry season (June to October), so they flock to its shores.

It is a highly alkaline lake that occupies a depression created by the Rift Valley, a lava desert area of rugged beauty in the extreme north of Tanzania. Lake Natron is fifty kilometres in length and about twenty-five in width.

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Lake Natron and Oldonyo Len’gai volcano.

Natron lake facts