5/4/2004: Sinkhole eats car
 

http://cellar.org/2004/sinkholeeatscar.jpg

Yes, it's true; sometimes a sinkhole will just come up and eat a car.

I have the whole series of pics of this thing sinking (I'm fairly sure it's this car), should I put them up?

Go ahead!

There, but for the grace of God, goes my car.

Why don't things like this ever happen to my car. I could do with a new one, and I'm sure the Insurance Company would agree after seeing it at the bottom of the pit. :rolleyes:

Its a hole that forms under the ground above which the ground appears undisturbed. Then, the hole gets so large, its cover caves in revealing the hole. Usually, they are formed by underground erosion by water. Potholes are mini-sinkholes.

In certain parts of the world, they open up into old, unmapped mine shafts...

IIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!

This reminds me of a scene from "10.5"...

One has to wonder why there is something resembling a fitting for a drainage section in the bottom of the hole.

That hole has been most likely been caused by a water pipe bursting and washing away the soil around the pipe .. but if you knew the number of potential sinkholes, caused by unstable geology, abandoned unknown mines, and oil extraction .. you'd never drive on any U.S. road or highway. :(

http://www.tfhrc.gov/pubrds/julaug99/minehole.htm

http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/mine/kansas02.htm

Oy
 

No one was driving when this happened, I hope
I have to agree with leah, I could use a car too, one with an onstar system that could alert me of these things:biggrin:

Re: Oy
 

So that would be one Hummer H2 with ground penetrating radar and underbody airbags. Anything else?:typing:

Pennsylvania is extremely good at sinkholes. Much of the southeastern portion of the state is Karst Topography. The whole area is underlain by limestone. Mild acids in underground water react with the limestone and it basically just fizzes away, albeit slowly. Eventually there isn't anything supporting the soil and the whole thing just drops. (my undergraduate degree is in Geography and Planning. We were all over this geomorphology stuff.)

One disrupted the expansion of route 202 at King of Prussia. They had to fill it first. The relevant article is about 2/3 of the way down the page, headined "Massive Highway Improvements Garner Governor's Praise." It notes that they had to pump 1.4 million cubic FEET of pressure injected grout into the holes. That's a lot of freaking grout. They had to build a grout manufacturing plant at the site, I believe.