Lonar Crater Lake — The lake that casts moon magic

DO you ever look at a shooting star and make a wish? If you know your science, you’d know that shooting stars are actually meteors or broken pieces of celestial bodies such as asteroids and comets that enter the earth’s atmosphere.

Most of these burn off, but occasionally a large one hits the earth’s surface-exactly what happened more than 40,000 years ago!

A huge, blazing ball of fire, which weighed between a whopping 1 and 2 million tons, hurtled through space at an awesome speed of 80,000 to 90,000 kilometres per hour. It crashed into earth and hit its surface so hard and with such fiery force that it made a deep depression in the rock-solid Deccan plateau in the heart of Maharashtra.

It crashed and exploded-imagine the BANG it would have caused! It then erupted and spewed molten rock, creating a magnificent trough. Even though it was a mere chip of the moon, the impact of the 384,403-kilometre travel from the moon to the earth, left a dent that was 1.8-kilometre wide and 150-metre deep.

Over time, the jungle took over, and a perennial stream transformed the crater into a tranquil, emerald-green natural lake — the Lonar Crater Lake.

It does sound like the stuff of sci-fi, but it's true!

Every year, between 30,000 and 1,50,000 meteors plunge towards the earth, but none of them have managed to create a lake like Lonar. If you look at the Lonar Lake, it might look like just another lake, but this near-perfect oval lake is one of the world's only two natural craters formed entirely from basalt-a dark, fine-grained volcanic rock and has water that is seven-times saltier than seawater!

Well, that’s the thing about most mysterious places — they wear a nondescript garb and appear pretty ordinary at first glance but when you really start looking at them, you find a million secrets lurking around them. What are the secrets of the Lonar Crater Lake? Let's find out!

THE CHANCE DISCOVERY

For a long time, Lonar Crater was one of the best- kept secrets of Maharashtra. Though it is only about 170 km from Aurangabad and 550 km from Mumbai, it remained unknown to everyone. Since the path towards the lake was slippery and people believed its banks to be quicksand swamps, no one attempted to go near it, for it was a truly treacherous trek. It was only in 1823-some 196 years ago-when a British explorer, J.E. Alexander, chanced upon the crater while he was researching the ancient temples in the region. He found many temples in a dilapidated condition and a strange ecology in this cavernous region, which was very different from the surrounding flat landscape.

But even after the discovery of the crater, for almost a century and a half, scientists believed it to be a volcanic crater, for it was found on the Deccan plateau, which is famous for its volcanic origin.

Then, in 1896, the famous geologist, G.K. Gilbert, pointed out its similarity with a crater created by a meteor in Arizona desert in the US.

Some other scientists too doubted the volcanic theory because of lack of recent volcanic activities in the Indian subcontinent and agreed with Gilbert’s theory of a meteoritic origin of Lonar Crater. And so, a scientific debate started: Is Lonar Crater a volcanic or a meteoritic crater?

In 1961, two Indian scientists, N.C. Nandy and V.B. Deo, made a thorough survey of the crater site and came to the most plausible explanation that Lonar Crater was the result of a single violent explosion and began to suspect that it stemmed from an extraterrestrial encounter.

And finally, in 1964, two American marine scientists, Eugene C. Lafond and Robert S. Dietz, conducted a field survey at Lonar and suggested that the crater must have been an impact crater and originated some 50,000 years ago.

The reasons for their suggesting this were these: First, they found that the crater is circular and has a depth-to- diameter ratio that is characteristic of an impact crater.

Second, the crater has a raised rim that could be because of the impact origin. Their suspicions were also confirmed after some curious minerals like maskelynite, a type of glass found on meteorites and in craters formed by meteors, was found at the site.

THE SECRETS OF THE LAKE

Scientists have long been puzzled by the strange mysteries surrounding the Lonar Crater.

For starters, this unusual bowl has water that is both saline and alkaline, something that’s totally unheard of!

Scientists say that it is nearly impossible that a lake is alkaline and saline at the same time, so that makes this lake one of a kind. The lake has two distinct regions that never mix-an outer region that’s neutral and an inner region that’s alkaline, each with its own flora and fauna. (If you don't believe us, then you can carry a litmus paper with yourself, perform some experiments, and let chemistry prove it to you all over again!)

