Why more sinkholes

Most water lines in the U. Obsolete cast iron and asbestos cement lines are now replaced with more durable ductile iron or plastic. In the Detroit suburb of Fraser, no total damage estimate has yet been compiled for the huge sinkhole that suddenly routed 22 families after a year-old sewer line collapsed at 6 a.

Officials are beginning a study of its entire pipeline system that serves , residents in 11 communities, said Macomb County Public Works chief Candice Miller. It can't wait any longer, Miller said. All rights reserved. More from Earth Sciences. Use this form if you have come across a typo, inaccuracy or would like to send an edit request for the content on this page. For general inquiries, please use our contact form. For general feedback, use the public comments section below please adhere to guidelines.

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By using our site, you acknowledge that you have read and understand our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use. Home Earth Environment. May 8, In this Jan. Oakwood Public Works department officials said the sinkhole appears to have been caused by an old storm drain that caved in. Sinkholes are not a new phenomenon in the United States, but a recent spate of huge, sudden-appearing caverns is prompting alarm. The retention ponds built on those courses can leak into the karst and trigger sinkholes. Irrigating those 49 courses and the tens of thousands of lawns in The Villages is also a significant risk factor.

Despite the protests of Villagers worried that a falling water table will spur sinkholes, pumping will begin soon. The Villages shouldn't be singled out when it comes to sinkholes. Number one is Pasco, which abuts Sumter to the south. That massive chasm rivaled the epic Winter Park sinkhole in Orange County— 8 for RiskMeter, an online tool providing hazard analysis for insurers. Pasco and Marion are also among the top 10 counties nationwide with both a high concentration and high number of older people.

In Ocala, near The Villages, a sinkhole in a fast-food lot swallowed a car and forced the elderly couple inside to crawl out. A man simply standing in the grass in The Villages slipped through a trapdoor of a five-foot hole.

In the Village of Glenbrook, a retired couple found a sinkhole literally on their doorstep. I spoke with geologist and sinkhole expert David Wilshaw on the same day he was returning from a trip to The Villages to inspect a suspected sinkhole.

Central to that fear factor is how unpredictable sinkholes are. Can anything besides GPR help predict sinkholes? Even when a site is surveyed and deemed safe from sinkholes, one can still form a few years later, given the precarious nature of karst. Perhaps the most dramatic sinkhole to ever hit The Villages, in Buttonwood—just look at this photo —lurched open several months after remediation began.

So did the sinkhole that killed Jeffrey Bush. That list, though, was based on sinkhole insurance claims, and scads of them were falsely reported in the years before , when Florida lawmakers overhauled the abused system. Their occurrence is likely to increase and there are things we can do to mitigate the risk of them happening, but the interest in them, driven by the media myself included harps on the primal fear I mentioned in my intro.

The sickened fascination induced by sinkholes makes them seem like a present danger, which they really are not. Updated at 3. It seems obvious that increasing the load on the surface with heavier buildings and heavier vehicles, plus increasing the stress on the surface from vibrations caused primarily by traffic, must cause sinkhole to collapse at an earlier point in time than they would naturally.

This doesn't mean they wouldn't have collapsed anyway, but you might - only might, though - get enough skew in when the events happen to be noticeable. The massive changed in water table due to human consumption and climate change may be destabilizing some sinkholes.

Materials generally don't react well to lots of stress when there's a nearby void to collapse into. But, these are largely details in a sense. Ground penetrating radar is capable of mapping voids before they become sinkholes. These are not small features, and that means you can scan quite a ways below the surface. The physics can be left for another time. If you know a hole will appear below a road, you know you will have to build a bridge there eventually.

If the money has to be spent, may as well build one now to prevent the hole becoming a danger to life and limb, and an impediment to commerce. During a record cold snap this past winter, farmers pumped millions of gallons of water onto their strawberries to keep them warm. Agriculture emptying the aquifers vast underground reserves of water, btw has been a problem for years, but big business has a big hand in it too.

Niagra Water bottling company just got permission to suck up to 1 million gallons of water out A DAY, up from about k before. And that water doesn't even stay in state.

I suspect if Florida doesn't become submerged by rising sea levels, it will eventually just collapse into the earth. I've got a least 3 sinkholes and 2 plug holes in my house.. Updated at 5. Is there any way to detect cavities in the ground which might cause dangerous sinkholes? That sounds like a logistical impossibility to me. Sorry if this was mentioned. I just skimmed through the updates because I'm a little busy and using a tiny screen.

Thanks Fauxtronic for this question. I spoke to John Howell at Aberdeen University about this and he said there are techniques that can identify cavities. These include seismic instruments, ground penetrating radar and microgravity. But they are pretty expensive exercises. Alan Cripps from the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors says none of these measures are common property surveying techniques and even if they were, it would not guarantee your home was safe from sinkholes.

The occurrence of a burst pipe or some other undetectable leakage could create a rapid hollowing out under a property that would not be there when you first moved in. The best you can do is avoid buying a house sitting on limestone or gypsum. The distribution of natural cavities in SE England.

Just what you wanted to know Updated at Nigel Cassidy from Keele University says the occurrence of sinkholes raises questions about water management and urban development.

He said government deregulation of development combined with increasingly temperamental rainfall due to climate change was cause for concern. Sinkholes can occur during drying out after lots of rain has compromised the integrity of the ground.

One of the implications of not having that is the higher risk of sinkholes in urban areas. Cassidy said the particular geology of chalk sinkholes in parts of England, such as Hemel Hempstead, might cause issues with drinking water. All the water that creates a sinkhole has to go somewhere, he says, and in the UK it could leak contaminated water into the aquifer from which drinking water is drawn.

As I have said, this month has been an exceptional one for sinkholes. We know that the primary trigger for these events has been abnormal rainfall. But what were the particular set of circumstances that caused these holes? This area is well known for its sinkholes, caused by a large deposit of highly erodible gypsum.

Gypsum is plaster of paris. Its chemistry CaSO4. Much more so than limestone. Ripon has the worst gypsum related subsidence in the UK because it is a large deposit, close to the surface. The rock beneath this area is chalk. Chalk can erode in slightly acidic rainwater over thousands of years and cause sinkholes. But the added complication is the historic practice of chalk mining. Home » Blog » What are sink holes and why are more and more appearing around the UK?

London Drainage Facilities explains the science behind sinkholes and why they are becoming more prevalent in the UK. In the past, massive sinkholes have been cropping up around the world in countries such as the USA and China. However, in recent years there has been a dramatic increase in the number of sinkholes appearing at home in the UK.