Lonar Lake

✅Lonar Lake, also known as Lonar crater, is a notified National Geo-heritage Monument,saline, soda lake, located at Lonar in Buldhana district, Maharashtra, India

✅Lonar Lake was created by a meteorite collision impact during the Pleistocene Epoch.

✅It is one of the four known, hyper-velocity, impact craters in basaltic rock anywhere on Earth. 

✅Lonar Crater sits inside the Deccan Plateau – a massive plain of volcanic basalt rock created by eruptions some 65 million years ago.

✅A 2019 study, conducted by IIT Bombay found that the minerals in the lake soil are very similar to the minerals found in moon rocks brought back during the Apollo Program.

✅ The lake was declared a protected Ramsar site in November 2020.

🔥Lonar Lake

-Lonar lake is located in Maharasthra.It is situated in the Deccan Plateau’s volcanic basalt rock.

-It was created by the impact of a meteor 35,000 to 50,000 years ago.

- It is a notified National Geo-heritage Monument.

-The lake is part of Lonar Wildlife Sanctuary which falls under the unified control of the Melghat Tiger Reserve (MTR). 

-The water in the lake is highly saline and alkaline, containing special microorganisms like anaerobes, Cyanobacteria and phytoplankton.

Why in the News?

-The Lonar lake has been declared Ramsar site conferred by the International Ramsar Convention on Wetlands. 

-It is the second Ramsar site in Maharashtra after Nandur Madhmeshwar Bird Sanctuary in Nashik district.