Tanzania's 'lethal lake' can turn anything into stone

Tanzania's lethal lake Natron turns any animal that touches it into stone, it has been revealed.

The lake, which is a combination of chemicals, can kill almost any living creature that comes in contact with it, Stuff.co.nz reported.

According photographer Nick Brandt, who captured petrified creatures in his new book, 'Across the Ravaged Land', he unexpectedly found birds and bats washed up along the shoreline of Lake Natron in Northern Tanzania.

He said that 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.

Brandt revealed that the water has an extremely high soda and salt content, which causes the creatures to calcify.