NASAs Terra satellite captured this image of the location of the missing lake on June 23, 2006. It shows a 30-meter-deep crater that the 20,000-square-meter lake had occupied. The lake was located between the tongues of the Glaciar Témpanos and Glaciar Bernardo,.
Expand (67kb, 560 x 346) Credit NASA Latitude: -48.684390°, Longitude: -73.948605°
Scientists said that a lake in southern Chile that mysteriously disappeared last month developed a crack which allowed the water to drain away. A buildup of water opened a crack in an ice wall along one side of the lake according to experts speaking to Chilean state television on Tuesday. Water then flowed through the crack into a nearby fjord and from there into the sea, leaving behind a dry lake-bed littered with icebergs.
Scientists in Chile have blamed climate change for the sudden disappearance of a lake in the south of the country. Park rangers who patrolled the area in the Magallanes region in March reported that the two-hectare (five-acre) glacial lake was its normal size.
A glacial lake in the Andes has disappeared mysteriously, prompting local geologists to head to Bernardo O'Higgins National Park in Patagonia, Chile, to find out what happened. The lake, some 20,000 square metres in area, was last seen in March. By May, all that was left was a 30-metre-deep crater and a few pieces of stranded ice that used to float on top of the water. A river running from it had reduced to a trickle, according to the park rangers who first noticed the lake was missing.
Chilean officials are trying to solve the mysterious disappearance of a large lake after recently discovering a 30m-deep crater in its place. The National Forests Corp of Chile (CONAF) has asked geologists to investigate what may have caused the unnamed lake to dry up after CONAF officials were stunned to find the empty hole during a routine visit to southern Chile on May 27. Read more
A glacier specialist, Andres Rivera, said that the lake's disappearance seemed to be part of the continual reforming of the landscape. The Magallanes area "has seen interesting changes in the past few decades," he said, noting that the lake itself had not been there 30 years ago. The park, named after the man who helped lead Chile to independence from Spain, has only relatively recently been fully explored and the lake itself is thought to have appeared in the 1970s.
Lake disappears suddenly in Chile Scientists in Chile are investigating the sudden disappearance of a glacial lake in the south of the country. When park rangers patrolled the area in the Magallanes region in March, the two-hectare (five-acre) lake was its normal size, officials say. But last month they found a huge dry crater and several stranded chunks of ice that used to float on the water.