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June 21, 2007
How Does And Entire Lake Disappear Virtually Overnight?
100-foot deep Andes lake disappearsSANTIAGO, Chile (AP) -- A five-acre glacial lake in Chile's southern Andes has disappeared -- and scientists want to know why.
Park rangers at Bernardo O'Higgins National Park said they found a 100-feet-deep crater in late May were the lake had been in March. Several large pieces of ice that used to float atop the water also were spotted.
"The lake had simply disappeared," Juan Jose Romero, head of Chile's National Forest Service in the southernmost region of Magallanes, said Wednesday. "No one knows what happened."
A group of geologists and other experts will be sent to the area 1,250 miles southeast of Santiago in the next few days to investigate, Romero said.
One theory is the water disappeared through cracks in the lake bottom into underground fissures. But experts do not know why the cracks would have appeared because there have been no earthquakes reported in the area recently, Romero said.
Given that there was no seismic activity leading up to the disapperance this is just more than a bit odd. It will be interesting to see what/if they discover the true cause. Most definitely something to keep an eye on.
Found via CNN.
Update: 1:38 PM: The BBC is saying that scientists in the area do think it may have been seismic after all. They are eyeing a large earthquake in nearby Aysen in April that may have opened up a crater that drained the lake.
Posted by Dianne at June 21, 2007 1:30 PM