This is my first actual post as a Member, tho Ive been frequenting this site for years now, so pardon me if Im not the best news reporter in the world.

Are sinkholes on the rise?

From all the recent earthquake activity, to the oil volcano, its been a b*tch and a half to take notice of all the worlds events.

But, along with the earthquake trend, Ive noticed a rather interesting trend this year myself.

Sinkholes.
Yes, sinkholes appear to be popping up in random places throughout the world.

Recently, this sinkhole in Florida just popped up, swallowing up a car.
Or perhaps, the amazing sinkhole that popped open in Guatemala.
Or even the several that have been popping up in China.

So, ladies and gentlemen (tho I suspect most of you are gentlemen), whats your personal opinions on the subject?

Ive several floating around in my mind.
From a government new type of weapon, to the pools of oil underneath the earths surface drying up and caving in. (Granted, Im no geologist, but my mind is constantly ablaze with the what ifs of life.)

Well, hope you guys enjoyed my first thread.

[url=http://www.myfoxtampabay.com/dpp/news/local/hillsborough/sinkhole-at-tampa-condo-building-may-be-getting-bigger-071210]www.myfoxtampabay.com[/url ]
(visit the link for the full news article)

If you think about what other natural phenomena has been occuring with increased frequency lately (that is if you can put aside secret government scalar weapons and other such nonsense) you'll quickly realize that flash flooding has been rampant. Sinkholes and flooding that casues surges in surface water percolation and the water table go hand-in-hand.

Originally posted by jtma508
If you think about what other natural phenomena has been occuring with increased frequency lately (that is if you can put aside secret government scalar weapons and other such nonsense) you'll quickly realize that flash flooding has been rampant. Sinkholes and flooding that casues surges in surface water percolation and the water table go hand-in-hand.

Easily put aside, friend.
I have no ignorance, simply an imagination.

Hi! I lived in Bowling Green, Kentucky several years ago. Bowling Green is Sink Hole City! I was glad to leave, we had a small hole four feet by four feet that kept sinking in the front yard! We kept filling it in with dirt. The insurance companies do not sell sink hole insurance there! People lost houses, cars, a horse, an entire pond, road intersections, parking lots to the sink holes. The road intersection was $450,000.00 to fill back up, and took over a year. The pond disappeared after the people who were fishing on it went in their house for lunch. When they went out side their five acre pond was gone. Some real estate lady tried to sell us a house out in the country with a huge sink hole in front of it. I said "What's that?" She said it was a dried up pond. I found out later what it was, and realized they all lie about the sink hole problem.

People out in the country side would shove their garbage down into the sink holes! The sink holes were always bowl shaped. They had the most expensive neighboor hood in town planned around several sink holes. Some of them were a football field in side with a tree full grown that reached ground level! Another neighborhood used the sink hole for a square run off pond and then lined the hole with boulders. When it would rain the square became a five foot deep lake, then the water magically disappeared in an hour! I found that frightening! My freind said "Oh, it's a drain ditch." She stood on the rocks jumping up and down. I feared for her life and tok her not to stand there.

When it was raining a sink hole opened up in someone's field. Their brand new horse they bought fell in it. They thought thier horse had jumped the fence and escaped. They eventually walked the field and found the horse in the sink hole. The horse fortuately did not break its legs. They dug the ground out, with a back hoe, into a ramp for the horse to walk up.

Mamouth cave extendes for three hundred miles from the cave site. The sink holes are actually cave-ins. They show visitors these cave ins.
I know that I-81 down the back side of Virginia had sink holes that claim country houses. I used to live over there too. They also have lots of underground caves.

Another source of sinkholes in residential developments come from improperly disposed organic matter. What some builder would do is bury trees and especially the stumps of trees when clearing the lots to build homes. Over the years these material rot away and the earth covering these pits caves in.

It's those damn Orc's in the Inner Earth! They build an arena below us, drill a big hole up to 2 feet beneath ground level, then sell tickets to their Orc friends to watch the Over World people fall down the big hole!

Grrr, those pesky Orcs.


[edit on 13-7-2010 by Wide-Eyes]

the hole that appeared n brazil was perfectly round and looked super deep.

there has got to be a reason these hole are popping up more and more i am of the beleif that the earth may be going through some very dangerous changes and that the actual inner structure is liquifying and the water table is rising?

but i aint got no proof so bad on me!

Be Well

I have noticed quite a bit of an increase.

Is it that concrete breaks down after 50 years?

Or is crust displacement?

I can't say at this point.

The consensus among my fellow geologists and geographers is that the incidence of sinkhole activity is increasing primarily because of rapid urban development in areas that are typically replete with collapsed limestone cavities in the bedrock beneath.

Some of these areas extend for hundreds of square miles. It's like building on top of a giant sponge with a thin covering. The thin soil covering is mostly open space as well, filled with either air or water, and on top of this is frequently constructed heavy concrete buildings, roads, and other structures (and their contents).



Thus, where there was merely open land and a thin covering of loose soil (for many thousands of years), there are now the sprawling infrastructure and activity of humanity. Consequently therefore, and increasingly, some of these structures can not be supported by the thin membrane of the 'sponge bubbles' directly beneath them and, periodically but inevitably, collapse into the cavity below.

Yes, these cavities collapse all on their own, with nothing built above them, [quite frequently in fact], but again the worlds population is growing and spreading (as are our observing instruments and technology), and so it is not unusual that more of these 'natural' disturbances are observed, 'YouTubed", and made known via the MSM.

The natural evolution of such geologic landscapes is to eventually collapse and erode the entire surface material into the lower elevations below (mass wasting), resulting in a landscape known as Karst Topography, an unusual, but beautiful intermediate step that leaves many small steep hills like pimples all over the land -like this area in the former Yugoslavia:



I'm as open to alternative explanations, of course, but my only caution is to try and look at all possibilities, and then attempt to draw reasonable conclusions without sensationalizing the subject.

Incidentally, the Earth is indeed experiencing many internal dynamic processes, -which ebbs and flows on geologic time scales; not human ones. So, an exceptionally strong series of earthquakes, sinkholes, volcanoes, etc., correspond with tectonic activity that bursts forth now and then as the thin broken eggshell crust of the planet floats on top of the molten material below.

Every few thousand years or hundred thousand years or million years (mere winks of the eye, geologically) one or more of these eggshell chunks bump or slide or rub against each other. On and near the boundaries of these cracks there are immense forces at work. The consequence of these forces are the thousands of earthquakes experienced around the planet every day, the 500 or so active volcanoes on the planet in various stages of eruption, and, yes, the settling and lowering of the continental surfaces, via sinkhole activity, as the Earth constantly tries to reshape itself back into a smooth ball in spite of all these forces happening to it.

Stay curious my friends...

[edit on 7/13/2010 by Outrageo]