The Swallowed Lake ebook

"The Swallowed Lake – The day a math error drained a lake into the earth" recounts the catastrophe of Lake Peigneur, Louisiana. On November 20, 1980, a Texaco oil rig crew made a calculation error and drilled into the Diamond Crystal Salt Mine located beneath the lake. The small hole created a vortex that drained 3.5 billion gallons of water into the mine below. Author Jessica Steel describes the apocalyptic scene: The whirlpool sucked in the drilling rig, eleven barges, a tugboat, and 65 acres of land, including a botanical garden. The flow of the Delcambre Canal reversed, pulling salt water from the Gulf of Mexico inland, turning a freshwater lake into a saltwater one permanently. Miraculously, no one died. "The Swallowed Lake" is a thriller about physics and human error. It shows the terrifying power of potential energy and how a single wrong coordinate can alter the geography of the planet forever.