1
00:00:03,040 --> 00:00:05,280
Speaker 1: Welcome just about to blow your mind the production of

2
00:00:05,360 --> 00:00:14,120
Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to stuff to blow

3
00:00:14,160 --> 00:00:17,440
Speaker 1: your mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick,

4
00:00:17,480 --> 00:00:20,760
Speaker 1: and today we're gonna be talking about sink holes. This

5
00:00:20,840 --> 00:00:24,320
Speaker 1: is actually, I think, in a way a listener requests

6
00:00:24,360 --> 00:00:27,760
Speaker 1: topic that turned out to be very interesting. But it's, uh,

7
00:00:27,840 --> 00:00:30,720
Speaker 1: it's sort of leap frogging off of some some previous

8
00:00:30,720 --> 00:00:33,360
Speaker 1: episodes we did. Rob did the did the sink Whole

9
00:00:33,440 --> 00:00:35,720
Speaker 1: journey begin when we were talking about the star Lac

10
00:00:35,880 --> 00:00:37,839
Speaker 1: from Return of the Jedi. I think that was the

11
00:00:37,880 --> 00:00:40,800
Speaker 1: original context. I think that was the original point at

12
00:00:40,800 --> 00:00:44,080
Speaker 1: which we begin to hear listener males about the idea

13
00:00:44,080 --> 00:00:46,440
Speaker 1: of that in a Sink Whole episode, because we talked

14
00:00:46,440 --> 00:00:49,240
Speaker 1: about the star Lac and then we talked about some

15
00:00:50,280 --> 00:00:56,000
Speaker 1: ideas and was it meso American uh mythology concerning uh

16
00:00:56,520 --> 00:00:59,440
Speaker 1: entities of the ground that swallow things up? Oh, that

17
00:00:59,480 --> 00:01:01,000
Speaker 1: could be at well, I know we ended up talking

18
00:01:01,040 --> 00:01:03,400
Speaker 1: about the Bible, which will revisit in a minute here.

19
00:01:03,440 --> 00:01:06,039
Speaker 1: But one of the questions that came up was, you

20
00:01:06,080 --> 00:01:09,080
Speaker 1: know that scene in movies where there's an earthquake and

21
00:01:09,080 --> 00:01:11,760
Speaker 1: and then suddenly a crack opens up in the middle

22
00:01:11,760 --> 00:01:14,080
Speaker 1: of the street and it's you know, miles deep, and

23
00:01:14,080 --> 00:01:17,640
Speaker 1: it just swallows people down into it. Uh. The question

24
00:01:17,760 --> 00:01:19,560
Speaker 1: was like, does that kind of thing really happen? Does

25
00:01:19,920 --> 00:01:22,399
Speaker 1: during an earthquake? Does the earth open up and open

26
00:01:22,440 --> 00:01:26,120
Speaker 1: these deep pits and chasms that people fall down and

27
00:01:26,200 --> 00:01:29,880
Speaker 1: disappear into. And our previous answer to that was, well,

28
00:01:30,080 --> 00:01:32,959
Speaker 1: not really, or it seems like that's that's extremely rare

29
00:01:33,000 --> 00:01:35,400
Speaker 1: if it ever happens. That's not like a common feature

30
00:01:35,640 --> 00:01:39,200
Speaker 1: of what happens to the surface topology during an earthquake.

31
00:01:39,480 --> 00:01:43,200
Speaker 1: But sinkholes, a listener pointed out, or a very different story.

32
00:01:43,200 --> 00:01:46,920
Speaker 1: And sinkholes could explain many of these stories, uh, from

33
00:01:47,040 --> 00:01:49,320
Speaker 1: from mythology and all that of the earth opening up

34
00:01:49,320 --> 00:01:51,120
Speaker 1: and swallowing people. We can get back into that in

35
00:01:51,160 --> 00:01:53,240
Speaker 1: a bit. But you actually turned up a really interesting

36
00:01:53,320 --> 00:01:58,320
Speaker 1: photo essay about a fascinating sudden opening of a sinkhole. Uh,

37
00:01:58,560 --> 00:02:01,440
Speaker 1: just earlier this year, that's right, Well, actually it was

38
00:02:01,520 --> 00:02:08,320
Speaker 1: last year. God. Yeah, I haven't turned the calendar fully yet.

39
00:02:08,360 --> 00:02:11,240
Speaker 1: It's still it's still It's like that year is kind

40
00:02:11,240 --> 00:02:13,640
Speaker 1: of like the the other world in hell Raisers, So

41
00:02:13,680 --> 00:02:15,639
Speaker 1: it's got chains with hooks and them, and they shoot

42
00:02:15,639 --> 00:02:17,560
Speaker 1: out of the walls, and so the hooks are still

43
00:02:17,560 --> 00:02:21,240
Speaker 1: in my brain, but I'm slowly methodically rebuilding my body

44
00:02:21,320 --> 00:02:24,919
Speaker 1: to escape. All right, Well, this is this story takes

45
00:02:25,000 --> 00:02:29,280
Speaker 1: us back to April. So, um, what happened is a

46
00:02:29,400 --> 00:02:31,640
Speaker 1: whole opened up in the front yard of a home

47
00:02:31,720 --> 00:02:36,280
Speaker 1: in Black Hawks, South Dakota. UH, specifically in a housing

48
00:02:36,320 --> 00:02:41,120
Speaker 1: development there that was called, perfectly enough, the Hideaway Hills development.

49
00:02:43,040 --> 00:02:45,000
Speaker 1: That just doesn't sound great. I mean, no offense the

50
00:02:45,000 --> 00:02:47,480
Speaker 1: people who lived there, but it doesn't sound like a

51
00:02:47,520 --> 00:02:49,000
Speaker 1: place I want to go. It sounds like a place

52
00:02:49,080 --> 00:02:51,160
Speaker 1: where I don't know where you like retreat after you've

53
00:02:51,160 --> 00:02:55,560
Speaker 1: committed a crime. What was the housing development? Unarrested development,

54
00:02:55,720 --> 00:03:02,080
Speaker 1: Sudden Valley or Sudden Yeah? Yeah appropriate as well. So Um,

55
00:03:02,720 --> 00:03:05,680
Speaker 1: like you pointed out, there's an incredible photo essay photo

56
00:03:05,760 --> 00:03:08,280
Speaker 1: series on this on board Panda about this. If you

57
00:03:08,280 --> 00:03:11,880
Speaker 1: look up board Panda, Black South Dakota Sinkhole, you will

58
00:03:11,919 --> 00:03:16,320
Speaker 1: find it because uh this photo essay, if you will.

