Pink Lake Retba
Pink Lake Retba is located in Senegal, 20 km northeast of the Cape Verde Peninsula. The water body has an area of 3 km² and a maximum depth of 3 meters. The lake is called “pink” because of the amazing color of the water, which ranges from reddish to scarlet. Such coloring is due to the content in the water of a large number of halophilic archaea of the genus Halobacterium. These are the oldest microorganisms that appeared in the Earth’s biosphere 3.5 billion years ago. Pink Lake is most intensively colored during the dry season. The water body is also unique because of the high salinity of the water. The concentration of salt in Lake Retba is almost 1.5 times higher than in the Dead Sea – 380 g per liter, so it is almost impossible to drown in it.
