today a post about a lake that is
officially recognized as the clearest body of fresh water in the world,
Rotomairewhenua,
also known as the Blue Lake of New Zealand’s Nelson Lakes National Park, photograph Squashem/Wikimedia Commons, NIWA hydrologist Rob Merrilees was the first to recognize the
optically outstanding characteristics of Blue Lake, comparing it to the
country’s famously clear Te Waikoropupu fresh water springs. It was only after
a 2009 visit to Blue Lake that he realized Blue Lake could be even clearer than
Te Waikoropupu, and two years later, NIWA testing confirmed that to be true, “We
suspended a one meter diameter black disc under a buoy and anchored that to the
shore. Then we paddled away while viewing the disc. The distance at which it
disappears completely gives the visibility,” NIWA’s Mark Gall explained, research has shown that visibility in
Blue Lake is between 70 – 80 meters (260 feet), which makes it almost as optically
clear as distilled water, “The theoretical visibility in distilled water is
about 80 meters, as estimated from the best available instrumental measurements
in the laboratory,” Dr Davies-Colley said. “So Blue Lake is a close approach to
optically pure water”,
luckily, it
is considered sacred by the local Māori tribe, and no one is allowed to enter,
let alone bathe in its waters, with one notable exception… In early 2013,
Danish photo-journalist and environmentalist Klaus Thymann was granted special
permission by the Māori, NIWA and New Zealand’s Department of Conservation to
enter Blue Lake and capture its astonishing clarity on camera, for conservation
purposes, the photographs he took are absolutely stunning.
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