This beautiful turquoise, green and blue lake is often promoted as the « Maldives of Turkey ». As well as offering a breathtaking sight, Lake Salda boasts a peaceful environment that is surrounded by a wealth of extraordinary wildlife. All of this might sound like enough to make you want to go and visit this hidden gem, but there is more to it than what meets the eye. There is something that makes this body of water extremely unique, and it’s that scientists say that Lake Salda is the only place on the planet which is analogous to the Jezero Crater on Mars.
With the current focus on the Red Planet as a possible mission destination, this stunning sight has caught the attention of space scientists, even helping to raise environmental awareness for the surrounding area, which is facing existential troubles as a result of pollution and decreasing water levels.
In 2019, Brionay Horgan, professor at Purdue University’s Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Science Department, travelled to Turkey with NASA’s Perseverance rover to study the lake and was shocked at its resemblance to the distant planet.
She told CNN Travel that « it actually felt like standing on the shore of ancient Lake Jezero on Mars ». In space exploration, a planetary analogue is a place on Earth that is considered similar or comparable to the conditions found on another planet or moon.
The professor says that finding a Mars analogue here is particularly difficult because of the high levels of iron and magnesium that formulate the composition of the Red Planet.
Yet, she said Lake Salda’s basin is « of that composition that was created at the bottom of an ocean when the oceanic crust ripped apart and made a new crust straight out of the interior of the Earth, » resulting in the lake’s Mars-like environment.
Nurgul Balci, a professor in Istanbul Technical University’s Geological Engineering Department, also participated in NASA’s studies of Lake Salda. As well as helping scientists gain better knowledge of the Martian geology, she said the lake provides insights into the history of the Earth.
The microorganisms in the water have constructed microbial structures that are at least two million years old, some of which have been exposed due to falling lake water levels. The carbonate forms, which look like cauliflowers, hold vital indicators of our planet’s origins.
« Salda contains a lot of information that can help us understand life that started and evolved 3.5 billion years ago, » says Balci
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