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Disappearing Lakes, Ponds & Other Bodies Of Water

The Chilean lake mentioned above is named Lake Cachet II. It turns out the reason for its draining was penetration of a glacial dam rather than a fissure opened by an earthquake.

In June 2007 a glacial lake in the Andes disappeared overnight, and geologists rushed to Patagonia, Chile, to figure out what had happened.

They hypothesized that an earthquake in a neighboring region had created a crack in the earth, draining the lake, but later learned a glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF) was to blame.

A GLOF occurs when water dammed by a glacier is released, and in the case of Lake Cachet II, the melting of Colonia Glacier had increased water pressure, allowing a tunnel five miles beneath it to open, draining the lake.

Since then, Lake Cachet II has refilled and disappeared several times.

SOURCE: https://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/w...izarre-places-on-earth-where-water-disappears
 
Green Lake (aka Ka Wai o Pele) was the largest freshwater lake in the Hawaiian Islands.

It was boiled away, and its bed (a volcanic crater) filled with lave, during the 2018 Kilauea eruptions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Lake_(Hawaii)
 
Here's the 'before and after' photos illustrating the 2007 Chilean lake disappearance story ...

Those are completely rubbish comparison photos. The second one looks as if it is taken very close to the end of the rock formation on the left, where there is no water visible in the first one anyway. Get it together Chilean Disappearing Lake people!:dsist:
 
I've been racking my brains for the source of a vague memory - then I remembered it was related to a story from Comann Eachdraidh Uig stumbled upon when I was involved in the Lewis Chessmen thread.

The bare bones are that the contents of a small loch (Loch nam Learga) disappeared overnight - draining, it is assumed into the larger nearby Loch Mor Sheilabridh.

What is interesting is that an explanation favoured by the press at the time (much contested by experts) was that the cause was a meteorite strike.

The Morsgail Meteorite: When Space Hits Back

Further to the Daily Express cartoon about the alien cause of the disappearing loch at Morsgail, here’s a summary of the international coverage, from the Stornoway Gazette, 29 Dec 1959.


Few events in Lewis in recent years have aroused such worldwide interest as the “Morsgail Meteorite”. In addition to the planeload of British reporters, the Columbia Broadcasting system of America sent a team of cameramen to Uig to photograph the ‘hole’ for American TV, and we have received a cutting from the Bulaweyo Chronicle, which shows that Africa was equally interested.

From this Daily Express aerial photograph it can be seen that most of the damage was caused by water escaping from the upper loch, which was completely drained into the lower loch, about a quarter of a mile away and some fifty feet below.

But, even if we accept that most of the damage was caused by water, we have still to explain what set the water in motion in the first place. Three explanations have been offered...etc

Full article here.

Part of an article for the Scottish Geographical Magazine here.
 
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I'm also reminded of Arnaldur Indriðason's novel, The Draining Lake - which is apparently based on a real life Icelandic disappearing lake - Kleifarvatn.
 
According to Martin Mobberley's It Came from Outer Space Wearing an RAF Blazer! A Fan's Biography of Sir Patrick Moore ...

Moore investigated the “Morsgail Meteorite” (labeled 'Mythical' therein ... ), but concluded there'd been no meteorite strike and some form of ground subsidence was to blame for the drainage.

Moore's published account of his inquiries appeared in his 'Looking at the Sky with Patrick Moore' column in The Children's Newspaper, week of 22 September 1962, p. 3.

The relevant section of the book can be accessed at Google Books:

https://books.google.com/books?id=d...CBQQAQ#v=onepage&q=Morsgail Meteorite&f=false
 
... Part of an article for the Scottish Geographical Magazine here.

The excerpt accessible (for free) online includes this illustration. It apparently reflects the author's conclusion the loch drainage resulted from the collapse of the peat layer serving as a dam on the loch's southern end.

Bowes-Illo.jpg

 
Bog burst is used dramatically, and to very good effect in Phil Rickman's novel The Man in the Moss :)
 
A loch near Aviemore is disappearing and nobody knows why.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-48132901

"A loch in the Highlands has been losing millions of gallons of water since September last year.
Loch Vaa, near Aviemore, is fed by a spring and its usually water-lapped boathouse has been a popular subject for photographers and artists.
But its lease-holders, who offer the loch to the local community and visitors for recreational fishing, say its level has dropped by 1.4m (4.5ft).
Brian O'Donnell said: "It's almost like somebody has pulled the plug.""
 
