What causes a lake to disappear?

[freeztar]

This is quite bizarre.

I hope we can come up with some explanations here.

What can cause a lake to disappear so quickly? :eek:

100-foot deep Andes lake disappears - CNN.com

 

:shrug:

[Mercedes Benzene]

The only thing that COULD cause such an event would be a rapid release of water. Obviously the only way this could happen (short of science fiction-like events) would be a fissure or the appearence of some opening that allowed the water to flow out.

I would have liked to see it happen.

[Turtle]

This is quite bizarre.

I hope we can come up with some explanations here.

What can cause a lake to disappear so quickly? :eek:

100-foot deep Andes lake disappears - CNN.com

 

:shrug:

 

aliens replenishing their ship's water stores? :Alien::alien: :hyper: :shrug: :eek:

[InfiniteNow]

aliens replenishing their ship's water stores? :Alien::alien: :hyper: :shrug: :eek:

 

You and I have a very similar sense of humor. :shrug:

 

I was thinking a large swarm of thirsty mosquitoes.

 

or... David Copperfield.

 

 

 

Freeztar, do you perhaps have a link with more detail? That CNN one was a bit light on information. :eek:

[freeztar]

The only thing that COULD cause such an event would be a rapid release of water. Obviously the only way this could happen (short of science fiction-like events) would be a fissure or the appearence of some opening that allowed the water to flow out.

I would have liked to see it happen.

 

Indeed.

The puzzling part is that there were no seismic events reported.

Perhaps this lake was sitting on Karst topography and a sinkhole created the movement into underlaying caves? :shrug:

[jungjedi]

in florida we have sink holes

[Turtle]

Indeed.

The puzzling part is that there were no seismic events reported.

Perhaps this lake was sitting on Karst topography and a sinkhole created the movement into underlaying caves? :eek:

 

i looked in the area with google earth & found lots of lakes but couldn't pin one down on that articles description. 5 acres isn't that big. the area looks volcanic, but there may be limestone there?

 

perhaps cracks existed but remained ice blocked until some thawing occured and then the water ran out. the remaining large blocks would thaw slowly and so remain; the temp may have dropped again too, to preserve them.

 

USGS has no seismogram readouts that i could find for the area. even if a quake didn't start the leak, if the water escaped quickly it would have its own seismic signature.

 

that's all i got. :hyper: :shrug:

[Cedars]

I guess there was some kind of an earthquake in that region April 21.

 

"Romero, the head of the forest service, said another theory is that the water disappeared through huge cracks at the bottom of the crater. He said the cracks may have been caused by the strong quake that rocked the region on April 21."

 

What started as a small crack eroded into a flow I guess.

 

Full article here:

Missing lake a global warming victim? - *I doubt it*

[InfiniteNow]

Slow melting of the glaciers increased the levels of the lake water. The increase of water levels exerted additional pressure on the surrounding glaciers. This weight being distributed in denser form stressed the surrouding glaciers, surrounding glaciers which acted as the walls of the lake. This stress caused minor faults and cracks to grow. The April earthquake offered just enough of a tremor to cause the faults to spread enough to significantly increase in size, and the water was no longer retained. It drained like a bathtub with the stopper pulled out.

 

This is my speculation based on the articles and information I've read. This combination of factors seems likely, but remains unconfirmed.

 

 

In reviewing the above, one realizes that it is much more likely that extraterrestrials came down and zapped the lake with their alpha laser death ray to express their anger at our current sociopolitical shortcomings.

[Cedars]

Photos of people standing in the fissure in the bottom of the lake.

 

Google Earth Community: Lake Disappears In Chile - updated

 

BBC NEWS | Americas | Lake disappears suddenly in Chile

 

I wonder what the ETs are gonna zap next for an alleged sociopolitical shortcomming, Yellowstone lake maybe?

[Turtle]

Photos of people standing in the fissure in the bottom of the lake.

 

Google Earth Community: Lake Disappears In Chile - updated

 

BBC NEWS | Americas | Lake disappears suddenly in Chile

 

I wonder what the ETs are gonna zap next for an alleged sociopolitical shortcomming, Yellowstone lake maybe?

