What Does Lake Mead's Rising Water Level Mean for Finding More Bodies?

Lake Mead's water levels are slowly rising, a pattern that might eventually expose more human remains buried in the Nevada reservoir's depths.

Lake Mead reached drastically low levels last summer after battling years of drought. Levels were dangerously close to a dead pool, in which levels are too low to power the turbines at the Hoover Dam. In August, Lake Mead was only at 27 percent of its capacity with water levels at 1,043 feet. Since then, water levels have started to inch higher as excessive rain hits the region, sparking hope of a recovery.

However, there is a macabre side effect of the rising levels as well: exposing human remains at the bottom of the reservoir.

The remains could eventually be exposed as changing water levels contribute to a band of erosion around the reservoir's surface as a result of high energy in the water, such as waves. As water energy and depth changes, erosion increases.

Melissa Connor, director of the Forensic Investigation Research Station at Colorado Mesa University, told Newsweek that over time, the erosion could expose objects buried at the bottom of the lake. Some of those objects might be human remains.

It wouldn't be the first time remains are found at Lake Mead, or even the second. Since May of last year, five sets of human remains have been discovered as the water levels dropped. Newsweek reported that hundreds more could be exposed over time, including drowning victims since the lake was created in the 1930s.

There are nefarious theories to some of the deaths, as well. Last year, one set of human remains was found in a barrel. Newsweek reported that police suspected the remains belonged to the victim of a mob-related shooting.

However, although rising water levels might contribute to erosion and expose human remains at the bottom of the lake, the remains likely won't be discovered until levels drop again.

"So, there will be more erosion as the lake level rises and this may expose human remains," Connor told Newsweek in an email. "But they will also be covered by the rising water and won't be found easily until the lake level goes down again."

Connor added that skeletal remains might be washed ashore. Bodies float as they fill with gas during the decomposition process, but before and after that process occurs, the bodies will sink. Bones also sink and are eventually buried under silt at the bottom of the lake.

Newsweek reached out to the Clark County coroner in Nevada and the National Park Service for comment.