[Sunny_01]

Mystery of the disappearing lake

A glacial lake in Chile has disappeared and no one knows exactly why.

The five-acre lake was still at the Bernardo O'Higgins National Park in March this year, reports Sky News.

But by late May it was nowhere to be seen, say rangers.

They found a dry crater 100ft deep and several large pieces of ice that used to float on top of the water in the country's southern Andes.

A group of geologists and other experts are going to the area in the next few days to investigate.

The lake was in the region of Magallanes, and situated 1,250 miles south-east of the capital Santiago.

A river that flowed out of it has been reduced to a trickle.

One theory is that the water disappeared through cracks in the lake bottom into underground fissures.

But experts do not know why the cracks would have appeared because there have been no earthquakes reported in the area recently.

Juan Jose Romero, head of Chile's National Forest Service in Magallanes, said: "It has simply disappeared. No one knows what happened."

www.ananova.com