According prevention the crater-made Lonar Lake located in west-central India has bewildered residents and researchers after the water miraculously changed colors from its typical green to pink. The change in hue started in early
June before finalizing to a reddish pink in just a matter of days.
NASA Earth Observatory captured images of the nearly 50,000-year-old lake on May 25 and then again on June 10 of this year, displaying a before-and-after of the color modification. Scientists aren’t completely sure why the crater lake in the state of Maharashtra suddenly turned pink, but they have a few theories.
There have been such instances in other parts of the world,” Sanjay Rathod,
Maharashtra’s State Forest Minister told The Hindu . “In a lake in Iran, the water
turns reddish due to increase in salinity. We are still studying the phenomenon,
but it is certain that no artificial occurrence resulted in the change in color.”
While these theories have not been confirmed—at least not yet, anyway—the
Maharashtra Forest Department has sent water samples to two labs in Nagpur
and Pune, and are waiting for the results.