One by one, homes in California subdivision are sinking

Scott and Robin Spivey had a sinking feeling that something was wrong with their home when cracks began snaking across their walls in March. The cracks soon turned into gaping fractures, and within two weeks their 600-square-foot garage broke from the house and the entire property — manicured lawn and all — dropped 10 feet below the street. It wasn’t long before the houses on both sides collapsed as the ground gave way in the Spivey’s neighborhood in Lake County, about 100 miles north of San Francisco.

More and more land subsidence as we've all seen with the many sinkholes occurring. In this case, it's not a simple sinkhole, but an entire neighborhood is sinking. The sinking in this neighborhood started in March with some cracks in the walls.

Lake County homes sinking

Eight homes are now abandoned and 10 others are under notice of imminent evacuation as a hilltop with sweeping vistas of Clear Lake and the Mt. Konocti volcano swallows the subdivision built 30 years ago.

The article says it may be water bubbling to the surface that's causing the ground erosion but the subdivision is built on a hilltop that has for years suffered a water shortage. The neighborhood has been there for 30 years. It's also in view of a dormant volcano.

"Considering this is a low-rainfall year and the fact it’s letting go now after all of these years, and the magnitude that it’s letting go, well, it’s pretty monumental," De Leon said.

Wow great share.. It really is disturbing to hear more and more about these types of incidents. I kept being told it was normal but it sounds far from normal and especially one incident after the other...
Mother Earth is pissed.

I wish I could see some pictures from the articles,

Here's a Fox News article with the pic of the Spivey house.

Source

This problem will only get worse. The reason in this particular case needs to be determined but there are some very BASIC reasons for this type of event.

Man comes along and starts pumping 'stuff' up from below ground. It may be water, oil, gas or many other things. This leaves bloody great caverns of nothing underground and logic depicts that land subsidence is the natural result.

In this case and with the droughts mentioned, I suspect it is the aquifer being emptied. Year after year man pumps water from the aquifer at a rate that mother nature can not replenish. Simply put, this leaves empty space under the ground. Of course the land will sink!

As our need for and waste of water continues to soar to meet the silly demands of greater and greater population this is inevitable. It will increase as many areas reach the tipping point. In an area that is principally a desert, those lovely green front lawns, golf courses, parks and gardens come at a price.

Time to pay the price Mother Nature demands.

P

Originally posted by pheonix358
This problem will only get worse. The reason in this particular case needs to be determined but there are some very BASIC reasons for this type of event.

Man comes along and starts pumping 'stuff' up from below ground. It may be water, oil, gas or many other things. This leaves bloody great caverns of nothing underground and logic depicts that land subsidence is the natural result.

In this case and with the droughts mentioned, I suspect it is the aquifer being emptied. Year after year man pumps water from the aquifer at a rate that mother nature can not replenish. Simply put, this leaves empty space under the ground. Of course the land will sink!

As our need for and waste of water continues to soar to meet the silly demands of greater and greater population this is inevitable. It will increase as many areas reach the tipping point. In an area that is principally a desert, those lovely green front lawns, golf courses, parks and gardens come at a price.

Time to pay the price Mother Nature demands.

P

Would you mind providing information that supports your claim, because I don't believe one bit of it.

So, you're saying that it's man's fault that the ground is sinking here. Where do you get your information?

Pic, link... or something, or it didn't happen.

Originally posted by pheonix358
This problem will only get worse. The reason in this particular case needs to be determined but there are some very BASIC reasons for this type of event.

Man comes along and starts pumping 'stuff' up from below ground. It may be water, oil, gas or many other things. This leaves bloody great caverns of nothing underground and logic depicts that land subsidence is the natural result.

In this case and with the droughts mentioned, I suspect it is the aquifer being emptied. Year after year man pumps water from the aquifer at a rate that mother nature can not replenish. Simply put, this leaves empty space under the ground. Of course the land will sink!

As our need for and waste of water continues to soar to meet the silly demands of greater and greater population this is inevitable. It will increase as many areas reach the tipping point. In an area that is principally a desert, those lovely green front lawns, golf courses, parks and gardens come at a price.

Time to pay the price Mother Nature demands.

P

I see what you're getting at but dude...!!!! It's on a hill!!!!!!

reply to post by MadMax7


The hill is heavy so it provides more weight on top of the 'holes' underground, so is it any wonder that that is where it gives way first. It is just the application of logic.

P

reply to post by retirednature

Pic, link... or something, or it didn't happen.

files.abovetopsecret.com...