59
00:03:16,400 --> 00:03:20,120
Speaker 1: It takes us through a journey by a local caving

60
00:03:20,160 --> 00:03:24,760
Speaker 1: group called Pahsapa Grotto as they decided to venture down

61
00:03:24,800 --> 00:03:27,079
Speaker 1: into this hole that opened up in this front yard

62
00:03:27,360 --> 00:03:31,720
Speaker 1: to explore the world beneath the suburbs. Now, this sinkhole,

63
00:03:32,200 --> 00:03:34,040
Speaker 1: it turns out it's going to be very different than

64
00:03:34,160 --> 00:03:36,720
Speaker 1: most of the sinkholes we're talking about in this episode.

65
00:03:37,280 --> 00:03:42,280
Speaker 1: Most sinkholes open up over some kind of void that

66
00:03:42,440 --> 00:03:44,280
Speaker 1: is formed in the rock below, and as we'll get

67
00:03:44,320 --> 00:03:45,920
Speaker 1: into a lot of that usually has to do with

68
00:03:46,320 --> 00:03:49,600
Speaker 1: water and hydrology. But in this case, the void in

69
00:03:49,720 --> 00:03:53,120
Speaker 1: the rock below the neighborhood was was more was of

70
00:03:53,160 --> 00:03:56,240
Speaker 1: a more artificial persuasion, right. That's because there was an

71
00:03:56,240 --> 00:04:00,440
Speaker 1: abandoned gypsum mine beneath the housing development, and so the

72
00:04:00,480 --> 00:04:02,920
Speaker 1: cavers had they had to lower down in on ropes,

73
00:04:03,320 --> 00:04:06,160
Speaker 1: you know, had to use like actual caving equipment into

74
00:04:06,160 --> 00:04:10,000
Speaker 1: the dark and sometimes flooded tunnels beneath reportedly over two

75
00:04:10,040 --> 00:04:12,880
Speaker 1: thousand feet across in a hundred and fifty feet why

76
00:04:13,080 --> 00:04:16,880
Speaker 1: this tunnel um complex, uh And they encountered the remains

77
00:04:16,920 --> 00:04:19,920
Speaker 1: of what looks like an old like nineteen fifties automobile.

78
00:04:20,560 --> 00:04:23,320
Speaker 1: There's just a whole world down there, like a whole

79
00:04:23,720 --> 00:04:28,880
Speaker 1: uh Minoan maze beneath this you know, rather mundane looking

80
00:04:28,920 --> 00:04:32,120
Speaker 1: housing development. It's like two levels of weird. So first

81
00:04:32,120 --> 00:04:35,160
Speaker 1: of all, it's yes, the suburban, you know, neighborhood. And

82
00:04:35,200 --> 00:04:37,920
Speaker 1: then just in the middle of somebody's front yard a

83
00:04:38,360 --> 00:04:41,279
Speaker 1: pit opens up, so that's the sinkhole. But then it's

84
00:04:41,400 --> 00:04:44,520
Speaker 1: that the sinkhole goes to this maze and yeah, like

85
00:04:44,560 --> 00:04:46,880
Speaker 1: you said, there's like an old Chevy convertible down there,

86
00:04:47,160 --> 00:04:49,440
Speaker 1: and I'm wondering, why is that down there? Did somebody

87
00:04:49,520 --> 00:04:52,800
Speaker 1: drive it into the mind before the mine was sealed up? Yeah,

88
00:04:52,839 --> 00:04:54,680
Speaker 1: I don't know, Like, it's just it's a place full

89
00:04:54,720 --> 00:04:58,120
Speaker 1: of questions, is a place full of the past, of mysteries,

90
00:04:58,560 --> 00:05:00,760
Speaker 1: and so the article it's gets into some of the

91
00:05:00,800 --> 00:05:03,279
Speaker 1: community fall out over all this. But but what I

92
00:05:03,320 --> 00:05:06,280
Speaker 1: love about this episode is it illustrates for us this

93
00:05:06,360 --> 00:05:10,360
Speaker 1: divide between the surface world, so tightly manicured and controlled

94
00:05:10,560 --> 00:05:13,039
Speaker 1: so much of the time, and a world beneath that

95
00:05:13,120 --> 00:05:16,240
Speaker 1: we have only a shaky understanding of, like something out

96
00:05:16,240 --> 00:05:19,640
Speaker 1: of a mash up between Poltergeist and The Descent. You know,

97
00:05:19,960 --> 00:05:23,159
Speaker 1: a gateway to that hidden underworld might open up at

98
00:05:23,160 --> 00:05:26,839
Speaker 1: any moment and reveal its secrets to us, invite us in,

99
00:05:27,040 --> 00:05:30,760
Speaker 1: perhaps swallow us entirely, and then we'll be part of

100
00:05:30,800 --> 00:05:34,679
Speaker 1: that underworld. Because if we're being you know, perfectly rational

101
00:05:35,720 --> 00:05:40,040
Speaker 1: without any supernatural ideas like that, that idea alone is terrifying.

102
00:05:40,080 --> 00:05:42,680
Speaker 1: You know that the earth might open up and we

103
00:05:42,760 --> 00:05:45,680
Speaker 1: might fall, you know, into a pit. But then if

104
00:05:45,720 --> 00:05:49,039
Speaker 1: you begin to layer in beliefs and superstitions, then yeah,

105
00:05:49,120 --> 00:05:53,080
Speaker 1: become this whole becomes a portal to other realms. Yeah, exactly.

106
00:05:53,080 --> 00:05:56,239
Speaker 1: Now we've talked about natural features in the landscape taking

107
00:05:56,240 --> 00:05:58,920
Speaker 1: on religious significance before, Like in we did a couple

108
00:05:58,920 --> 00:06:02,080
Speaker 1: of episodes called The Acred Mountain, which was about mountain

109
00:06:02,120 --> 00:06:05,200
Speaker 1: peaks that were considered to be holy or supernatural or

110
00:06:05,240 --> 00:06:08,240
Speaker 1: the dwelling places of gods or places that Win explored.

