At one point, Venezuela claimed six glaciers, all located in the Sierra Nevada de Merida mountain range. By 2011, five of those glaciers had vanished, leaving just the Humboldt glacier, aka La Corona. Now, Venezuela has exactly zero glaciers, after Humboldt was reclassified as an ice field due to a much faster melt than scientists had expected, reports the Guardian.
- Discovery: Initially, researchers had predicted that the glacier was good to go for at least another 10 years, but due to political strife in Venezuela, they hadn't been able to monitor the giant ice block as closely as they would've liked. When they were finally able to take some recent measurements, however, they were shocked to find the glacier had shriveled down to just 2 hectares, or a little less than 5 acres—meaning that it's no longer technically a glacier but an ice field.