A Lake Disappeared

Posted on Wed Apr 9 2008

By: Katie Rawls in Environment

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In Chile, a lake without a name is not there anymore. It was there in May of 2007, and now it is gone. Some chunks of ice and a dry lake bed is all that remains.

What happened to it? Where did it go?

After much effort to examine this mysterious situation at the remote location that is almost 5,000 feet above sea level, scientists say answers have been found.

Possibilities

Of course, in this day and time, the number one idea that comes to mind with an event like this is global warming. But experts were not so quick to assume this was the answer.

One idea that could have been the cause was an earthquake that basically cracked the lake bed and drained the water into the earth. Many earthquakes occur in this area every year, so this idea was a likely one.

Another possibility had to do with a moraine. A moraine is a natural dam of ice that holds the water in. The moraine could have melted or been knocked down by some other natural occurrence. This is another way a lake can be “unplugged” and lose all its water. This option can be caused by global warming.

Answers

The answer that was discovered was actually a combination that involves one of the above possibilities. And it did have to do with global warming. Two nearby glaciers called Tempano and Bernardo melted down so much that it caused the lake to fill up too much, too quickly. This then caused the moraine to be destroyed and all the water ran out.

Typically, glaciers melt and reform, but the significant warm up has caused the glaciers to melt too much. They have not been able to reform as they would have normally and this caused an enormous amount of water to fill the remote and unnamed lake.

Other Lakes

Lakes come and go, according to scientists. This particular lake wasn’t there 30 years ago. And many lakes in Alaska go through similar phases. Lakes periodically form and disappear and reform later. But scientists attribute global warming in affecting this natural process more and more.