EPOW - Ecology Picture of the Week

Scalding Bagoria

Lake Bagoria, Kenya, Africa

Explanation:  Don't touch the water!  This is scaldingly hot.  It is a geothermal haven and hell.  Welcome to Lake Bagoria, in the eastern rift of Africa.  

We last visited here to view Planet Flamingo.  But now we are focused on the tubid, roiling hot springs that well from the depths of the Earth's hot geothermal crust.

"Visitors view hot springs at their own risk.
Beware of hot water, slippery and sinking grounds.
Please respect our laws."

Beware of the fumeroles and boiling mud pots.  Lake Bagoria is an alkaline playa lake in the Rift Valley that is pulling apart east Africa.  The turbid lake itself contains immense numbers of phytoplankton -- dominated by the toxic cyanobacterium Microcystis aeruginosa -- with high concentrations of phosphorus and nitrogen.  Yet flamingos and other wildlife thrive here.

Even the plentiful flamingos know to keep a safe distance from the boiling hot springs.

  
    
 
Looking like black tar, the spitting fumeroles of Bagoria constantly
belch forth the black mud and sands of the underworld.
  

    

The boiling eructations produce Na-HCO₃ -- sodium bicarbonate --
an alkaline.  Bicarbonate helps buffer the acids of the human body.
The role of sodium bicarbonate in Lake Bagoria might also
serve to help buffer the acidic waters of this biotic system, as well.

Just at the boiling point of water, these fumeroles and mud pots
and geysers of Bagoria are fed by two kinds thermal aquifers,
one along the western shores shown here being shallow 
and steam-heated, and another along the southern shore 
from a deeper and hotter reservoir.  
  

The geysers speak of a deep rift in the continental crust driving Africa apart.

The site has the highest concentration of true geysers in all of Africa.  

Information:
     Ballot, A., S. Pflugmacher, C. Wiegand, K. Kotut, and L. Krienitz.  2003.  Cyanobacterial toxins in Lake Baringo, Kenya.  Limnologica - Ecology and Management of Inland Waters 33(1):2-9.
     Cioni, R., G. Fanelli, M. Guidi, J.K. Kinyariro, and L. Marini.  1992.  Lake Bagoria hot springs (Kenya):  Geochemical features and geothermal implications.  Journal of Volcancology and Geothermal Research.  50(3):231-246.