111
00:06:08,279 --> 00:06:12,120
Speaker 1: People often reported having supernatural experiences. They're like One of

112
00:06:12,120 --> 00:06:13,719
Speaker 1: the things that came out of that was the the

113
00:06:13,800 --> 00:06:18,040
Speaker 1: often reported third man syndrome, feeling that mountain climbers sometimes

114
00:06:18,120 --> 00:06:20,680
Speaker 1: have very high up But we talked about possible ways that,

115
00:06:21,120 --> 00:06:24,560
Speaker 1: like the effects of the sun or that altitude sickness

116
00:06:24,560 --> 00:06:28,840
Speaker 1: could contribute to that um But there are also ways

117
00:06:28,880 --> 00:06:33,200
Speaker 1: in which sinkholes can take on similar types of religious significance,

118
00:06:33,240 --> 00:06:37,160
Speaker 1: can have a similar mythological appeal, and One great example

119
00:06:37,279 --> 00:06:40,120
Speaker 1: is we is some of the sinkholes are also known

120
00:06:40,160 --> 00:06:43,080
Speaker 1: as sinots that we see throughout Mesoamerican religion and the

121
00:06:43,120 --> 00:06:46,920
Speaker 1: Yucatan Peninsula and among the ancient Mayan people. But I

122
00:06:46,960 --> 00:06:49,560
Speaker 1: guess well, we'll come back to that more later. I

123
00:06:49,839 --> 00:06:53,200
Speaker 1: wanted to get to this question about the the idea

124
00:06:53,360 --> 00:06:55,920
Speaker 1: that the earth can open up and swallow you. It's

125
00:06:55,960 --> 00:06:59,400
Speaker 1: an image that seems like to perfectly fit ancient myths

126
00:06:59,440 --> 00:07:02,719
Speaker 1: and texts that you would imagine passages like this appearing

127
00:07:02,760 --> 00:07:05,800
Speaker 1: in you know, Babylonian texts or something. It definitely appears

128
00:07:05,800 --> 00:07:08,960
Speaker 1: in the Hebrew Bible, for example, in the Book of Numbers,

129
00:07:09,000 --> 00:07:11,400
Speaker 1: there's a passage where Moses is speaking to people and

130
00:07:11,440 --> 00:07:13,920
Speaker 1: he's trying to demonstrate that he was in fact sent

131
00:07:14,000 --> 00:07:17,280
Speaker 1: by the Lord. And he uh he, he says, and

132
00:07:17,600 --> 00:07:19,800
Speaker 1: basically he makes a promise that hey, if the Lord

133
00:07:19,800 --> 00:07:22,280
Speaker 1: has sent me, he'll he'll send a sign and you'll

134
00:07:22,320 --> 00:07:25,080
Speaker 1: know it because there will be this group of people

135
00:07:25,160 --> 00:07:27,720
Speaker 1: that will be swallowed up alive into a pit that

136
00:07:27,840 --> 00:07:30,520
Speaker 1: opens up suddenly in the earth for for these wicked

137
00:07:30,520 --> 00:07:33,800
Speaker 1: people who have rejected the Lord. And the passage says

138
00:07:33,840 --> 00:07:36,000
Speaker 1: in uh. In the book of numbers. Now it came

139
00:07:36,040 --> 00:07:38,480
Speaker 1: to pass, as he finished speaking all these words, that

140
00:07:38,560 --> 00:07:41,360
Speaker 1: the ground split apart under them, and the earth opened

141
00:07:41,400 --> 00:07:44,400
Speaker 1: its mouth and swallowed them up with their households, and

142
00:07:44,480 --> 00:07:46,960
Speaker 1: all the men of Cora, with all their goods. So

143
00:07:47,040 --> 00:07:49,560
Speaker 1: they and all those with them went down alive into

144
00:07:49,600 --> 00:07:52,640
Speaker 1: the pit. The earth closed over them, and they perished

145
00:07:52,680 --> 00:07:56,200
Speaker 1: from among the assembly. And so I wonder, I mean, obviously,

146
00:07:56,200 --> 00:07:59,040
Speaker 1: with passages like this, I wonder if it's this kind

147
00:07:59,040 --> 00:08:01,800
Speaker 1: of thing that inspire that scene in every movie that

148
00:08:01,880 --> 00:08:04,400
Speaker 1: has an earthquake in it where suddenly a bottomless pit

149
00:08:04,480 --> 00:08:07,920
Speaker 1: opens up in the ground and people get sucked into it. Yeah,

150
00:08:08,120 --> 00:08:11,000
Speaker 1: you know, this could also be graboids. If I think,

151
00:08:11,000 --> 00:08:13,560
Speaker 1: if they want to make another Tremor's film, which they will,

152
00:08:13,680 --> 00:08:17,000
Speaker 1: I'm sure they should go for, you know, some biblical

153
00:08:17,040 --> 00:08:19,840
Speaker 1: flare here, go for an Old Testament Tremor's movie with

154
00:08:19,840 --> 00:08:22,800
Speaker 1: with Moses being our central character. And that's a very

155
00:08:22,840 --> 00:08:25,240
Speaker 1: good direction. Now, one thing I want to say, because

156
00:08:25,560 --> 00:08:27,000
Speaker 1: I feel like I have to bring this up every

157
00:08:27,040 --> 00:08:30,600
Speaker 1: time we talk about geo mythology. Uh, there's this question

158
00:08:30,680 --> 00:08:34,000
Speaker 1: of is this story in the Bible based on something

159
00:08:34,080 --> 00:08:38,800
Speaker 1: that's someone in history witnessed witnessing a real world geological event,

160
00:08:39,080 --> 00:08:42,199
Speaker 1: perhaps a sudden collapse of a settled area due to

161
00:08:42,240 --> 00:08:44,560
Speaker 1: a sinkhole. Uh. And, as I pretty much always do

162
00:08:44,600 --> 00:08:47,000
Speaker 1: whenever we talk about geomethology, I want to emphasize that

163
00:08:47,080 --> 00:08:50,680
Speaker 1: fantastic imagery and in myths and legends and religious text

164
00:08:50,760 --> 00:08:55,120
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily need to be explained by someone actually having

165
00:08:55,200 --> 00:08:57,319
Speaker 1: seen something physical in the world. I think we can

166
00:08:57,360 --> 00:09:01,600
Speaker 1: sometimes go overboard looking for natural, realistic explanations of this

167
00:09:01,679 --> 00:09:04,600
Speaker 1: kind to explain what somebody thought they saw that appears

168
00:09:04,600 --> 00:09:07,200
Speaker 1: in a story. You know, people are highly imaginative, and

169
00:09:07,240 --> 00:09:10,960
Speaker 1: sometimes stories are just stories. But there's always also the

170
00:09:11,000 --> 00:09:14,040
Speaker 1: possibility that stories like these could be based on people

171
00:09:14,080 --> 00:09:16,840
Speaker 1: hearing stories about having seen I don't know, there was

172
00:09:16,880 --> 00:09:18,880
Speaker 1: a there was a castle or a building or something

173
00:09:18,920 --> 00:09:21,040
Speaker 1: like that that was just swallowed up into the earth,

174
00:09:21,400 --> 00:09:24,600
Speaker 1: which if you didn't have any kind of geological understanding

175
00:09:24,640 --> 00:09:27,959
Speaker 1: with which to to interpret that, it would certainly seem

176
00:09:28,000 --> 00:09:30,240
Speaker 1: to be a you know, a supernatural event. I don't know,

177
00:09:30,240 --> 00:09:32,319
Speaker 1: I don't know how else you would interpret it. Yeah,

178
00:09:32,360 --> 00:09:35,040
Speaker 1: Because I think one of the things that really drives

179
00:09:35,040 --> 00:09:38,040
Speaker 1: home and when we we see examples of sinkholes, and

