*NEWS*CHILE:LAKE SUDDENTLY DISAPEARS ?

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Date: Thursday June 21, 2007 02:01:00 pm
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    Lake disappears suddenly in Chile
    Scientists
    in Chile are investigating the sudden disappearance of a glacial lake
    in the south of the country.When park rangers patrolled the area in the
    Magallanes region in March, the two-hectare (five-acre) lake was its
    normal size, officials say.But last month they found a huge dry crater
    and several stranded chunks of ice that used to float on the water.One
    theory is that an earthquake opened up a fissure in the ground,
    allowing the lake’s water to drain through.”In March we patrolled the
    area and everything was normal,” Juan Jose Romero from Chile’s National
    Forestry Corporation, Conaf, said.”We went again in May and to our
    surprise we found that the lake had completely disappeared. All that
    was left were chunks of ice and an enormous fissure.”Geologists and
    other experts are being sent to the area, which is some 2,000km (1,250
    miles) south of the capital, Santiago, to investigate.The region is
    shaken by frequent earth tremors and one idea is that a strong quake
    which hit the neighbouring region of Aysen in April opened up the
    fissure in the bottom of the lake.A glacier specialist, Andres Rivera,
    told Chilean newspaper La Tercera that the lake’s disappearance 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.

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