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在线翻译:
szdaily -> Kaleidoscope -> 
Crater lake turns pink
    2020-06-25  08:53    Shenzhen Daily

A CRATER lake in India that formed when a meteorite slammed into the Earth mysteriously changed colors earlier this month, spurring an investigation by local officials.

Lonar Lake, located in India’s west-central state of Maharashtra, went from a green tint to pink over a few days.

The lake is located east of Mumbai and is believed to have formed 35,000 to 50,000 years ago, NASA said.

Satellite photos from NASA show the lake on May 25 still sporting its green hue before a second image from June 10 shows the changeover.

The crater in India was initially thought to have a volcanic origin due to being located in volcanic basalt but scientists in the 1970s found that maskelynite, a naturally occurring glass, was present. Maskelynite only formed from “extremely high-velocity impacts” such as a meteorite strike.

“Formed 35,000 to 50,000 years ago, Lonar is the only ‘fresh’ impact structure in basalt on Earth, making it an important analog for impact craters on the surface of the moon,” NASA notes.

In a video posted on state-run Maharashtra Tourism’s Twitter, local geologist Gajanan Kharat said the lake has changed colors before, but nothing like what has recently unfolded.

“Salinity in the lake has increased as water level has gone down drastically this year and it has become warmer too resulting in overgrowth of algae,” Kharat said.

“This algae turns reddish in warmer temperatures and hence the lake turned pink overnight,” Kharat explained.

In the wake of the abrupt change, officials from the state forest department have collected water samples to determine the exact cause of the color change.

The Hindustan Times reported Tuesday that the Bombay high court also ordered that environmental experts submit a report in four weeks on findings from the lake’s glassy surface and water samples from a nearby dam.

Some have speculated that India’s lockdown due to coronavirus that led to reduced pollution may have had an impact on the lake, but Madan Suryavashi, head of the geography department at Maharashtra’s Babasaheb Ambedkar University, said that’s probably not the case.

“There wasn’t much human activity due to lockdown which could also have accelerated the change,” he said.

A similar spectacle is also present in Australia, where Lake Hillier gets its shade of pink from Halobacteriaceae, a pink-colored microorganism that thrives in water with high salinity. (SD-Agencies)

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