Having been granted an "Honorary Texan Citizenship" I'm a little concerned when I learned that a little area in Texas was sinking. To the tune of a 22 foot sinkhole that left 10 homes without water. That sinkhole uncovered a cave!
Michael, are you okay?
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"Appreciate the beauty of nature. You never know when life will deal you an unplanned twist of fate. Enjoy things while you can, because you just never know."
As the area in my county continues to experience growth, they are finding more and more caves like this. All of it has been to the west of Interstate 35.
I live on the east side of the highway, so the caves are not near me to where it is a concern.
Here is a video link to a large cave that was found in 1963. I live about 15 miles from it. It is a tourist destination. It's pretty cool, in more ways that one!
We are pumping and digging too much of everything from the Earth's crust. We pump too much water and then wonder why we have sink holes. We mine too much minerals and do not clean up our messes (strip mines).
There was a dramatic video of a small pond/lake along with many trees that disappeared in a swirl, as the trees went round-and-round, sinking as they rotated, until they completely disappeared. The company that mined salt from under that location were supposed to fill in their underground excavation as specified in their mining permits. Someone in the Bureau of Mining probably got paid to look the other way, and presto, no more wetland habitat. However a nice quick profit was made, so who cares, right?
For those of you who have been paying attention, this is becoming very commonplace today, and is nothing more than the legacy or our own greed for quick profits and raw materials.
There was a piece on the evening news, (CBS) once, about 2016 or so, about pumping too much ground water from southern California's farmlands and vineyards. They also mentioned how many gallons of water it takes to grow a single California almond. In this news piece, they interviewed one of the farmers, who explained that scientists have determined that over-use of water resources has caused southern California to sink 10 feet or more in just 20 years. This is not a sink hole but a sink-state...the state of California.
If you are going to grow things like almonds in the dessert use desalinated water, not ground water! For those of you who are paying attention, just Google "Middle Eastern nations using desalination". Saudi Arabia gets 70% of its water needs from this technology. I guess they aren't just a bunch of camel jockeys after all! Too bad we were not as smart and frugal as they are and doing more about this. We need to be more visionary and forward thinking like our friends in the Middle East.
California does have many desalination plants, but not nearly enough at all. We should have been doing this 100 years ago, folks!
Okay enough of my harsh editorializing for this week everyone.
Hey Ken, not to dispute your overall point, but...the vast majority of sinkholes are actually caused by too much ground water.
If you look at a Karst map of Missouri, you'll see that about 75% of it sits on top of limestone. Water seeps down and over time dissolves the bedrock until it can no longer support the surface. We have a small sinkhole here on the property and there are several well known ones within a few miles. We hunt Morel mushrooms in and around a few of them.
I'm not sure how it stands now, but Missouri used to rank forth in the U.S. for known sinkholes and you hear about a new one opening up about every year or two. Most are low impact, but some are down right devastating, swallowing up houses, streets and even forming large "ponds" in the middle of a neighborhood. It's actually quite fascinating. (as long as it's not your house being swallowed up)
No...everywhere is sinking!
