Chile: a missing ice lake

An ice lake of about 2 hectares in the southern Andes in Chile suddenly disappeared and the river flowing from the lake is only a small current. Scientists are trying to find out why this phenomenon occurs.

Explorers said that at the end of May, right at the place where two months ago was an ice lake, they found a crater about 30 meters deep in Bernardo O'Higgins National Park. The ice sheets still floating on the lake surface also disappeared.

On June 20, Juan Jose Romero, head of the Chilean National Forest Service in the far south of Magallnes, said: 'It is simply that the lake disappeared and no one knew what happened'. Mr. Romero also said that in the next few days a team of experts in many fields will come here to study this issue.

An immediate hypothesis was that the water in the lake could have flowed through a crack in the lake bed seeping into the ground. However, this hypothesis is difficult to stand up because there cannot be a sudden crack at the bottom of the lake because during this time there was no earthquake in this area.

On the left is an image of an ice lake in March
On the right is an ice lake image at the end of May (Photo: AP)

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