If you can explain it, go ahead. If you interfere with the deep foundations of the earth something will give.

Groundwater is important to California in many ways. Roughly 30 percent of water deliveries in California come directly from groundwater, with much more in drought years, particularly long droughts (CDWR 2005, Megdal et al. 2009). Smaller urban and rural areas depend entirely on groundwater, as do many sizable cities, including Fresno.

Still, statewide overdraft is estimated diversely to average between 500,000 acre-feet a year to more than 1.5 million acre-feet a year, which amounts to 10-20 percent of all water use in the Tulare Lake Basin (Faunt et al 2009).

Source

P

Originally posted by retirednature

Would you mind providing information that supports your claim, because I don't believe one bit of it.

So, you're saying that it's man's fault that the ground is sinking here. Where do you get your information?

Pic, link... or something, or it didn't happen.

Seriously? You don't have to believe him. Try it yourself. Go fill up 2 balloons with water...put a straw in them so you have a way to drain them. Get a bucket....bury the balloons. Drain one of them, and tell me what happens to the dirt....now imagine that balloon is a giant pocket of oil-gas-water-sludge whatever your choice is. Same exact thing happens....

Please Please Please don't be the guy that just screams prove it, think for more than 30 seconds if you don't understand something.

Mother Nature is not a person, "she" doesnt "demand", "get pissed" or whatever else someone's replies included. Vague statements about pumping oil & using water from underground, somehow naughtily(?) or wrongly(?) and thus causing mother nature to lash out in punishment, as explanation for this neighborhood sinking, this neighborhood N of San Francisco, is inflammatory gobbledygook & a weak inference. Reactionary posturing in responses is startin to get to me in a way I should ignore. But what thehay...
I just would like to see 2¢ return to the value it once was... 2¢.

San Andreas fault line & Ring of Fire could have something to do w/it.

Or development-hungry city planners w/dollar-minded real estate speculators & home builders, in the 80s, building somewhere they shouldnt have, is also plausible. As are other causes others are sure to mention.

Why rush to inform us that it is, indeed, an angry mother nature? When that seems to be of low likelihood due to, well, it's absurdity...
Oil extraction & aquifer depletion stand up as reasonable causes, why add Mother Nature to it? She didnt ask you to speak for her :-O.

reply to post by Juggernutty


Substitute "buckets" for "balloons" and the analogy doesnt work the way it did, neatly proving a limited angle on a politicized thread.

Or substitute "granite" or "limestone" "boxes" for "balloons".

Im not saying human activity isnt part of the cause.Im not saying it is, either!

The arguments stated above are the epitome of what's annoying on ATS now.
OK There's a pic........ So it DID happen.
Speculation is open to discussion on WHY or HOW it happened.
Pick any reason or idea and topic goes off subject.
You can discuss whether it was fracking, pulling water from natural water wells that leave airpockets, weight of the mountain, soil erosion, minor earthquakes weakening the surface soil.
Your all open to speculation.
Reading this thread like you guys or girls know what the problem is, is really getting annoying.
Natural or man made?
Are we trying to blame MAN and we should of never built there knowing what MAN is doing under the surface and MAN or the Powers That Be don't care for selfish purposes?
Is THAT where this thread is going?
I'm trying to skip reading between the insinuations and hear idea's.
The ground is sinking. Got it.
Natural or Man made causes? Intentionally? I highly doubt it.
A byproduct of manmade conditions? Highly possible.
Pre-existing conditions in nature not detected prior to building on that hill by geologists?
THAT would open liability issues.
Speaking of liability issues, the cause of the damage will be determined by the insurance companies to limit payouts. The insurance companies will determine the actual cause of the sinking.
Period.
Speculate all you want. Right or Wrong what causes the sinking...the "official" version will be to limit damage payouts.
Thanks for the rant....

Years ago when I lived in Nebraska,we had a major underground aquafier,the Ogalala.In the 70's they predicted that if the farmers kept pumping it for irrigation,the plains states would collapse,and South Dakota would be beach front property on a new inland ocean! Last I heard,its at 30% capacity.

Soil sampling and composition tests go a long way in the civil engineering world. If you don't coordinate your structure with mother nature first, she'll take it back, eventually.

MOTF!

Thats why californians are moving and over populating las vegas.

Originally posted by retirednature

Originally posted by pheonix358
This problem will only get worse. The reason in this particular case needs to be determined but there are some very BASIC reasons for this type of event.

Man comes along and starts pumping 'stuff' up from below ground. It may be water, oil, gas or many other things. This leaves bloody great caverns of nothing underground and logic depicts that land subsidence is the natural result.