 

nice work Cedars! the fissure looks like an errosion channel rather than a fissure from a quake. if the lake was 100 feet deep and drained throught the bottom, no water would continue to run in the creek.

 

i'm with the earlier article you gave that postulated the terminal moraine holding the lake failed and caused the draining. ;)

 

 

...Gino Casassa, a glaciologist at the Center for Scientific Studies, said the cause may have been a phenomenon known as glacial lake outburst floods.

 

As glaciers retreat, glacial lakes form behind natural dams of ice or moraine. These relatively weak dams can be breached suddenly, causing the lake to drain. Possible causes for the dam to be breached include a sudden input of water into the lake, an earthquake or avalanches or ice or rock....

Missing lake a global warming victim? - Climate Change - MSNBC.com

[Southtown]

Photos of people standing in the fissure in the bottom of the lake.

 

Google Earth Community: Lake Disappears In Chile - updated

How cool, it's like a little Grand Canyon. ;)

[Turtle]

How cool, it's like a little Grand Canyon. :D

 

interesting comment which set me to thinking. the grand canyon is composed of strata of limestone & sandstone, and the debris skirts below cliffs have a much lower height proportional to the cliff top.

 

note the strata in the cliff face behind the peeps; note how high the debris skirt is in proportion to the cliff top. highly unlikely this deposit is native limestone or sandstone. what is it then? glacial deposits i surmise. seems obvious enough to conclude then that this glacier regulary advances and retreats. global warming? bah humbug!! :hyper: i agree with mercedes; i would have liked to have seen it happen.

[Cedars]

interesting comment which set me to thinking. the grand canyon is composed of strata of limestone & sandstone, and the debris skirts below cliffs have a much lower height proportional to the cliff top.

 

note the strata in the cliff face behind the peeps; note how high the debris skirt is in proportion to the cliff top. highly unlikely this deposit is native limestone or sandstone. what is it then? glacial deposits i surmise. seems obvious enough to conclude then that this glacier regulary advances and retreats. global warming? bah humbug!! :hyper: i agree with mercedes; i would have liked to have seen it happen.

 

I had noticed that and wondered about glacial till. That is a pretty fine sediment and there is a notable lack of rock, even in the ravine.

 

So I am wondering is this glacier running on top on numerous volcanic ash layers and the yellow layers on the walls are wind blown loess deposits from the coastal areas.

[Cedars]

Its unfortunate we dont know which direction the picture taker is facing. Going by the shadows cast, he is facing roughly north or south depending on what time of the day the pic was taken.

 

Another interesting point made in one of the article links is the stream feeding this lake has dried to a trickle, which would indicate a shift in water flowage further upstream, more inline with an earthquake than an outburst.

The Santiago Times - English Language Newspaper in Santiago, Chile - News in Chile and Latin America

[Turtle]

note the strata in the cliff face behind the peeps; note how high the debris skirt is in proportion to the cliff top. highly unlikely this deposit is native limestone or sandstone. what is it then? glacial deposits i surmise. seems obvious enough to conclude then that this glacier regulary advances and retreats.

I had noticed that and wondered about glacial till. That is a pretty fine sediment and there is a notable lack of rock, even in the ravine.

 

So I am wondering is this glacier running on top on numerous volcanic ash layers and the yellow layers on the walls are wind blown loess deposits from the coastal areas.

 

from what we know so far, it is possible the material is volcanic. even so, the glaciers may have transported said volcanics. obviously if glaciers didn't transport the material in the strata, the location wasn't glaciated during the eruptions. what's taking those darn geologists so long to report back to us!? :hyper: where's that freeztar when ya need one. ;) :cup:

[Southtown]

Well, I'm obviously speculating. But the stratification by liquefaction as described by the 9972 would explain the strata below this lake just as it does other lake beds. Also, the zigzag pattern of this crevasse resembles the Goosenecks State Park said by Brown to be caused by the bottlenecking of water currents as "Grand Lake" escapes through a breach in its perimeter responsible for carving the Grand Canyon.