[VOA]

What is the term for the sinking of the ground when something is extracted from below?

Same thing can happen to oil drilling platforms at sea.
I saw a short film about a Phillips Petroleum platform (in the North Sea, IIRC)
that had the ocean-floor sink enough after pumping out a lot of oil that the
company had to put HUGHMONGOUS hydraulic jacks on the platform legs...then jack up
the platform so that the raging waves wouldn't destroy it.

[StopGlobalWhining]

Pollution and burgeoning populations stress Earth's water resources

This may be for subscribers to Science News only, but it has a terrific photo that vividly illustrates ground subsidence.

Withdrawal of groundwater in California's San Joaquin valley has caused the ground to subside by more than 9 m. Signs in this 1977 photo, taken near Mendota, show where the ground surface was in 1925 and 1955.

U.S. Geological Survey

[Libertarianize the GOP]

ping