Alaska Beat

Landslide creates new lake in Yukon's Kluane National Park

Kluane National Park in Canada's Yukon Territory has one more lake than it did a year ago, thanks to seismic activity in the St. Elias Mountains, according to a report from CBC.

The lake was discovered in September by an off-duty park employee hiking in the Slim's River drainage of the park, which borders Alaska's Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve. The slide, which Yukon Geological Survey officials believe happened between mid-August and mid-September, dammed Vulcan Creek, a Slim's River tributary, creating the lake.

The lake is about 1,150 feet long and 260 feet wide.

The slide comes in the same year as a landslide in nearby Southeast Alaska, thought to be one of the continent's largest, reshaped the contours of Mount La Perouse in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve.

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