That's alarming!

I get dibs on suggesting that either the local Each Usige has gone elsewhere, or the local wildlife has burrowed west to Loch Ness.

Either way, it's definitely the endtimes!!!!!!!!!!

(or possibly a sinkhole or an interruption to whatever fills Loch Vaa)
 
Lake George in New South Wales ( the lake that started this thread), has, aside from it's regular disappearing act, many other Fortean qualities. From ghostly encounters, Yowie sightings to frequent UFOs seen above, this place has it all. Having driven past it many times, I can say it does have a certain strangeness to it. It's hard to put into words, but the place does have it's own energy that is easy to pick up on, even when just passing by quickly.
Here's some more information:
Ghostly Good Samaritan of Lake George
Canberra’s creepy underbelly: Why the capital really is a ghost town
Australia's Most Intriguing Unexplained Phenomena
 
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Not surprisingly, the lake that formerly filled the Taal volcano's crater has all but disappeared with the recent series of eruptions.
How this huge lake has almost completely disappeared

The Taal volcano in the Philippines has recorded more than 100 tremors since Wednesday, meaning magma is still rising.

A satellite image now released from Iceye, show how the lake inside the volcano has almost dried up completely due to the eruption.

The image shows a dotted line around the area where the lake used to be, compared to a small solid line showing just how much it has shrunk to currently.

“Taal volcano’s lake has almost disappeared due to the Taal Volcano eruption in the Philippines,” Iceye tweeted. ...
FULL STORY: https://au.news.yahoo.com/how-this-huge-lake-almost-completely-disappeared-021320472.html
 
Something similar happened in Tallahassee, FL in 1999.
http://aquat1.ifas.ufl.edu/depguys.html
... And it's happened again (as it is wont to do). This time the receding waters have revealed two human skulls of unknown vintage.

Here's a photo of Porter Sink - the lakebed sinkhole that acts as a drain when the lake disappears. More photos are available at the link below.

PorterSink-LakeJacksonFL.jpg
As Lake Jackson waters once again disappear, a grisly discovery of skeletal remains

Lake Jackson’s latest dry-down has revealed two human skulls in the muck of the 4,000-acre aquatic preserve along U.S. Highway 27 north of Tallahassee.

The remains have been sent to the medical examiner’s office, while the Leon County Sheriff’s Office investigates why and how they came to rest about 80 yards beyond a boat dock near the end of Faulk Drive. ...

A man on an ATV exploring the Porter Sink area, which periodically opens and drains the lake, reported the find ... Investigators worked the scene late into the night, but were gone by Monday morning, replaced by scientists, anglers and curious residents.

Stephen Hight was among the group. He stood ... watching gurgling water carve a 30-foot-deep valley in the lakebed as it drained into a soccer-ball size hole.

"This happened in 1999 when I first moved here to Tallahassee,” said Hight ...

The water flowed in inches-deep brooks from the east and the west, creating a barren valley with steep cliffs as it moved towards the hole.

The day before, onlookers said, where the two brooks streamed was a 10-foot-deep bubbling boil they compared to a spring head.

“By tomorrow it could be all gone,” observed Hight.

Geologists estimate up to 15-million gallons of water can disappear daily into Porter Sink. The water will eventually resurface at Wakulla Springs, about 30 miles to the south. ...

When Porter Sink opened in 1999 it drained more than 4.4 billion gallons of water and reduced the lake to fewer than 500 acres, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission. The lake also went down at Porter Sink in 2012. ...

Water has riddled the limestone lakebed with millions of pinholes. When water pressure is high debris plugs the holes. When there is a lack of rain, the pressure lessens, the holes open and create what scientists call a dry down. ...

The lake has been pulling its disappearing act for centuries.

DeSoto and his conquistadors made no mention about a lake north of Tallahassee when they wintered here in 1539-40. They did describe a savannah and big plain where Lake Jackson sits today. And a British trader who worked north Florida in the 1740s, also made no mention of the lake. ...

But early settlers made note of the lake. Especially when it disappeared in 1836.

