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SINKHOLES, LIKE THE one that killed a Florida man recently, and the one that appeared on a golf course in Illinois on 8 March, are really just hidden holes in the ground.
Caverns are carved out by water in the ground, sometimes from heavy rains.
They are found throughout the world, but are more common in areas where the ground is made of soft rocks like limestone, gypsum or salt beds, called “Karst Terrain.” The rain dissolves these rocks and creates giant caverns.
About 20 percent of the U.S. is underlain by this kind of ground, according to the USGS.
Usually sinkholes are slow forming and end up just making divots in the ground where the earth is being washed away under it. Like in this image:
AP Photo/Julio Cortez
But some can be catastrophic, the top layer of the ground remaining intact while a huge cavern is carved out underneath, like the image below from Guatemala:
AP Photo/STR
When the cavern gets too big and the “crust” can’t support itself anymore, it falls into the earth forming a sudden hole in the ground. These are the ones that make the news. Here are some areas where they are likely to happen.
Here’s USGS geologist Randall Orndorff, explaining the science of sinkholes:
via usgs/Youtube
- Jennifer Welsh
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^I think he fell into one
The burren is limestone karst land- anyone know if there was ever a sink hole there?
Plenty of topographic evidence of large-scale cave collapses in the past, but not too sure about more recent times.
A good few yes but nothing too large thank God. On an aside, when they were building the Arts Millenium building in NUIG a small sink hole caused a JCB digger to “drop from view” so to speak. Luckily te driver was okay.
Putting your money in Irish Property.
Keeping your money in European banks, the biggest sink hole in history.
owning your own home is always a better option than renting. Property prices will rise again.
And there are stupids who think renting is dead money, for that 200,000 mortgage you pay the bank 400,000 ! I rest my case
How can you pay 400,000 on a 200,000 mortgage? Intrest rates are quite low….what did you borrow at…200%
200k mortgage over 35 years is around €900 pm in repayments. So 900x12x35=378k. Apologies for adding to the completely off topic conversation…..
Utterly terrifying.
Possibility of one under the Dail???
If it did sink it’d probably be on a Thursday afternoon when they’re all gone home for the weekend, knowing our luck.
Reminds me of the Cavity Wound I had on my arse when I had the bone infection….
Or bone “injection”. :-D
The picture of the hole in Guatemala on the cover page seems to defy what engineers refer to as angle of repose — a very strange hole the sides seem too uniform for unstable ground.
Bloody 2012 and all the conspiracy theory makes you think of “Hollow Earth ” crap ! Wait till I catch those Mayans and their calander !
Still an unusual hole though !
O.M.G. in fairness who would live there, that,s horrific scary stuff……
Live where?
They’re everywhere.
Possibly one under you right now!!!
Irish politcians
no but very scary .. :(
Why has this article not mentioned that in the West of America sinkholes are caused by underground Aquifer water been displaces due to reaction to water shortages.
On Mendip, they are called “Swallets” – always seemed a more appropriate name for these things.
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