Last month opposite phenomena have been reported in Greenland and Canada!
Two lakes drained away while another formed following a landslide triggered by an earthquake!
Lakes form and disappear on the surface of Greenland ice, leaving giant cracks or craters behind. It’s continuous, and sometimes, they reappear mysteriously on the other side of the globe.
Back in April 2014, researchers flew over a site in southwest Greenland to find that a sub-glacial lake had drained away.
The water disappear underground through moulins that form in glaciers and which funnel meltwater from the ice surface to the ground beneath. But what’s bad is that they are the alarmingly efficient conduits that allow surface water to reach deep and drive the ice to flow faster.
This photo shows the crater left behind, as well as a deep crack in the ice:
The first lake, which previously held nearly 7 billion gallons of water from melting ice caps, left behind a crater measuring 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) across and around 70 meters (230 feet) deep.
This mysterious crater, shown below, had once been the site of a sub-glacial lake:
Meanwhile, beginning of January 2015 the opposite phenomenon occurred in Yukon.
Geologists say seismic activity in southwest Yukon was the likely cause of a landslide in Kluane National Park and Reserve that dammed a creek and formed a new lake.
The landslide blocked Vulcan Creek, a tributary of Slims River that flows into Kluane Lake near the Tachäl Dhäl Visitor Centre and was discovered by an off-duty parks employee.
So the lakes that disappeared in Greenland a few months before had just reappeared in Canada. Awesome, no?
Such disappearing lakes remind me of the Lake Peigneur drilling disaster. What about you?
