“First, we have to appreciate how terrifying Lake Superior is,” says Rutherford in a TikTok. Referring to Lake Superior, it was folk singer Gordon Lightfoot who famously penned the lyric, “The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead,” which is an assertion that certainly seems to hold some water. Rutherford’s TikTok Rating: 7/10 Spookies Lake Superior's Kamloops Shipwreck In fact, 75 percent of the lesser flamingo ( Phoeniconaias minor) population have used the lake for breeding. Salt marshes are critical habitat for all kinds of extremophile creatures adapted to live in or near their waters, like alkaline tilapia and flamingos. Surprisingly, Lake Natron is actually teeming with life. Photographer Nick Brandt, who visited the lake in 2011, told Smithsonian magazine two years later that he saw “entire flocks of dead birds all washed ashore together.” Brandt collected washed-up carcasses and posed them as if they were living, creating eerie images of statuesque birds, their feathers hardened with salt, paused in time. Nick Brandt ©2013, Courtesy of Hasted Kraeutler Gallery, NY Cyanobacteria, which gives the lake its bright red and orange hue, can also be toxic when ingested at high levels.Ī fish eagle posed on a branch at Lake Natron. The lake water can reach temperatures above 120 degrees Fahrenheit, and its high salt content is highly irritating to skin and eyes. Likewise, the lake’s shores have at times been riddled with carcasses of dead animals, often migrating birds that make the fatal mistake of landing in the water. “Lake Natron has a reputation for mummifying creatures that fall in and die,” Rutherford says in a TikTok video. Many cultures, including ancient Egyptians, used natron in embalming practices, which is pretty much what happens to critters that meet their end in the lake. Lake Natron gets its name from the naturally occurring mixture of sodium carbonates called natron. The lake first stands out for its blood-red waters, colored by salt-loving bacteria, according to NASA. Water is essential for life on Earth, but the salty, alkaline waters of Lake Natron in Tanzania can be deadly. NASA Earth Observatory images by Joshua Stevens Just in time for Halloween, here are six more lakes and other kinds of haunted hydrology featured in Rutherford’s series: Tanzania’s Lake Natronīlooms of salt-loving bacteria, micro-organisms and algae tint the waters hues of red, orange and pink at different depths. (She hopes to pivot to icy lakes this winter.) In her Spooky Lake series alone, she’s featured at least 60 lakes, with many more informational videos throughout the year. The video has more than 700,000 likes, and Rutherford now has a million followers on her page. The first “spooky lake” featured on her account in the buildup to Halloween last year was Kazakhstan's neon blue-green Kaindy Lake, which contains 110-year-old trees that appear dead above the surface, but resist decomposition even though they are partially submerged underwater. I think that the best teachers are students themselves.” “I spend a lot of time teaching myself so that I can teach others. “Being a hobbyist means that I still have that spark of excitement when I learn new things,” she adds. “Because of my passion for the Great Lakes,” Rutherford says, “I began to explore other lakes and I kind of became a hobby limnologist.” A limnologist is a scientist who studies the biological, chemical and physical features of inland aquatic systems, including lakes, rivers, springs and wetlands. She began sharing her artwork- reimagined artist “books” featuring sea glass, plastics and fish bones, for example-on TikTok in spring 2020, and as she gained more followers, curious commenters wanted more information about the science and history she explored in her art. The daughter of a geologist, Rutherford is a Wisconsin-based artist and professor whose large-scale mixed media projects focus on the Great Lakes, often exploring pollution, erosion and climate change through natural and synthetic materials she’s found on the shores of Lake Michigan. TikTok creator Geo Rutherford ( has been highlighting haunted hydrology-everything from dangerously acidic waters to alien-like extremophile life forms-each day of October in her 31-day “Spooky Lakes” series. From a boiling river in the Peruvian Amazon to the blood-red Lake Natron in Tanzania, bodies of water on Earth-and beyond-can be odd, disgusting, mysterious, frightening, deadly and even a little spooky.
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