180
00:09:38,120 --> 00:09:41,480
Speaker 1: we hear stories like this, we see cinematic interpretations. Is

181
00:09:41,559 --> 00:09:46,920
Speaker 1: that idea that the that terra firma is not that firm,

182
00:09:47,080 --> 00:09:49,720
Speaker 1: is not that fixed, that it could change, that the

183
00:09:50,000 --> 00:09:53,880
Speaker 1: that the firm ground beneath our feet could suddenly give way,

184
00:09:54,040 --> 00:09:56,920
Speaker 1: you know, like that alone is just this kind of

185
00:09:57,360 --> 00:10:01,599
Speaker 1: uh you know, horrifying idea. Uh that that it that

186
00:10:01,720 --> 00:10:04,280
Speaker 1: it easily applies as a metaphor to everything else in

187
00:10:04,320 --> 00:10:06,840
Speaker 1: our in our life. You know, that the thing that

188
00:10:06,960 --> 00:10:10,240
Speaker 1: is the order that we depend upon might go away

189
00:10:10,240 --> 00:10:12,560
Speaker 1: at any moment. Yeah, it's interesting to think about like

190
00:10:12,559 --> 00:10:16,720
Speaker 1: a vertical spectrum of of ways that the natural world

191
00:10:16,800 --> 00:10:19,480
Speaker 1: can intrude on our lives and how most of the

192
00:10:19,480 --> 00:10:22,000
Speaker 1: stuff that we're that we're used to thinking about taking

193
00:10:22,000 --> 00:10:26,080
Speaker 1: into consideration, worrying about as as possible threats, all basically

194
00:10:26,160 --> 00:10:28,520
Speaker 1: takes place like on the surface of the Earth. And

195
00:10:28,600 --> 00:10:31,000
Speaker 1: that you know, when you go to the vertical ends

196
00:10:31,040 --> 00:10:33,880
Speaker 1: of that spectrum, you've got like impacts from space coming

197
00:10:33,920 --> 00:10:37,480
Speaker 1: from above, sinkholes, oupening opening up from below, and these

198
00:10:37,480 --> 00:10:42,400
Speaker 1: phenomena intrude on that day to day understanding of physical forces. Yeah,

199
00:10:42,440 --> 00:10:44,760
Speaker 1: so it's it's no surprise We were talking about this

200
00:10:45,000 --> 00:10:48,040
Speaker 1: before the podcast started rolling here that if you start

201
00:10:48,120 --> 00:10:52,680
Speaker 1: looking around for sinkholes online, you'll find just so many galleries,

202
00:10:52,800 --> 00:10:57,120
Speaker 1: top ten lists, lots of click bade about sinkholes. Like

203
00:10:57,200 --> 00:11:00,199
Speaker 1: sinkholes are kind of they're kind of like a like

204
00:11:00,280 --> 00:11:04,480
Speaker 1: they're kind of like true crime. You know, they're um there.

205
00:11:04,679 --> 00:11:06,760
Speaker 1: You also see them, like I was noticing like very

206
00:11:06,840 --> 00:11:10,160
Speaker 1: tabloid sites, sites that otherwise they're not going to really

207
00:11:10,200 --> 00:11:14,040
Speaker 1: have anything related to geology, but they'll have sinkholes. You know,

208
00:11:14,080 --> 00:11:17,680
Speaker 1: it'll be celebrity gossip, um, and you know, maybe some

209
00:11:17,800 --> 00:11:21,400
Speaker 1: conspiracy theories. But then also uh, big old holes opening

210
00:11:21,480 --> 00:11:23,880
Speaker 1: up in the earth. Chump boxes are full of sinkholes.

211
00:11:23,920 --> 00:11:26,480
Speaker 1: Have you ever noticed this? These are the like the

212
00:11:26,559 --> 00:11:30,840
Speaker 1: link um grids at the bottom of blogs and whatnot. Yeah. Yeah, So, like,

213
00:11:31,080 --> 00:11:34,319
Speaker 1: you know, like most websites on the Internet these days

214
00:11:34,320 --> 00:11:37,360
Speaker 1: are just being more and more infected by ads that

215
00:11:37,440 --> 00:11:40,480
Speaker 1: essentially take the form of malware. But if you scroll

216
00:11:40,559 --> 00:11:43,440
Speaker 1: down to the bottom of most articles or any text

217
00:11:43,480 --> 00:11:46,040
Speaker 1: image based website, you'll usually see one of these boxes

218
00:11:46,120 --> 00:11:50,920
Speaker 1: that's full of just like extremely tacky, distasteful images that

219
00:11:50,960 --> 00:11:54,079
Speaker 1: are either like something that's kind of sexually suggestive and

220
00:11:54,120 --> 00:11:58,320
Speaker 1: a gross way or something that is uh has some

221
00:11:58,440 --> 00:12:01,199
Speaker 1: kind of like health vibe, like it looks like infected

222
00:12:01,280 --> 00:12:05,360
Speaker 1: skin or holes in skin, or some kind of bite

223
00:12:05,520 --> 00:12:09,960
Speaker 1: or something like the kind of a necrotic bite that

224
00:12:10,000 --> 00:12:12,520
Speaker 1: you might imagine someone would get in their worst nightmares

225
00:12:12,559 --> 00:12:14,640
Speaker 1: from a brown recluse, you know that kind of thing.

226
00:12:15,240 --> 00:12:18,680
Speaker 1: Um yeah, they they tie into our like deepest most

227
00:12:18,760 --> 00:12:23,880
Speaker 1: primal fears and desires, just pure eroticism or just pure

228
00:12:25,080 --> 00:12:29,400
Speaker 1: necrotic damage or indeed holes opening up in the earth.

229
00:12:29,440 --> 00:12:31,360
Speaker 1: You know, it's got to be something extreme like that

230
00:12:31,400 --> 00:12:34,160
Speaker 1: to make it into that grid of horror. Yeah, the

231
00:12:34,200 --> 00:12:37,079
Speaker 1: toilet with the rat coming up through it? Remember that one?

232
00:12:37,400 --> 00:12:38,760
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I think I've seen that one. That was

233
00:12:38,800 --> 00:12:41,480
Speaker 1: a common chumbox image or the like. You know, doctors

234
00:12:41,480 --> 00:12:43,840
Speaker 1: say never eat this vegetable, but they don't tell you

235
00:12:43,880 --> 00:12:47,040
Speaker 1: what it is. Yeah yeah, yeah, sometimes it is um it.

