When a River Goes Missing, It's Kind of a Big Deal...

River piracy-the diversion of the headwaters of one stream into another one-can dramatically change the routing of water and sediment, with a profound effect on landscape evolution. Stream piracy has been investigated in glacial environments, but so far it has mainly been studied over Quaternary or longer timescales. Here we document how retreat of Kaskawulsh Glacier-one of Canada's largest glaciers-abruptly and radically altered the regional drainage pattern in spring 2016.

Source: Seeker

Region: Global