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Name : Last Chance Lake
Location : British Columbia , Canada
Researchers walk across the surface of Last Chance Lake in September 2022. At the end of the summer, the water has almost completely evaporated, leaving a salty crust on the surface. But water persists below in pockets and hollows, and soft sediments sit beneath, creating a somewhat treacherous structure to walk on.
Coordinates:51.32769655502273 , -121.63335524817583
Why it ’s unbelievable : The lake ’s alchemy resembles experimental condition that may have given emanation to life on Earth .
Last Chance Lake is a shallow , extremely piquant puddle of water with an unusualchemistry . The lake has phosphate engrossment 1,000 times higher than the sea , making it a modern analogue for conditions that may have given hike to life on Earth around 4 billion age ago .
Sebastian Haas holds a piece of the salt crust from Last Chance Lake with green algae in the middle and black sediment at the bottom.
Phosphate is an essential fixings to make nucleotide — the edifice blocks of DNA and RNA — and other life - forming chemical compound , such as lipide . Although phosphate is bound up in every living being , the constituent by itself is scarce in nature .
" Someone coined the phrase ' the phosphate job ' for the rootage of life , which is that you require a lot of phosphate for these reactions,“Sebastian Haas , a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Earth and Space Sciences at the University of Washington , told Live Science . " The second part of the problem is that inorganic phosphate is usually downcast in the environment , and the only real exclusion we recognize are these kinds of lake . "
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Last Chance Lake is one of several so - call " soda lakes " — lakes that have high levels of dissolve sodium and carbonate . That makes them similar to pipe bowl of water turn back large amounts of dissolved baking tonic , hence the name . This chemical makeup enable these lake tohave gamey concentration of orthophosphate . In freshwater lake , phosphate hardly exist by itself because it binds to calcium to work calcium inorganic phosphate — an indissoluble fabric . But in soda lake calcium preferentially binds with carbonate and magnesium , freeing up orthophosphate .
" The high carbonate is sort of the Francis Scott Key for the mellow phosphate in these lake , " said Haas , who led research into Last Chance Lake and neighboring Goodenough Lake for a study published in 2024 in the journalCommunications Earth and Environment .
This mellow carbonate grade , together with gamy sodium , results from a chemical reaction between groundwater and volcanic rocks that sit beneath the lake , Haas said .
Last Chance Lake is peculiarly intriguing because it has the in high spirits phosphate tightness of all cognize soda lakes . It ’s also much salty , which make it tough for life to exist there liken with other soda lakes , Haas say . The largest organisms his team recorded at the lake were brine fly ( Ephydridae ) and brine peewee ( Artemia ) , he said .
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Last Chance Lake form after the last sparkler age , which ended about 10,000 years ago , Haas said . carbon 14 dating betoken the lake is at least 3,300 geezerhood former and feed only by tiny amounts of springwater and groundwater . depleted comment and high evaporation charge per unit centre common salt , include carbonate , in the lake ’s waters .
The harsh conditions at Last Chance Lake mimic an environs on former Earth where biography may have originate . " We ’re definitely not claim that life history emerge at Last Chance Lake , " Haas said . But " a like lake may have credibly survive 4 billion twelvemonth ago somewhere on Earth , and we ’re using Last Chance Lake to empathise what this environment would have looked like . "
Billions of age ago , exchangeable lakes may also have survive on other major planet in oursolar system , including Mars , according to the study .
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