What are sinkholes?

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:43

It is not so rare that in some area a piece of land goes underground, and sometimes even houses fall through there. In this case, geologists begin to discuss some kind of karst failures. What is it, in general, is it? Are there such places in our country?

To put it simply, it's a sinkhole. It occurs when groundwater flushes large voids under some area, after which the thinned base simply cannot withstand gravity.

Moreover, karst sinkholes can be different: some of them do not exceed one and a half meters in diameter, but more often it happens that the funnel reaches a dozen or two meters in diameter. If several dips are connected at once, then a giant hollow may form.

If geodetic reconnaissance finds out that in some place there is a high probability of such an outcome, then building something more complicated than a chicken coop is strictly prohibited!

Don't assume that karst sinkholes are only found on land: there are far more of them at the bottom of the ocean. They are called "blue holes". They originated many millions of years ago, whensea level was much lower.

In general, such formations are very common on the planet. Despite this, their appearance makes an incredible impression on any person, and therefore many failures regularly bring millions of dollars to the budget of the countries where they are located.

Tourists are drawn to them in a continuous chain. Thus, sinkholes can be very useful.

So, in Texas there is a huge crater, which is known as the "Devil's Hole". Tourists are scared not so much by the name and the gloomy appearance of the place as by the huge flocks of bats that have long considered this place their home.

Karst sinkhole is known in Guatemala: in 2010, a whole house went underground in the state capital. At this place, a giant funnel was formed, the depth of which was 60 meters, and the diameter was 30 meters.

Then one person died. But this was not the first time! So, in 2007, the same failure was already formed in the same city.

If you go to Abkhazia, then local employees of travel companies will surely “woo” you an excursion to Lake Ritsa. This is exactly the same karst funnel, only filled with water. In general, there are many lakes in the world that were formed in this way. They are distinguished by the correct shape, small diameter of the water surface and great depth. There are many such reservoirs near Baikal.

We should also remember the karst sinkhole in Buturlino. This is not the name of a remote provinceCentral Africa, but a small village in the Nizhny Novgorod region.

He became famous after one night a giant funnel formed right on his main street. The depth of the formation was a "modest" 14 meters, while the diameter of the failure was 40 meters.

Fortunately, the victims were completely avoided, as people independently evacuated from their houses, feeling the beginning of the movement of the soil. As a result, only their property was damaged: three houses were completely underground, and many neighboring buildings received noticeable damage that day.