Lake Natron covers an area 56 km (35 miles) long and 24 km (15 miles) wide but the water level changes due to evaporation. The ash horizon was probably deposited around 11000-10500 years ago, but could potentially be even younger than this. The lake is in the vicinity of Ol Doinyo Lengai, which is visible on the southern part. We can constrain the ash horizon to be of Holocene age, based on: (i) the location of the Footprint Tuff within the regional stratigraphy, (ii) previous age determination of an ash layer that can be correlated with the Footprint Tuff and (iii) the regional climatological history of the area. The Lake is famous for its reddish hue, and it is home to organisms whose nourishment consists of the salt contained in the Lake’s waters. The reason why they gather here is to be looked for in the nature of the lake itself. The unit, which covered the footprints and helped to preserve them, consists of the wind-blown material from the same eruption, mixed together with locally derived detrital material. Lake Natron is located in the North, on the border with Kenya, and it is the main area of reproduction of Lesser pink Flamingos in the entire Eastern Africa. We find that the footprint-bearing horizon consists of volcanic ash-fall that has been slightly reworked by water, and that this was produced during a voluminous eruption of the Oldoinyo Lengai volcano. The lakebed of Lake Eyasi is usually dry, but may. Here, we combine field observations with geochemical and mineralogical analyses and measurements of the anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility to constrain depositional processes, the role of reworking and the volcanic source for the Footprint Tuff. In the Tanzanian rift valley, the largest saline and soda lakes are Lakes Eyasi, Manyara, and Natron. However, until now there has been no detailed characterization and age determination of the footprint-bearing strata (the Footprint Tuff). The Engare Sero Footprint Site, situated on the southern shore of Lake Natron in northern Tanzania, has been reported to host one of the best preserved sets of fossilized hominid footprints in the world.
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