Lake Peigneur

Lake Peigneur is located in the US state of Louisiana, 1.2mi north of Delcambre and 9.1mi west of New Iberia, near the northernmost tip of Vermilion Bay.It was a 10ft deep freshwater body, popular with sportsmen, until an unusual man-made disaster on November 20, 1980 changed its structure and the surrounding land.Drilling disasterOn November 20, 1980, an oil rig contracted by Texaco accidentally drilled into the Diamond Crystal Salt Company salt mine under the lake. Because of an incorrect or misinterpreted coordinate reference system the 14in drill bit entered the mine, starting a chain of events that turned the lake from freshwater to salt-water, with a deep hole.It is difficult to determine what occurred, as much evidence was destroyed or washed away in the ensuing maelstrom. One explanation is that a miscalculation by Texaco about their location resulted in the drill puncturing the roof of the third level of the mine. This created an opening in the bottom of the lake. The lake then drained into the hole, expanding the size of that hole as the soil and salt were washed into the mine by the rushing water, filling the enormous caverns that had been left by the removal of salt over the years.The resultant whirlpool sucked in the drilling platform, eleven barges, many trees and 65acre of the surrounding terrain. So much water drained into those caverns that the flow of the Delcambre Canal that usually empties the lake into Vermilion Bay was reversed, making the canal a temporary inlet. This backflow created for a few days the tallest waterfall ever in the state of Louisiana, at 164ft, as the lake refilled with salty water from the Delcambre Canal and Vermilion Bay. Air displaced by the water flowing into the mine caverns erupted through the mineshafts as compressed air and then later as 400ft geysers.