It’s hard to imagine something as large as a lake just vanishing, yet it happens.
It’s hard to imagine something as large as a lake just vanishing, yet it happens.
We’re not talking about over millennia or even centuries here. Sometimes they just disappear right before people’s eyes.
Take Florida’s Scott Lake. One day a giant sinkhole opened up beneath it and a couple of weeks later, the body of water was gone, 32 tons of wildlife and all.
Area residents tossed around the idea of plugging the hole so the lake could form again, but while they were discussing it, nature took care of it on its own, covering the opening with clay and silt.
Now, nearly 8 years later, the lake is beginning to make a comeback.
There are lakes that make a habit of disappearing and coming back.
Lake Cachet 2 in Chile has, since 2008, been draining itself and filling back up. Not too long ago the lake managed to completely rid itself of water overnight.
Humankind, of course, contributes to quick and massive lake loss in some situations.
In 1980 a team drilling for oil in Louisiana’s Lake Peigneur miscalculated, drilled in the wrong place, and watched as the water – and their equipment – got sucked down through the hole they’d made.
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