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Oregon’s ‘Lost Lake’ disappearing because a lava tube is swallowing the water.
A video that made it online late last month and that has since been making the rounds shows what appears to be a pond of sorts being swallowed by a fairly big hole in the ground.
The thing is that the pond is no pond, but a proper lake; and the hole is no ordinary hollow, but the opening of what geologists call a lava tube.
Nature works in mysterious ways
The body of water filmed seeping into the ground goes by the name of the Lost Lake. As illustrated in the map below, it is located in central Oregon, US, not far from the country’s Highway 20.
Researchers say that, for decades now, Oregon’s Lost Lake only fills during wintertime. Come spring, it vanishes without a trace and a meadow takes its place.
This happens because it is only during winter that streams flow into it and deliver enough meltwater to make up for what seeps into the underground through the hole in the lake’s northern side.
“It fills up in the winter, when input exceeds the rate of draining, and then it goes dry,” Jude McHugh, spokesperson for the Willamette National Forest, told Bend Bulletin in an interview.
As mentioned, the hole draining this lake is the opening of a lava tube. In turn, the lava tube is the work of a lava flow that failed to completely harden when moving downhill and instead created a tunnel.
Although they’ve been studying Oregon’s Lost Lake for years, geologists are clueless about where the water draining from it might be going once it reaches the underground.
One theory is that it recharges a massive aquifer in the region, but bulletproof evidence that this is, in fact, what happens to it is, at least for now, lacking.
Some want the hole plugged
Jude McHugh says that it often happens that car parts and all sorts of other debris is found stuck deep inside the lave tube draining this lake in Oregon.
Apparently, the debris is purposely thrown inside the hole by folks who would like to see it plugged. So far, these people’s efforts to save the Lost Lake by doing away with the hole emptying it have failed.
Talking to the press, Jude McHugh explained that, although somewhat frustrating, having this lake in Oregon vanish only to reappear a few months later is actually a good thing.
“If anyone was ever successful at plugging it, which we’re not sure they could do, it would just result in the lake flooding, and the road. It’s an important part of how the road was designed,” she explained.
Agencies/Canadajournal
