Care for a dip?

February 15, 2005 4:42 PM

While perusing a picture book, I came across an incredible picture (sorry, only thumbnail available online) of Lake Hillier, one of several "pink lakes" in Australia. The picture book claimed no one knew why (fourth item down) it was pink, but some research showed that it appears to be blooming algae, and the color varies with the season. Other strange things appear to be going on in there too...
posted by rooftop secrets (7 comments total)

A few more images, kind of grainy: 1, 2, 3 (last one 1MB on slow server).
posted by rooftop secrets at 4:48 PM on February 15, 2005

There's a Pink Lake in Gatineau Park, Quebec, but this Pink Lake is green.
posted by teg at 5:49 PM on February 15, 2005

Africa, too. Salt and algae. Hmm! Thanks for the post. Interesting!
posted by nj_subgenius at 6:37 PM on February 15, 2005

Wonder if it tastes like watermelon.

No joke, pink snow (algae caused) tastes exactly like watermelon. At least, that found up in Lassen Park does.
posted by kmmontandon at 6:41 PM on February 15, 2005

Re: the article in the third link - be skeptical of any claim that contains the words "... and no-one knows why" (eg "a duck's quack doesn't echo, and no-one knows why"). 99 times out of a hundred it's bullcrap.

Also, Australians do not call hurricanes willy-willies - willy-willies are dust devils or small tornados. Australians call hurricanes typhoons, as they do all over the Pacific.

Finally ... the salt pans in the southern end of the San Francisco bay are all kinds of weird colors - if I remember correctly, some of them are pink, too, probably from the same halophilic bacteria.
posted by kcds at 7:08 PM on February 15, 2005

Actually, Australians call hurricanes "cyclones" - at least on the east coast. Don't know if them dern furriners on the other side call them something else.

Interestingly, the dictionary gives the definition of typhoon as "a tropical cyclone occurring in the region of the Philippines or the China sea". So it's a regional thing?
posted by Pinback at 9:47 PM on February 15, 2005

There are evaporation ponds in the South Bay that turn pink like that from algae blooms. Depending on what you've been up to in the previous 24 hours it can be very disorienting indeed to see pink waves breaking on the shore.
posted by fshgrl at 4:02 AM on February 16, 2005