The large lake was last seen in March, at its normal size, according to Juan Jose Romero, regional director of Chile's National Forestry Corporation (CONAF). But when Romero and some park rangers returned in May, the large 100-foot-deep lake — rather surprisingly — had "completely disappeared."

Located in the Bernardo O'Higgins National Park in the Magallanes region of Patagonia, the lake was fed by water, mostly from melting glaciers, as the region is known for penguins, guanacos and condors, according to AssociatedContent.com. Yet during a routine patrol of the area in late May, "the only things left were chunks of ice on the dry lake-bed and an enormous fissure," Romero elaborated.

A river that flowed out of the lake was reduced to a trickle.

The lake, located in the Bernardo O'Higgins National Park, before and after
Credit: The Associated Press, via BBC

You might be asking yourself how one so carelessly loses body of water that, according to Reuters, reportedly had a surface area of between 2 and 5 hectares (5 and 12 acres).

Did fish drink it all up? (Unlikely.) Thirsty llamas, perhaps? (Improbable.) Did a massive paddling of ducks land on it, get their feet frozen to the surface and fly off with it? (Ha!) Was it stolen? (Doubtful.) Is Al Gore somehow involved? (Jury's still out.)

There are a couple of competing theories about what happened to the lake in Chile.

One theory is — surprise — global warming, which somehow affected the glacier that fed the lake. For the most part, experts have dismissed this theory as something that would take longer than a month.

Yet Andres Rivera, a glacier expert with Chile's Center of Scientific Studies, warned that the lake's disappearance is "evidence of the effects of global warming."

After flying over the lake, Rivera along with an expert from the Chilean Antarctic Institute said they were able to draw preliminary conclusions that point to climate change as the leading culprit for the lake's disappearance.

They suggested the melting of nearby glaciers raised the lake's level to the point where the increased water pressure caused part of a dam-like glacier to give way. Water in the lake flowed out of the breach, into a nearby fjord and then to the sea, posited Rivera.

"On one side of the Bernardo glacier one can see a large hole or gap, and we believe that's where the water flowed through," The Associated Press noted Rivera as having said in a Navy communiqué. "This confirms that glaciers in the region are retreating and getting thinner."

Rivera told Chilean newspaper La Tercera that the lake's disappearance also seemed to be part of the continual reforming of the landscape. The Magallanes area "has seen interesting changes in the last few decades," he said, noting that the lake itself had not been there 30 years ago. Although the advance and retreat of glaciers is part of the normal dynamics of the Patagonia, climate change was distorting the process, the glaciologist said.

The second theory is that the water disappeared through cracks in the lake bottom into underground fissures — that an earth tremor opened a crack and the lake simply went down the plughole.

This year Southern Chile has endured thousands of minor earth tremors, Reuters reported in June. And according to BBC News, "the region is shaken by frequent earth tremors" and one idea is that a strong quake that hit the neighboring region of Aysen in April opened up a fissure in the bottom of the lake.

The problem with this theory was that no one could find any evidence of the cracks forming. CONAF's Romero said experts didn't know why the cracks would have appeared because there "have been no earthquakes reported in the area recently."

Last month scientists confirmed suspicions that the disappearing lake just kind of drained away through a crack. Scientists said that "a build-up of water opened a crack in an ice wall along one side of the lake," and the contents then simply "flowed through the crack into a nearby fjord and from there into the sea, leaving behind a dry lakebed littered with icebergs."

According to news of the lake's reappearance, at AllSouthernChile.com:

What is believed to have happened is a crack formed that drained the water from the lake to a reservoir under the glacier. The lake water in turn has now melted the glacier more and is starting to fill the lake once again.

The lake now appears to be filling up again, albeit very slowly.

Resources

Global Warming Blamed for Vanishing Lake
by Eduardo Gallardo
Associated Press (via Forbes), July 3, 2007

Missing: Large Lake in Southern Chile
Reuters, June 20, 2007

Lake Disappears Suddenly in Chile
BBC, June 21, 2007

Southern Chile Lake Reappears
AllSouthernChile.com

Large Lake in Magallanes, Chile, Disappears
by Chris Wellmen
Associated Content, June 22, 2007