Icelanders are accustomed to their land being stretched, split, and torn by violent earthquakes and hazardly rebuilt by exploding volcanoes.
But everyone was surprised when a large lake began to disappear into a long fissure created by a large earthquake.
The giant fissure measured about a foot wide and 400 meters (1,280 feet) long and led directly into Lake Kleifarvatn before disappearing beneath the water.
And through the crack, lake Kleifarvatn was draining at about one centimeter (one-third of an inch) a day.
And if you put your ear to the ground, you can even hear the lake draining … Like water going down the sink.
So what created this giant fissure?
The phenomenon behind the large fissure at Lake Kleifarvatn remains an enigma.
The earthquake thought to be responsible for the fissure at Lake Kleifarvatn occurred on June 17, 2001 about 80 kilometers (49 miles) east in the South Icelandic seismic zone.
But the water has returned since then and the lake bed is filled with geothermal hot springs:
This lake dramatic disappearance is, at least, unexpected and interesting. The last time a similar event happened was in 1912, after a magnitude 7 earthquake, and it took about three decades for the water level to normalize.
[…] Such strange discoveries are totally baffling even for scientists. A similar event occurred in glacier lake in Iceland. The reservoir disappeared in a crack and reappeared several years later. […]
This major land blame keeps running from north to south on one of the lakeshore and therefore may have depleted extensive volume of lake water. If so, there will imperative signs of this change. This was the situation in Iceland when a lake vanished along a substantial blame and re-showed up years after the fact.
[…] This major geological fault runs from north to south on one of the lakeshore and thus may have drained large volume of lake water. If this is the case, there will important manifestations of this change. This was the case in Iceland when a lake disappeared along a large fault and re-appeared years later. […]
[…] This major geological fault runs from north to south on one of the lakeshore and thus may have drained large volume of lake water. If this is the case, there will important manifestations of this change. This was the case in Iceland when a lake disappeared along a large fault and re-appeared years later. […]