Advective structures of the bottom of lake Natron and its surroundings (Tanzania)

DOI: 10.47765/0869-5997-2022-10019

Abstract

In this study we consider the features of the development of weakly lithified bottom sediments and the general structure of lake Natron against the background of its seasonal drying and watering. This study takes into account the laws of advection and the periodic placement of cellular zonal advective structures in space. The consedimentary structures in the lake sediments demonstrate the conditions for the formation of sodic ores and their positions. Provided space and aerial photographs depict unique genetic information about the evolution of geochemistry and the development of bottom morphology during sedimentation. This includes the presence of two sources that feed the lake – river and mud eruptions of the adjacent Oldoinyo-Lengai volcano, supposedly the only one on Earth that erupts carbonatite lavas. The combination of two sources and two processes leads to the development of an epimagmatic phreatic-hydrothermal recycling system. In it, the masses of the lake penetrate through fissure structures into the suprafocal space of the volcano, providing mud volcanism with solutions of soda masses containing organic matter of sediments. Volcanic soda eruptions are not carbonatite lavas. The morphological similarities and differences of structures are shown – small craters on the bottom of the lake, associated with the advection of thin layers of sedimentary material; large craters located nearby among volcanic strata along the shores of the lake; and both subsidence calderas and explosion calderas associated with magmatic and mud types of volcanism in the setting of strike-slip transtension.