236
00:12:47,520 --> 00:12:50,080
Speaker 1: It's economic as well. You know, there'll be some sort

237
00:12:50,160 --> 00:12:52,480
Speaker 1: generally it's like a picture of an old person and

238
00:12:52,559 --> 00:12:56,360
Speaker 1: just a few like alarming words about you know, investments

239
00:12:56,400 --> 00:12:59,440
Speaker 1: or retirement or something. Right, but that is the world

240
00:12:59,440 --> 00:13:02,440
Speaker 1: will single are actually in their own way. I mean,

241
00:13:02,480 --> 00:13:04,760
Speaker 1: of course, they can be horrifying, they can be destructive

242
00:13:04,760 --> 00:13:07,480
Speaker 1: to human life, but they are also fascinating in their

243
00:13:07,480 --> 00:13:10,959
Speaker 1: own way, in a natural way, they are wonderful. Uh.

244
00:13:11,160 --> 00:13:15,359
Speaker 1: There can be beautiful uh legends and stories attached to them,

245
00:13:15,440 --> 00:13:17,559
Speaker 1: and so I don't know, I feel like they are

246
00:13:17,760 --> 00:13:22,000
Speaker 1: the most uh naturally beautiful thing that that fits in

247
00:13:22,040 --> 00:13:24,840
Speaker 1: the chum box. I mean the rat and the toilet

248
00:13:24,920 --> 00:13:26,920
Speaker 1: can't compete. I mean the rat and the toilet. We

249
00:13:26,920 --> 00:13:28,960
Speaker 1: could do an episode on that as well. But yeah,

250
00:13:29,160 --> 00:13:31,480
Speaker 1: I agree, the sinkholes need to be rescued from the

251
00:13:31,800 --> 00:13:34,520
Speaker 1: chum box. Uh. And that's kind of what we're doing

252
00:13:34,559 --> 00:13:36,800
Speaker 1: in in this episode of stuff to blow your mind

253
00:13:36,800 --> 00:13:47,000
Speaker 1: and the possible second episode to fall. Alright, So sinkholes

254
00:13:47,000 --> 00:13:50,600
Speaker 1: are formed in a number of ways, but most naturally

255
00:13:50,640 --> 00:13:54,160
Speaker 1: occurring sinkholes, like most other things on planet Earth, in

256
00:13:54,200 --> 00:13:57,600
Speaker 1: the end, come back to the power of water. Water,

257
00:13:57,640 --> 00:14:00,240
Speaker 1: of course, is the molecule of life, largely be because

258
00:14:00,280 --> 00:14:03,960
Speaker 1: of its power as a master solvent, and in much

259
00:14:04,000 --> 00:14:06,800
Speaker 1: the same way really that water created life on Earth,

260
00:14:06,880 --> 00:14:11,720
Speaker 1: probably it also creates many of Earth's most astounding geologic features.

261
00:14:12,280 --> 00:14:14,720
Speaker 1: And so this is how we we get sinkholes. For

262
00:14:14,760 --> 00:14:17,480
Speaker 1: the most part so as carbon dioxide in the air

263
00:14:17,720 --> 00:14:22,840
Speaker 1: or in the soil mixes with rainwater, that mixture forms

264
00:14:22,880 --> 00:14:26,120
Speaker 1: a weak acid with the with the chemical formula H

265
00:14:26,200 --> 00:14:28,680
Speaker 1: two c O three. So what you've got there is

266
00:14:28,680 --> 00:14:30,520
Speaker 1: you've got your H two oh the water, and then

267
00:14:30,520 --> 00:14:33,560
Speaker 1: you've got your C O two the carbon dioxide. They react,

268
00:14:33,640 --> 00:14:36,240
Speaker 1: they make a compound with two hydrogens, one carbon and

269
00:14:36,320 --> 00:14:40,640
Speaker 1: three oxygen's And this weak acid formed in the atmosphere

270
00:14:40,760 --> 00:14:43,800
Speaker 1: or in the soil is known as carbonic acid, and

271
00:14:43,960 --> 00:14:48,480
Speaker 1: it is the primary reason that caves exist. Now most

272
00:14:48,560 --> 00:14:51,920
Speaker 1: caves in the world, not all, but most are formed

273
00:14:52,040 --> 00:14:56,320
Speaker 1: by the drainage of acidified water through what you might

274
00:14:56,400 --> 00:15:01,120
Speaker 1: call soluble rock, and uh soluble rock types of rock

275
00:15:01,280 --> 00:15:05,280
Speaker 1: that can react chemically with this water and be dissolved

276
00:15:05,320 --> 00:15:08,440
Speaker 1: and carried away now they're There are multiple kinds of

277
00:15:08,480 --> 00:15:13,400
Speaker 1: soluble rock, including minerals like salt and gypsum, But probably

278
00:15:13,440 --> 00:15:16,800
Speaker 1: the most important, or at least the most charismatic, is limestone,

279
00:15:16,920 --> 00:15:21,120
Speaker 1: which is in itself a fascinating and even mind boggling rock.

280
00:15:21,200 --> 00:15:25,120
Speaker 1: And sometimes I really do think a lot about limestone,

281
00:15:25,160 --> 00:15:29,120
Speaker 1: and maybe people are aren't inclined to be as impressed

282
00:15:29,160 --> 00:15:30,960
Speaker 1: by it as I am. But if you don't believe

283
00:15:30,960 --> 00:15:34,000
Speaker 1: me that limestone is amazing, I think it's worth considering

284
00:15:34,280 --> 00:15:36,800
Speaker 1: that if you live in an area of the world

285
00:15:36,880 --> 00:15:39,240
Speaker 1: you know this primarily resting on limestone, which in the

286
00:15:39,320 --> 00:15:42,920
Speaker 1: United States would include huge portions of like Florida and

287
00:15:42,920 --> 00:15:46,080
Speaker 1: the coastal southeast, big parts of the Midwest. If you

288
00:15:46,120 --> 00:15:48,720
Speaker 1: live in a place like that dominated by this this

289
00:15:48,840 --> 00:15:52,880
Speaker 1: carbonate rock, you are walking around every day on rock

290
00:15:53,000 --> 00:15:57,360
Speaker 1: that is probably mostly built out of dead bodies. Limestone

291
00:15:57,400 --> 00:15:59,200
Speaker 1: can be formed in a number of ways. Some of

292
00:15:59,240 --> 00:16:01,480
Speaker 1: those ways are a biotic, but one of the major

293
00:16:01,640 --> 00:16:06,800
Speaker 1: processes that forms limestone is the gradual deposition of the

294
00:16:06,920 --> 00:16:11,720
Speaker 1: shells and other hard calcium carbonate body parts of animals

295
00:16:11,720 --> 00:16:14,920
Speaker 1: and other tiny organisms in the oceans and rivers and

296
00:16:15,040 --> 00:16:19,120
Speaker 1: lakes where they accumulate on the bottoms of these water

297
00:16:19,200 --> 00:16:23,800
Speaker 1: sources over millions of years, and apparently feces also in general,

298
00:16:23,800 --> 00:16:28,120
Speaker 1: waste products can contribute as well. So the calcium based

