The Mysteries of Lonar Lake

Let us discuss about Maharashtra’s very own Lonar Lake! So imagine, a comet or an asteroid, crashing onto the surface of the earth. What does that result in! Like you guessed, a huge crater. And as you have already guessed, that’s exactly what has led to the Lonar Lake. That very crater today is a lake. So that’s one interesting story of Lonar Lake.

But that isn’t the only fun story about this lake. There’s more.. So close to two years ago, we even witnessed that the water in the lake was turning pink. Of course we have heard of the pink lake or the bubblegum lake in Australia! Similar to that, the reason for the water to turn pink was due to the large presence of "haloarchaea" microbes. These are salt oreiented microbes, that eventually convert the water to a pinkish hue. And did you know, this lake had historical references too!? So the crater lake was first mentioned in ancient Indian texts like the Padma Purana and the Skanda Purana. The Ain-i-Akbari, a manuscript published around 1600 CE, mentions it as well.

According to evidence, it was once a part of the Mauryan Empire. With all this being said, the lake is still the key to a lot of unanswered questions. Popularly known as the crater of mysteries, the lake has fascinated experts in various fields such as geology, space scientists, environmentalists and so on. Have you visited Lonar lake? Tell us about your experience in the comments.