A massive sinkhole has opened up in south-eastern Texas in the US,
swallowing up vehicles and oil field equipment.
Posted on 05/08/2008 8:26:14 AM PDT by yankeedame
DAISETTA, Texas -- An isolated field in Liberty County sits several feet lower Wednesday after the ground caved in and left a sinkhole described as "the size of two football fields."
At about 10 a.m., a dozen workers at the Deloach Vacuum salt water disposal company in Daisetta began noticing cracks in the ground. Shortly after that, there was a dramatic collapse creating the sink hole. Since then, the hole has continued to grow in size...
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A massive sinkhole has opened up in south-eastern Texas in the US,
swallowing up vehicles and oil field equipment.
It is not clear what caused the collapse, but the
history of the nearby community of Daisetta as a once-booming oil town may
provide some of the clues.
Officials are investigating whether an old salt dome, in which oil brine
and natural gas are stored underground, was to blame.
The resulting hole is thought to be at
least 600ft (183m) long and 150ft (46m) deep.
A truck, a tractor and telephone poles were swallowed up by the
hole. Vehicles from a nearby main road had to be diverted, but there
were no reports of any injuries.
This field doesn't look all that isolated to me???
Will make a great pond..................
WOW!!!!!
Bush’s fault. Global warming, too.
Obama rally site.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought when oil rigs extracted the underground oil that they needed to pump in water to replace it and thus keep the land above from sinking.
Is that oil in there?
Morlocks...
“several” = 150 feet according to that caption. Wow.
Wonder what that gray stuff at the bottom is? Just mud?
}:-)4
Prehaps several wells ago, some genius of a rapidly rising manager realized they could save some money.
I’m thinking a property tax appeal is in the works right about now.
Texas Tea.
I wonder what’s in those blue-green tanks.
I saw it on the Discovery channel. They had cartoon depictions that looked really real, so it must be true.
Doesn’t look like several feet either.
Open the door, I’ll git my lighter and have a look.
It’s not really “several feet lower” either.
some vids on Khou.com.
According to a geologist, this is a cave-in of a salt dome. There are lots of those in the area and a smaller sinkhole appeared a year or so ago and quit growing after one day.
I can’t understand why they didn’t move the tractor by attaching a cable and hauling it away. The vids clearly show it on the ground near the hole and then falling into it as the hole widened.
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