299
00:16:28,160 --> 00:16:32,040
Speaker 1: body parts of algae and coral and oysters and all

300
00:16:32,120 --> 00:16:35,320
Speaker 1: kinds of creatures of the sea settle in the deep

301
00:16:35,640 --> 00:16:38,480
Speaker 1: and then they're pressed down and paved over by time

302
00:16:38,520 --> 00:16:43,240
Speaker 1: and pressure until they become layers of sedimentary rock. I

303
00:16:43,360 --> 00:16:47,000
Speaker 1: really just think about that. Sometimes limestone is largely made

304
00:16:47,000 --> 00:16:50,640
Speaker 1: out of life that has died and become rock, like

305
00:16:50,680 --> 00:16:53,720
Speaker 1: the fallen creatures of Earth pile up and become part

306
00:16:53,720 --> 00:16:56,880
Speaker 1: of the crust of the Earth itself. Wow, it's like

307
00:16:56,960 --> 00:16:59,800
Speaker 1: it's like the Medusa's layer, right, just all these the

308
00:17:00,640 --> 00:17:03,040
Speaker 1: petrified bodies. Oh, that's I wish I had thought of

309
00:17:03,080 --> 00:17:05,600
Speaker 1: that when we were doing our Medusa episodes, except I

310
00:17:05,640 --> 00:17:08,080
Speaker 1: guess in the Medusa Garden that they keep their form

311
00:17:08,240 --> 00:17:10,960
Speaker 1: right here. They just sort of like go back to

312
00:17:11,080 --> 00:17:15,439
Speaker 1: whence they came. They become part of this mass. But anyway,

313
00:17:15,480 --> 00:17:18,720
Speaker 1: it's via rocks like this that we get so many

314
00:17:18,760 --> 00:17:21,639
Speaker 1: of the naturally occurring sinkholes on the Earth. So how

315
00:17:21,720 --> 00:17:24,480
Speaker 1: do they form? Well, imagine that there is a storm,

316
00:17:24,520 --> 00:17:26,919
Speaker 1: it rains here in an area with some kind of

317
00:17:26,960 --> 00:17:29,400
Speaker 1: soluble rock, let's say it's a it's a carbonate rock,

318
00:17:29,440 --> 00:17:33,240
Speaker 1: it's like limestone, and rainwater collects on the surface of

319
00:17:33,240 --> 00:17:36,400
Speaker 1: the earth and then runs downhill. And if that rainwater

320
00:17:36,560 --> 00:17:41,640
Speaker 1: drains down into cracks insoluble rock like limestone, things begin

321
00:17:41,680 --> 00:17:43,640
Speaker 1: to happen much in the same way that you can

322
00:17:43,680 --> 00:17:46,440
Speaker 1: dissolve table salt or sugar and a glass of water.

323
00:17:46,920 --> 00:17:50,680
Speaker 1: The crystal contents of these soluble rock surfaces are gradually

324
00:17:50,720 --> 00:17:55,200
Speaker 1: dissolved in and carried away by that acidified water, and

325
00:17:55,280 --> 00:17:58,920
Speaker 1: over tens or hundreds of thousands of years, that dissolution

326
00:17:59,000 --> 00:18:01,680
Speaker 1: of the rock by a water can turn what might

327
00:18:01,680 --> 00:18:04,879
Speaker 1: have started as this tiny stress fracture in a chunk

328
00:18:04,880 --> 00:18:08,639
Speaker 1: of bedrock into an underground cavern large enough for a

329
00:18:08,720 --> 00:18:11,520
Speaker 1: human to climb into. And of course, as the centuries

330
00:18:11,600 --> 00:18:15,440
Speaker 1: go on, these these voids created by the drainage pathways

331
00:18:15,480 --> 00:18:18,200
Speaker 1: of water can just get bigger and bigger. They can

332
00:18:18,240 --> 00:18:22,359
Speaker 1: form underground rivers that form larger and larger voids. And

333
00:18:22,440 --> 00:18:25,959
Speaker 1: it's this dissolution of soluble rock by water that usually

334
00:18:26,040 --> 00:18:29,400
Speaker 1: leads to the creation of sinkholes. Uh though these voids

335
00:18:29,400 --> 00:18:32,800
Speaker 1: in the rock I think sometimes maybe geologists will get

336
00:18:32,800 --> 00:18:35,760
Speaker 1: picky about this. These voids in the rock are not

337
00:18:35,920 --> 00:18:39,159
Speaker 1: technically themselves sinkholes, and we would normally think of them

338
00:18:39,160 --> 00:18:43,400
Speaker 1: as voids or just caves right their caves in the rock. Um. Rather,

339
00:18:43,520 --> 00:18:47,879
Speaker 1: a sinkhole is more of a topographical designation. It's a

340
00:18:47,920 --> 00:18:51,679
Speaker 1: topographical concept about the ground and the surface of the earth.

341
00:18:52,320 --> 00:18:55,600
Speaker 1: So according to the U. S Geological Survey, a sinkhole

342
00:18:55,680 --> 00:18:58,800
Speaker 1: is quote an area of ground that has no natural

343
00:18:59,040 --> 00:19:03,399
Speaker 1: external surface drainage. So like in one of these areas,

344
00:19:03,400 --> 00:19:06,880
Speaker 1: if it rains, water just pools in, and there's nowhere

345
00:19:06,880 --> 00:19:10,560
Speaker 1: on the surface level that allows this water to run out.

346
00:19:10,800 --> 00:19:13,520
Speaker 1: So if the water leaves, it's either evaporating into the

347
00:19:13,520 --> 00:19:17,600
Speaker 1: air or it's draining out through somewhere in the bottom. Sinkholes,

348
00:19:17,640 --> 00:19:21,159
Speaker 1: of course, can form gradually over hundreds or hundreds of

349
00:19:21,200 --> 00:19:24,520
Speaker 1: thousands of years, often of steady dissolution, or they can

350
00:19:24,560 --> 00:19:27,960
Speaker 1: form quite suddenly, for example, when the ground over a

351
00:19:28,040 --> 00:19:32,040
Speaker 1: void in the limestone below is suddenly just suddenly there's

352
00:19:32,080 --> 00:19:34,040
Speaker 1: not enough for it to support its own weight, and

353
00:19:34,080 --> 00:19:37,120
Speaker 1: then it just collapses and reveals the void that had

354
00:19:37,119 --> 00:19:39,960
Speaker 1: been there for so long. Uh. And we know that

355
00:19:39,960 --> 00:19:42,520
Speaker 1: the sudden appearance of a sinkhole can have these devastating

356
00:19:42,560 --> 00:19:45,800
Speaker 1: effects on human settlements and uh whatever is lying on

357
00:19:45,840 --> 00:19:48,320
Speaker 1: the surface, which will get into more later, but it

