GEOLOGICAL STUDY TOUR AT

LONAR LAKE
AN EXCURSION REPORT

INTRODUCTION
Lonar lake, near Lonar village in the Buldhana District, is not just he source of Excitement for the visitors but also for the scientist community. Lonar is the third natural salt-water lake in the world, with a diameter of 1800 meter. It comes after Bosmatvi lake in Ghana, which has a diameter of 10000 meter and New Cubec lake in Canada with a Dai of 3500 meter. The lake is circular except on the north-east side, where siltation caused by the Dhara has created small mudflats. The diameter of the lake is about 1600m. The crater is 150 meters in depth and is absolutely confined from all sides by the walls of the crater and there is not a single channel of water draining away from it, thereby leaving the lake waters stagnant for thousands of years, a large portion of the lake is rather shallow, preserving about 2meters of water during the monsoon months. This may get reduced to only a few inches during the summer. However, the lake is dried up completely in the year 1991.

HISTORIC BACKGROUND
The official dug up the heart of the lake and conducted experiments on the material gathered from there, before making their announcement public. The scientists also found some mineral found mostly in meteorhit areas. Traces of Sodium Carbonate and magnetic properties were also observed in the soil there. Apart form its scientific importance;

Lonar also occupies a place of prominence in our ancient scripts. It finds mention in "Aaina-E-Akbari" During the days of Emperor Akbar, a salt factory was located here. According to Sanskrit Literature, Lonar was called "Viraj Kshetra" in ancient times. It finds mention in "Viraj Mahatmya" a chapter in "Skanda Puran and Padma Puran" Sanskrit works. According to Lonar Mahatmya in ancient times, Kashyap Rishi had many sons. One of whom was believed to be staying in the vicinity of Lonar Lake. When Lavanasur terrorized the people and rulers of the region, the son of Rishi Kashyap had prayed to Lord Vishnu to kill Lavanasur. In the 13th Century, a temple of Lord Vishnu as constructed there during the Chalukya Raj. The temple still exists and is 150mt long and 450 mt. wide. IT is a fine example of the quality of architecture practiced and perfected during that era. Near the Lonar Lake is the Paphareshwar pilgrimage. The engravings on the temple located there are in Sanskrit and sadly they have still not been deciphered. To add to its natural beauty the Lake has enough fauna in its surroundings making it a serene and scenic spot.

ORIGIN OF LONAR LAKE

The Lonar crater has attracted the attention of world geologists for investigation of its origin and the source of salinity of lake water. Malcamson (1840), Bradley (1853), Smith (1857), Brandford (1870), Medlicott and Brandford (1879), Oldham (1909), Nandi and Dev (1961), Venkatesh (1983), Mishra (1987) and Badve and Kumaran (1992) have suggested the views about the origin of the Lonar, according to them the crater was believed to formed by some phase of volcanic activity. But the work of Beals et al (1960), Arogyaswamy (1962), the evidence of glassy objects near the Lonar crater (Nayak 1972), impact affected minerals by Fredrickson et al (1973), Fudalay and Fredrickson (1992) and Haggerty and Newsom (2003) suggested that the Lonar crater was formed by the impact of a meteorite.

According to scientists, about 50,000 year back a massive meteor entered into the Earth's gravitational forces range. 60 meter long and weighing 20 lac ton it was racing at a speed of 25 km per second towards the planet. When it struck the earth the energy released was equivalent to that released by six-megaton atom bombs. The impact was so severe that rocks from all sides came o the surface and reached the height of 20 meters. The impact was so severe that it left a massive crater 170 meters deep and with 1800 meter in diameter. Today it is natural salt-water lake. The lake was first brought to notice in 1823 by British officer C J E Alexander. In 1896, American geologist G K Gilbert conducted studies to prove that Lonar was created due to meteor strike. An extensive study conducted on the spot under the leadership of Prof. K Fredrikson by officials of Geological Survey of India, United States Geological survey and other institutions, proved using Cosmic Raydating that the lake was created by a meteor hit 50,000 years ago.

GEOLOGY OF THE AREA

Geologically, the area belongs to Deccan Basalt formations of late Cretaceous to early Eocene period. The rocks observed in the lake are compact, vesicular and amygdaloidal basalt. At places the red bole beds separated the two lava flows. The basalt flows dip away from the depression. No appreciable fracturing or shattering is noticeable in the rocks. Compact basalt rocks are highly jointed and weathered around the joints. The compact basalt also shows the spheroidal weathering in the area. The impact of meteorite yielded the rare mineral called the muskelynite, which is transformed plagioclase feldspar. Around the rim of crater scattered glass splinters from 10 to 15 cm in length is observed. These are same like glass pieces and spherules collected by Apollo astronauts on the moon (India Today 15 August 1979).

SALINITY OF LAKE WATER

The most striking feature of the lake is its extreme salinity and high alkalinity (the PH reaches the mark of 10.5 when tested with a PH paper). The perennial nature of the lake may be due to this high alkalinity, so that, as evaporation proceeds, the concentration of the dissolved alkaline matter is increased and, in due course, the evaporates begin to separate out, which gradually form a more or less continuous scum over the surface of water, thereby considerably retarding the rate of subsequent evaporation. The salinity and alkalinity of this continental, inland lake is attributed to the age of the lake and also to the mode of formation the crater.

AMBER LAKE
There is a small circular depression, about 700 meters away from the rim of Lonar crater closely resembling the main crater in its shape and characteristics. This is known as the Little Lonar and is believed to have originated from the impact of a smaller piece of the meteor, which split from the main body, before it hit the ground. The diameter of this crater is app. 340 meters and rises 6 meters above the ground level. This crater also has a lake, fed by three streams, which through the years have eroded the surrounding area causing the exposure of basaltic breccia. You can find pieces of rock showing typical shock metamorphosis caused by hypervelocity impact. Although no major geological research work has so far been done to establish the meteoritic origin of this depression, this evidences supports such a thesis and should be considered as an integral part of the precincts of Lonar crater. In 1973, Fredriksson suggested that Amber lake crater was formed by a fragment ejected from Lonar crater, whereas S. Master who surveyed the Amber crater in 1999 concluded that it was not a secondary crater, but was formed at the same time as the Lonar crater

GEOLOGICAL STUDY TOUR REPORT

Submitted to

Department of Geology Dnyanopasak College Parbhani - 431 401

As per Syllabus of

Swami Ramanand Teerth Marathwada University, Nanded

Submitted by

B. Sc. III Year GEOLOGY

For the year

2004-2005

CERTIFICATE

This

is

to

certify

that

Mr./Miss

____________

_____________________________________________ of B.Sc. III year (Geology) has attended the geological study tour organised by Department of Geology, Dnyanopasak College, Parbhani at Lonar Lake in Buldhana district. This report covers the geological aspects as per the B.Sc. standards of syllabus of Swami Ramanand Teerth Marathwada University, Nanded.

Tour Incharge

Head of Deptt.

External Examiner