Missing: Five-Acre Lake

Glacial lake in the Andes was there in March, gone in May
By Colleen Barry,  Newser Staff
Posted Jun 22, 2007 4:25 AM CDT
Missing: Five-Acre Lake
This undated combo image released by CONAF, Chile's National Forest Service, shows a 2-hectare lake at the Huemules National Park that mysteriously disappeared in the southernmost region of Magallanes, Chile. Park rangers on a routine monthly patrol discovered in late May, 2007, that the lake had...   (Associated Press)

A 100-foot-deep lake in the Chilean Andes vanished sometime between March and May, and scientists are stumped. The best guess in the case of the missing body of water is that it drained through cracks in the lakebed, but geologists have no idea where those cracks, usually caused by earthquakes, could have come from.

The glacial lake covered five acres. Chunks of ice that had been floating on its surface are now sitting at the bottom of the leftover crater, while the river it fed has been reduced to a trickle. A group of experts are being sent to the area to investigate the bizarre disappearance. (More science stories.)

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