What makes it even more exciting is that the alkalinity of the water increases towards the centre and breeds very rare forms of microbial life-the crater basin encompasses a unique ecosystem that cannot be found anywhere else on the planet!

There is also a perennial stream feeding the lake with sweet water but there seems to be no apparent outlet for the lake’s water. And it’s also a big unsolved mystery where the water for the perennial stream comes from, in a relatively dry region like the Deccan plateau. Even during the peak summers, this stream is perpetually flowing!

Another mystery that makes this lake intriguing is the fact that as soon as you reach there, the directional indicators of your compass either stop working or show huge variations.

Scientists have long been befuddling over the turbulent behaviour of the compasses in this area and have tried to find a cause but no one could justify the reason.

Many theories have been proposed to explain this phenomenon — some scientists say that strange electromagnetic forces interfere with electrical equipment and send compasses haywire. They suggest that objects that come from space are generally more electromagnetic than material that they strike on earth. And since Lonar Crater is a meteor-impact crater, its electromagnetic field is stronger. This is where it gets more interesting. Could this mean that the lake’s weird magnetic properties be extraterrestrial in origin?

Another theory suggests that the wide swinging of a compass' needle is due to the excess iron content in the soil.

Wait — could that mean that the soil around the crater will stick to a piece of magnet if we try rolling one on it?

Well, we don’t know yet! But scientists at NASA and the Geological Survey of India are attempting to find the answers to the compelling questions surrounding the Lonar Crater, like how is the lake alkaline and saline at the same time?

How does it support microorganisms rarely found elsewhere on earth?

Why do compasses fail to work in certain parts of the crater? And what unusual secrets lie hidden in its very bottom?

THE BOWL OF BIODIVERSITY

Many scientists have called the Lonar Crater a massive bowl of biodiversity. Why? Because apart from the sci-fi mystery it presents, the Lonar Crater is circled by a thick belt of large trees that run around its basin. This belt is formed of concentric circles of different species of trees.

The first ring is formed by date palm trees, followed by a circle of tamarind trees, and then comes a belt of babul trees. These concentric circles of trees make one wonder who would have planted them in this manner around the crater so many years ago!

The core of the concentric circles is bound by a belt of bare muddy space. This space is several-hundred- metres broad but has no vegetation because of the high soda content of the water. During the rainy season, this soil drains into the lake, and during summers when evaporation reduces the water level, large quantities of soda are collected.

The Lonar Crater is also a wildlife sanctuary and a notified Geo-Heritage monument. It is home to a variety of creatures like the gazelle, langur, bat, mongoose, barking deer and chinkara, along with snakes, scorpions, monitor lizards and brilliantly coloured insects and amphibians. Its other residents include the egret, shelduck, Brahminy duck, red-wattled lapwing, blue jay, baya weaver, hoopoe, barn owl, golden oriole, lark, tailorbird, parakeet, black- winged stilt, green bee-eater, magpie, robin and peafowl, as well as numerous species of migratory birds that often visit the place.

But this unique crater with its fragile ecosystem is under threat. Pollution due to sewage water and human activity in and around the crater is said to be affecting its alkalinity and salinity, thereby threatening its sensitive ecosystem.

Excessive water from the lake is being taken for non-agricultural and commercial activities, because of which, experts claim, the lake’s surface area has shrunk by a staggering 100 metres in the last three to four years!

Deforestation also poses a serious threat to the lake. Some of the streams flowing into the lake have either dried up or have been blocked. It's sad but this bowl of booming diversity is in desperate need of help. It's not every day that nature works in its serendipitous ways to create a spectacular wonder like the Lonar Crater. It has a great importance in geology and astronomy, and we must all come together in conserving it.

A one-of-a-kind phenomena, it’s a geological, geographical, historical, mythical, archaeological, ecological and scientific wonder-all rolled into one. It’s a mystery that scientists are trying to unravel fully, and until that happens, we do not know what amazing secrets lie buried within the bowels of Lonar Lake… Perhaps some ancient, extraterrestrial treasure that holds the answers to the mysteries of our universe!

— Excerpted from A Dozen and a Half Stories - Strange and Mysterious Places the World Forgot by Arti Muthanna Singh and Mamta Nainy with permission from Rupa Publications

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