[10][11] Lonar Crater sits inside the Deccan Plateau – a massive plain of volcanic basalt rock created by eruptions some 65 million years ago.

Geologists, ecologists, archaeologists, naturalists and astronomers have published studies on various aspects of the ecosystem of this crater lake.

[18] A series of small hills surround the basin, which has an oval shape, almost round, with a circumference at top of about 8 km (five miles).

[21] Lonar Lake lies within the only known extraterrestrial impact crater found within the great Deccan Traps, a huge basaltic formation in India.

The presence of plagioclase that has been either converted into maskelynite or contains planar deformation features has confirmed the impact origin of this crater.

It is believed that only shock metamorphism caused by a hypervelocity impact can transform plagioclase into maskelynite, or create planar deformation features.

[24][23] As a result of the studies, the geological features of the Lonar crater have been divided into five distinguishable zones, exhibiting distinct geomorphic characteristics.

[citation needed] The Ain-i-Akbari, a document written about 1600 CE, states: These mountains produce all the requisites for making glass and soap.

The modes of formation are also entirely different and it is practically certain that the Lonar salts are derived from an unknown source in the bed of the lake.

Were any quantity of alkali present in this water, vegetation would suffer considerably and, with exception of a few varieties of plants, eventually die out entirely.

The salts collected from this lake vary in their nature and composition and from their-appearance are easily separated by men accustomed to handling them.

Various names are given to some five or six main varieties, but there is no fixed line between one salt and another, their compositions depending upon the period and condition of crystallization.

Khuppal is obtained in solid compact lumps and consists of a mixture of carbonates and chlorides in roughly equal proportions.

It is frequently tinged, slightly pink in colour and hollow air spaces are found between the crystalline masses which are formed in flakes or layers.

[35] Resident and migratory birds such as black-winged stilts, brahminy ducks, grebes, shelducks (European migrants), shovelers, teals, herons, red-wattled lapwings, rollers or blue jays, baya weavers, parakeets, hoopoes, larks, tailorbirds, magpies, robins and swallows are found on the lake.

[36] While the Lonar Lake appears green for most of the year due to the presence of dense blooms of cyanobacteria such as Arthrospira spp.,[37] bacteria and archaea belonging to diverse functional groups such as methanogens, methanotrophs, phototrophs, denitrifiers, sulfur oxidizers, sulfate reducers, heterotrophs and syntrophs have been reported.

[38][39][37][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49] Diverse alveolates, fungi, stramenopiles, choanoflagellates, amoebozoans and cercozoans, and many novel lineages of putative micro-eukaryotes were detected in molecular surveys of Lonar Lake sediments.

Gene sequences of ciliated protozoans such as Oxytricha longa and fungi belonging to Candida spp.

[50] Methylotrophs belonging to Methylomicrobium, Methylophaga and Bacillus species have been identified in the Lonar Lake sediments.

[37] A novel species of non-methane-utilizing methylotroph Methylophaga lonarensis was isolated in pure culture from lake sediment microcosms.

[52] This haloalkaliphilic bacterium synthesizes and intracellularly accumulates organic solutes such as ectoine that are of biotechnological interest.

[52][53] Methylotrophic methanogenesis has been reported in Lonar Lake sediments and the primary microorganism (archaeon) that is responsible was identified as being closely related to Methanolobus oregonensis.

[54] Endolithic bacteria belonging to the phyla Actinobacteria, Acidobacteria, Proteobacteria, Firmicutes, Cyanobacteria and Bacteroidetes, and endolithic archaea belonging to the phyla Thaumarchaeota and Euryarchaeota were detected in Lonar basalt rock samples that were retrieved from the crater walls and the lake-bed.

Most of the detected endolithic prokaryotes were identified as being putative methanotrophs, methanogens, phototrophs, ammonia-oxidizers, nitrogen-fixers, denitrifiers, dissimilatory sulfate-reducers and metal-reducers.

[56][57][58] Reports by Agharkar Research Institute, National Environmental Engineering Research Institute and Geological Survey of India suggested that lowered water levels and high salinity caused growth of Halobacterium and increased Carotenoid levels, which in turn led to color change.

[62] Vishnu, Shiva, Brahma, Lakshmi, Parvati, Sarasvati are deities present in other temples found inside the crater.

It is a tree chamber temple, the inner most being sanctum sanctorum, where the statue of Vishnu standing atop dead Lonasura is there.

The principle niche at the back of the temple has an image of Surya, the sun god, which gives rise to the speculation that this might have been dedicated to him.