In this case and with the droughts mentioned, I suspect it is the aquifer being emptied. Year after year man pumps water from the aquifer at a rate that mother nature can not replenish. Simply put, this leaves empty space under the ground. Of course the land will sink!

As our need for and waste of water continues to soar to meet the silly demands of greater and greater population this is inevitable. It will increase as many areas reach the tipping point. In an area that is principally a desert, those lovely green front lawns, golf courses, parks and gardens come at a price.

Time to pay the price Mother Nature demands.

P

Would you mind providing information that supports your claim, because I don't believe one bit of it.

So, you're saying that it's man's fault that the ground is sinking here. Where do you get your information?

Pic, link... or something, or it didn't happen.

Haha WOW the most logical explanation and you "don't believe it one bit"? Are you a rig pig yourself??
The damage oil companies are doing to our land is beyond irreversible. When you suck fluids out of pockets in the earth and fail to replace them with a substance that will keep the hole filled, what do you expect to happen? You expect the land to sit perfectly and not budge under the weight above the hole?!

That's absolutely ridiculous.

reply to post by Rezlooper


I just read about the ice creeping up and taking out homes in MN and Canada and then I read this.


It all seems rather odd! Thanks for posting S & F!

Here are some things to consider about this theory you guys are all talking about. There's been a lot of debate about whether oil and natural gas are really "fossil fuels," but rather they are produced naturally by the earth itself.

Proponents of so-called "abiotic oil" claim that the proof is found in the fact that many capped wells, which were formerly dry of oil, are found to be plentiful again after many years, They claim that the replenished oil is manufactured by natural forces in the Earth's mantle.

Many of these pockets of empty space as a result of oil and natural gas drilling that you discuss are refilling.Critics of this abiotic theory claim that the well-spaces are refilling, not from regeneration, but from slowly-migrating oil through pores from high-pressure areas into the low-pressure of the drill hole.

But, scientists from an institute in Stockholm claimed a few years back that fossil oil of decayed plants and animals millions of years ago could not have seeped down to a depth of 10.5 km in Texas because of gravity and other forces. They claim in the ScienceDaily in 2009 that the abiotic oil formation theory is correct and real.

In its simplest form, the theory is that carbon present in the magma beneath the crust reacts with hydrogen to form methane as well as a raft of other mainly alkane hydrocarbons. The reactions are more complicated than this, with several intermediate stages. Particular mineral rocks such as granite and other silicon based rocks act as catalysts, which speed up the reaction without actually becoming involved or consumed in the process.

Experiments have shown that under extreme conditions of heat and pressure it is possible to convert iron oxide, calcium carbonate and water into methane, with hydrocarbons containing up to 10 carbon atoms being produced by Russian scientists last century and confirmed in recent US experiments. The absence of large quantities of free gaseous oxygen in the magma prevents the hydrocarbons from burning and therefore forming the lower energy state molecule carbon dioxide. The conditions present in the Earth's mantle would easily be sufficient for these small hydrocarbon chains to polymerise into the longer chain molecules found in crude oil.

Fossils from plants and animals are not necessary for crude oil

And from another article that makes the same claims

While organic theorists have posited that the material required to produce hydrocarbons in sedimentary rock came from dinosaurs and ancient forests, more recent argument have suggested living organisms as small as plankton may have been the origin.

The abiotic theory argues, in contrast, that hydrocarbons are naturally produced on a continual basis throughout the solar system, including within the mantle of the earth. The advocates believe the oil seeps up through bedrock cracks to deposit in sedimentary rock. Traditional petro-geologists, they say, have confused the rock as the originator rather than the depository of the hydrocarbons. Read more at www.wnd.com...

Discovery backs theory oil not from fossils

Found a news clip about this. Just to give some perspective of whats happening

reply to post by Rezlooper


That would be good news for places like Texas! Although it is also obvious that we are taking the oil out faster that Mother Nature can replace it. Once we do this the 'caverns' or hollow area are still hollow for a long time and this could lead to problems such as sink holes and such like.

In CA though we are talking of the removal of groundwater from an aquifer and we are looking at an average of around a million acre / feet. That is just one aquifer. That is also the figure of use minus replenishment.

Just taking say since 1980, that is 33 feet over a coverage of a million acres. That is one hell of a lot of volume for just one aquifer. Now that you have that much empty space, or space that has lost its ability to support the weight above it, and considering this is CA, you need to factor in earthquake activity.

When looking at the photo my initial reaction was more of "Why didn't it happen a decade ago"

P