And it repeated the feat in 1886, 1909, 1932, 1956, 1982,1999 and 2006 and most recently in 2012. ...
FULL STORY (With Photo Gallery): https://www.livescience.com/rotifer-frozen-24000-years-revived.html
 
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I know it's not a pond or lake, but near me the River Rye disappears every summer near Kirkdale (the place of the caves and hyaenas and things). It's really eerie. It's a river that runs so high in winter that it can wash away bridges and cause severe river bank erosion, and in summer it's just...not there. All you have is a stony river bed and some puddles.
 
Gigantic Antarctic Lake Suddenly Disappears in Monumental Vanishing Act

sciencealert.com
28 June, 2021

As the world gets warmer, staggering transformations are taking place in some of Earth's coldest locations – events that might go completely unnoticed by humans, were it not for our eyes in the sky.

In a new study, satellite observations reveal one such stunning phenomenon: the sudden disappearance of a gigantic lake in Antarctica, which abruptly vanished from view during winter 2019.

010-doline-1.jpg


Landsat 8 images of the ice-covered lake (left) and the doline after the waters vanished (right).
(Warner et al., Geophysical Research Letters, 2021)


This was no small body of water, researchers report, with estimates the lake on Amery Ice Shelf in East Antarctica held some 600–750 million cubic meters (21–26 billion cubic feet) of water: more than all the water in Sydney Harbor, or roughly twice the volume of San Diego Bay.

Of course, that much water doesn't simply disappear into thin air. In this case, scientists say the huge reservoir most likely became too much for the ice layer underneath struggling to support it.

"We believe the weight of water accumulated in this deep lake opened a fissure in the ice shelf beneath the lake, a process known as hydrofracture, causing the water to drain away to the ocean below," says glaciologist Roland Warner from the University of Tasmania.

The deluge, which Warner likens to the heavy flow of Niagara Falls – except ultimately into the ocean under the ice shelf – took place over about three days, during which the entire lake was drained, satellite observations suggest.

(...)

While the growing emergence of meltwater lakes and streams across the surface of Antarctica are generally considered evidence of climate change, the researchers say we don't yet know enough about these hydrofracturing events themselves to say whether they too are linked.

https://www.sciencealert.com/gigantic-antarctic-lake-suddenly-disappears-in-monumental-vanishing-act

Note: "...climate change, the researchers say we don't yet know enough... to say whether they too are linked" - hence not posted in an existing 'global warming/climate change' thread.
 
Lake Tuz in Turkey has progressively shrunk until it's essentially no more than an occasional temporary wetland now.
Disappearing Lake Tuz: Large Lake Is Now Just a Puddle

Lake Tuz was once the second-largest lake in Turkey. Flamingos flocked there to feed and nest. People visited to witness the lake’s seasonal color changes and to steep in the mineral rich water, mud, and salt.

Now, the lake rarely spans an area much larger than a puddle. In some summers it completely dries up. “Lake Tuz is unfortunately in danger of desiccation,” said Fulya Aydin-Kandemir, a scientist at the Hydropolitics Association of Turkey, and external lecturer at Akdeniz University.

Lake Tuz is a saline lake (Tuz is Turkish for “salt”) located on the Central Anatolia plateau, about 150 kilometers (90 miles) south-southeast of Ankara. It is fed by groundwater that originates in the Northern Taurus Mountains and passes through Konya Plain and Obruk Plateau bubbles up into Lake Tuz via springs. Other sources of water include two major streams, and rain that primarily falls in the springtime. The lake has no outlet. ...

Aydin-Kandemir (previously at Ege University) and colleagues decided to examine how Lake Tuz has changed in recent decades, and to what extent the changes have been influenced by climatological conditions such as drought. ...

Prior to 2000, Lake Tuz generally contained enough water in August for the lake to be considered permanent. From 1985 through 2000, water filled more than 20 percent of the lake (based on the current shoreline) in all years except 1992 and 1994. ...

After the year 2000, there was a distinct shift. Between 2001 and 2016, water spanned less than 20 percent of the lake in every August (except 2015) as droughts became more frequent and intense. In 2008 and 2016, the lake completely dried up. Aydin-Kandemir’s current research shows that more recently, extraordinary meteorological drought has devastated Lake Tuz since 2019. ...
FULL STORY: https://scitechdaily.com/disappearing-lake-tuz-large-lake-is-now-just-a-puddle/
 
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