A large lake in Chile has disappeared in under two months, according to reports.
The circumstances of glacial lake, in the Magallanes region in the far south of the country, are now being investigated by scientists.
Park rangers that patrolled the area in March said that the lake was its normal size of two hectares (five acres).
But when they returned in May they found that it had dried up – leaving only a couple of chunks of ice stranded at its bottom.
"In March we patrolled the area and everything was normal," Juan Jose Romero from Chile's National Forestry Corporation, Conaf, said.
"We went again in May and to our surprise we found that the lake had completely disappeared. All that was left were chunks of ice and an enormous fissure."
One theory is that an earthquake may have opened the fissure, causing the lake to drain rapidly.
The region, which is 2,000 kilometres (1,250 miles) south of the Chilean capital of Santiago, is regularly shaken by tremors.
