THESE stunning pictures show a lake in Australia that has turned completely pink. The colour in Melbourne’s Westgate Park lake is the result of the large amount of salt it contains. The man-made salt lake was built to replace the original saltmarsh that was there and so already contains large amounts of the mineral in […]
THESE stunning pictures show a lake in Australia that has turned completely pink.
The colour in Melbourne’s Westgate Park lake is the result of the large amount of salt it contains.
The man-made salt lake was built to replace the original saltmarsh that was there and so already contains large amounts of the mineral in the water.
But when levels are higher than normal along with high temperatures, lots of sunlight and a lack of rain algae growing in the lake produce a red pigment, Australia’s ABC explained.
The pigment is called beta carotene and is produced as part of their photosynthesis process.
The lake – near the city’s Westgate Bridge – started to turn pink last week and it is expected to stay like that until later in southern hemisphere autumn.
It has been turning pink every year since December 2012 and January 2013 and will return to being blue when the weather has cooled down and rainfall has increased.
Though the algae is not harmful to local wildlife, people have been warned not to come into contact with the water.
The park authorities in the state of Victoria have warned people keen to get a snap to stay away from the lake’s edge.
The pink colour seen at Westgate Park can be seen elsewhere in Australia and around the world.
In Victoria’s remote north-west lakes Crosbie, Becking, Kenyon and Hardy in the Murray Sunset National Park are popular tourist attractions due to their pink colour.
Lake Hillier in Western Australia also turns pink during the summer as a result of algae.
The lake is on the largest island in Western Australia’s Recherche Archipelagohas and was discovered in 1802.
Elsewhere in the world, the Las Coloradas lakes in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula also turn a glorious shade of pink.
Other pink lakes include, Las Salinas de Torrevieja in Valencia, Bolivia’s Laguna Colorada and Lake Retba in Senegal.
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