358
00:19:48,359 --> 00:19:53,120
Speaker 1: can also have strange otherworldly effects simply on the geological

359
00:19:53,480 --> 00:19:57,480
Speaker 1: and hydrological landscape itself. And I wanted to share one

360
00:19:57,520 --> 00:20:00,359
Speaker 1: amazing example that I came across while I was reading

361
00:20:00,400 --> 00:20:03,480
Speaker 1: up for this episode. This was the opening paragraph in

362
00:20:03,640 --> 00:20:07,320
Speaker 1: an article for The New Yorker by David Owen. There

363
00:20:07,359 --> 00:20:10,960
Speaker 1: was an article about sinkholes called Notes from Underground, and this,

364
00:20:10,960 --> 00:20:13,359
Speaker 1: this paragraph really gave me chills when I got to

365
00:20:13,359 --> 00:20:15,560
Speaker 1: the end of it. So if you don't mind, I

366
00:20:15,600 --> 00:20:18,040
Speaker 1: just want to share this year. In the fall of nine,

367
00:20:19,119 --> 00:20:23,080
Speaker 1: much of Lake Jackson, a four thousand acre natural body

368
00:20:23,119 --> 00:20:26,440
Speaker 1: of water just north of Tallahassee and a popular site

369
00:20:26,480 --> 00:20:30,879
Speaker 1: for fishing, water skiing, and recreational boating, disappeared down a

370
00:20:30,960 --> 00:20:35,800
Speaker 1: hole like a bathtub, emptying into a drain trophy. Bass

371
00:20:35,840 --> 00:20:40,119
Speaker 1: became stranded in rapidly shrinking eddies, enabling children to catch

372
00:20:40,200 --> 00:20:43,159
Speaker 1: them with their hands and toss them into picnic coolers,

373
00:20:43,640 --> 00:20:46,600
Speaker 1: and many of the lake's other fish, turtles, snakes, and

374
00:20:46,640 --> 00:20:51,240
Speaker 1: alligators vanished into the earth. At various times during the

375
00:20:51,280 --> 00:20:56,160
Speaker 1: next few years, the lake partially refilled, redrained, and refilled again.

376
00:20:57,040 --> 00:21:00,720
Speaker 1: Jonathan Arthur, who is Florida's state geologist and the director

377
00:21:00,720 --> 00:21:03,920
Speaker 1: of the Florida Geological Survey, was among several people who,

378
00:21:04,000 --> 00:21:07,960
Speaker 1: during a dry period, descended a ladder into the main opening,

379
00:21:08,160 --> 00:21:11,600
Speaker 1: which was about eight feet in diameter. Quote, you could

380
00:21:11,600 --> 00:21:14,720
Speaker 1: climb down twelve feet or so and then walk under

381
00:21:14,760 --> 00:21:17,840
Speaker 1: the lake bed. He told me recently. I hadn't gone

382
00:21:17,960 --> 00:21:20,800
Speaker 1: very far before my red flags went up, and I

383
00:21:20,840 --> 00:21:26,240
Speaker 1: was like, maybe I won't go any farther. So that image,

384
00:21:26,320 --> 00:21:28,840
Speaker 1: it combined with the way it's phrase that that really

385
00:21:28,880 --> 00:21:32,200
Speaker 1: gave me goose bumps. Yeah. Yeah, the idea of yeah,

386
00:21:32,200 --> 00:21:33,960
Speaker 1: I mean, it really feels like like a place you

387
00:21:34,000 --> 00:21:36,919
Speaker 1: do not belong that you know, the the cave beneath

388
00:21:36,960 --> 00:21:40,440
Speaker 1: the lake that is. Yeah, that that that could potentially

389
00:21:40,480 --> 00:21:42,639
Speaker 1: fill back up at any moment. Well. And also, I

390
00:21:42,640 --> 00:21:45,240
Speaker 1: mean I think anybody who, especially people who do like

391
00:21:45,240 --> 00:21:50,200
Speaker 1: scuba diving and stuff, are made uniquely aware of the

392
00:21:50,320 --> 00:21:55,280
Speaker 1: dangers of of being in places that combine water and

393
00:21:55,440 --> 00:22:00,000
Speaker 1: overhead rock. Like, yes, about that that can be an

394
00:22:00,160 --> 00:22:06,760
Speaker 1: specially dangerous and and suddenly dangerous, surprisingly dangerous combination of features. Yeah,

395
00:22:06,760 --> 00:22:09,119
Speaker 1: I mean, even if you are an experienced cave diver,

396
00:22:10,600 --> 00:22:14,560
Speaker 1: cave diving is dangerous. Uh so, um so yeah, that

397
00:22:14,680 --> 00:22:18,719
Speaker 1: is a dangerous realm to to go down into for sure. Now,

398
00:22:18,720 --> 00:22:20,960
Speaker 1: I figured it would be worth talking about a few

399
00:22:20,960 --> 00:22:24,560
Speaker 1: of the different ways that natural sinkholes form um Obviously

400
00:22:24,600 --> 00:22:26,480
Speaker 1: things will be a little bit different if you're talking

401
00:22:26,480 --> 00:22:29,680
Speaker 1: about sinkholes, you know, created by human activity, though human

402
00:22:29,720 --> 00:22:32,119
Speaker 1: activity can also contribute to some of the things I'm

403
00:22:32,160 --> 00:22:34,760
Speaker 1: about to talk about. But but if you're talking about

404
00:22:34,840 --> 00:22:39,879
Speaker 1: natural sinkholes in a carbonate rock like limestone um. There

405
00:22:39,920 --> 00:22:43,879
Speaker 1: are three main pathways that were highlighted in UH in

406
00:22:44,040 --> 00:22:46,879
Speaker 1: several sources, in my major source here just being the U.

407
00:22:46,920 --> 00:22:50,280
Speaker 1: S Geological Survey, who has great materials about this um.

