Sinkholes Discovered in the Dead Sea

Sinkholes Discovered in the Dead Sea

http://english.ntdtv.com/ntdtv_en/ns_me/2011-02-14/177591928201.html

It must be an awful feeling to be swallowed up by the Earth! Gives me chills thinking about it. Notice how round these holes are?

Not saying this is the cause, but there has been a huge up tick in sinkhole discoveries since the Hadron Collider (CERN) went online.

Earth Cries wrote:Not saying this is the cause, but there has been a huge up tick in sinkhole discoveries since the Hadron Collider (CERN) went online.

Well I'm glad you're not saying that's the cause, because I would have to say BS.

As groundwater disappears from an area like the Dead Sea, the density of the nearby ground decreases and it becomes much more fragile. You may have seen how wet beach sand will maintain some structure, but crumbles easily when it dries out. This is the same sort of process.

People are using groundwater for industry, irrigation and drinking pretty much everywhere. Depending on the geology, siknholes should be very predictable, but no one wants to think about them, and so we are always surprised to see them.

Sinkholes should be quite common there.. No wonder why, when you think about it

The main reason being the excessive use of aquifer systems in that region, which lead to a declining of sea-level & also a shrinking groundwater table...

That leads to drying-out of overburden sediments, which leads to a decrease in the upwelling, and the weight of unit volume increases.... putting more stress to the deeper layers...

The other reason being the geological and hydrogeological situation. You have limestone, silicium dioxide, halite etc.. basically a lot of materials which are easy soluble.. -> creates cavities

So, the once stable overburden sediments becomes unstable, and a collapsing of the material into these cavities can occur..


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I hope i got the english terms right, no native speaker here