Central Asia's desiccated Aral Sea is steadily rising as Earth's mantle beneath it bulges, new research suggests.
The uplift is due to the "quiet Chernobyl" environmental disaster that struck the region in the 1960s, when humans diverted two rivers that flowed into the Aral Sea for irrigation, scientists say. The Aral Sea, formerly the world's fourth-largest lake, was then hit by a severe drought that evaporated so much of its water the lake split in two in 1986.
