Sunday, July 15, 2007

Another disappearing lake

Last month, news about the disappearance of a glacial lake in Chilean Patagonia spread around the media outlets and geoblogosphere. A lot of the discussion since has been focused on whether or not this event is indeed just the latest example of anthropogenic global warming.

This reminded me of a story of a disappearing lake that is without a doubt the result of human intervention. This is crazy...check it out. In 1980, Lake Peigneur in Louisiana catastrophically drained into the ground creating a swirling vortex that sucked barges and other boats into it.

The short version is: they drilled an oil well into an active salt mine. When the drill hole met the subsurface cavity....well, watch this History Channel footage (>6min) below. They go into much more detail and have some incredible footage.

1 comment:

Thermochronic said...

Holy crap. I can't believe that no one was killed. Makes me feel better about things I've broken in the lab.