408
00:22:50,680 --> 00:22:54,600
Speaker 1: And so the first one is dissolution sinkholes. These are

409
00:22:54,960 --> 00:22:57,359
Speaker 1: relatively gentle sinkholes. You can think of it as a

410
00:22:57,440 --> 00:23:00,719
Speaker 1: kind of top down sinkhole. Here. What you picture is

411
00:23:00,760 --> 00:23:03,800
Speaker 1: that you've got a thin layer of what would be

412
00:23:03,840 --> 00:23:08,280
Speaker 1: called overburden, and overburden just means whatever stuff's on top

413
00:23:08,359 --> 00:23:10,439
Speaker 1: of the rock that makes up the ground. So this

414
00:23:10,520 --> 00:23:15,000
Speaker 1: means soil could be sand, could be clay, pebbles, rocks,

415
00:23:15,080 --> 00:23:18,800
Speaker 1: other material resting on top of the rock layer on

416
00:23:18,880 --> 00:23:22,440
Speaker 1: the surface. Now, in a dissolution sinkhole, rain comes down

417
00:23:22,680 --> 00:23:26,400
Speaker 1: and it collects in a depression in the soluble rock

418
00:23:26,600 --> 00:23:30,480
Speaker 1: and just continues to dissolve and deepen that depression over

419
00:23:30,520 --> 00:23:35,200
Speaker 1: time as water gradually percolates down into cracks or joints

420
00:23:35,200 --> 00:23:38,200
Speaker 1: in the rock below. These tend to form very gradually,

421
00:23:38,240 --> 00:23:40,920
Speaker 1: so you can picture kind of a a gentle sort

422
00:23:40,960 --> 00:23:43,800
Speaker 1: of dip or pond in the rock that water is

423
00:23:43,840 --> 00:23:47,320
Speaker 1: going into, and slowly, over time it's draining down into

424
00:23:47,320 --> 00:23:50,359
Speaker 1: the rock below through some cracks or other types of openings,

425
00:23:50,560 --> 00:23:53,159
Speaker 1: and as it does so, it is dissolving more and

426
00:23:53,200 --> 00:23:55,960
Speaker 1: more of the rock and carrying it away. The next

427
00:23:55,960 --> 00:24:00,280
Speaker 1: type would be cover subsidence sinkholes, and this is where

428
00:24:00,359 --> 00:24:03,520
Speaker 1: you've got a lower level of soluble rock that gets

429
00:24:03,560 --> 00:24:06,199
Speaker 1: dissolved by the process we've already talked about, you know,

430
00:24:06,320 --> 00:24:09,040
Speaker 1: water running through it opening up a void in the rock.

431
00:24:09,920 --> 00:24:13,720
Speaker 1: And in this case, if the soil or overburden that

432
00:24:13,920 --> 00:24:17,840
Speaker 1: is above that layer of rock has certain physical characteristics,

433
00:24:17,880 --> 00:24:20,480
Speaker 1: I think, especially if it's like a more free flowing

434
00:24:20,560 --> 00:24:25,480
Speaker 1: kind of granular sediment like sand. Basically the overburden or

435
00:24:25,600 --> 00:24:29,520
Speaker 1: the soil above kind of gradually pours down into the

436
00:24:29,640 --> 00:24:31,960
Speaker 1: void that opens up. You can imagine it being kind

437
00:24:31,960 --> 00:24:34,679
Speaker 1: of like sand pouring down from the top half of

438
00:24:34,680 --> 00:24:37,840
Speaker 1: an hour glass into the bottom half and uh, and

439
00:24:38,000 --> 00:24:41,960
Speaker 1: that that overburden pours down fills the void up partially,

440
00:24:42,280 --> 00:24:44,560
Speaker 1: but as it does so, it's sort of like creates

441
00:24:44,640 --> 00:24:48,560
Speaker 1: a depression of visible depression in the surface of the overburden.

442
00:24:49,119 --> 00:24:53,400
Speaker 1: And these types of pits tend to develop pretty gradually

443
00:24:53,440 --> 00:24:55,879
Speaker 1: and not be all that deep or all that dangerous. Right.

444
00:24:56,040 --> 00:24:58,480
Speaker 1: You've probably seen pits like this before. You're just walking

445
00:24:58,480 --> 00:25:01,520
Speaker 1: through a field and suddenly there's just a depression in

446
00:25:01,600 --> 00:25:04,679
Speaker 1: the ground. Very possibly what's going on there is this

447
00:25:04,800 --> 00:25:09,000
Speaker 1: cover substance sinkhole. The soil is just kind of draining

448
00:25:09,080 --> 00:25:11,720
Speaker 1: into a void in the rock below. Now, of course,

449
00:25:11,720 --> 00:25:16,520
Speaker 1: it's worth noting in all of this, even these milder

450
00:25:16,560 --> 00:25:19,040
Speaker 1: forms of the sinkhole can certainly be destructive if you

451
00:25:19,080 --> 00:25:22,919
Speaker 1: have some sort of humanum structure built atop of it,

452
00:25:23,880 --> 00:25:27,400
Speaker 1: or a road, etcetera, which is sometimes the case. Right,

453
00:25:27,480 --> 00:25:30,840
Speaker 1: But these first two have the benefit of not being sudden.

454
00:25:31,080 --> 00:25:33,440
Speaker 1: You know that they're going to take time to develop.

455
00:25:33,960 --> 00:25:37,040
Speaker 1: The third category that this is the real monster that

456
00:25:37,080 --> 00:25:40,280
Speaker 1: could inspire the geo myth. Potentially, this is the cover

457
00:25:40,480 --> 00:25:44,240
Speaker 1: collapse sinkhole. And these are the ones that can potentially

458
00:25:44,800 --> 00:25:47,600
Speaker 1: happen in an instant and at least in the United States,

459
00:25:47,640 --> 00:25:50,320
Speaker 1: they tend to be most common in places where the

460
00:25:50,400 --> 00:25:54,080
Speaker 1: overburden is mostly clay. So again you start the same

461
00:25:54,119 --> 00:25:56,600
Speaker 1: way that the last one did. Avoid opens up in

462
00:25:56,640 --> 00:26:01,399
Speaker 1: the underlying layer of soluble rock, and then the lower

463
00:26:01,520 --> 00:26:05,600
Speaker 1: levels of the overburden gradually drained down into the cavity

464
00:26:05,680 --> 00:26:08,400
Speaker 1: in the rock. And as this happens, what you get

465
00:26:08,480 --> 00:26:12,760
Speaker 1: is a cavity gradually opening up from from below and

466
00:26:12,960 --> 00:26:17,080
Speaker 1: climbing up into the overburden or the soil itself. So

467
00:26:17,160 --> 00:26:19,680
Speaker 1: imagine again you've got a rock with a cavity or

468
00:26:19,720 --> 00:26:23,359
Speaker 1: a void in it, and then maybe a layer of clay,

469
00:26:23,480 --> 00:26:26,560
Speaker 1: and so the clay on the bottom starts to seep

470
00:26:26,640 --> 00:26:29,600
Speaker 1: down into that cavern below and it just opens up

471
00:26:29,640 --> 00:26:32,879
Speaker 1: a bigger and bigger void in the clay. And eventually

472
00:26:32,920 --> 00:26:35,479
Speaker 1: what's going to happen there is that that void in

473
00:26:35,520 --> 00:26:39,560
Speaker 1: the clay reaches a point where where the collapsing roof

474
00:26:39,680 --> 00:26:42,639
Speaker 1: of the void breaches the surface, which means whatever is

475
00:26:42,680 --> 00:26:45,640
Speaker 1: on the surface falls into the hole. And that surface

476
00:26:45,720 --> 00:26:48,000
Speaker 1: might well be a road or a lake bed, or

477
00:26:48,040 --> 00:26:50,920
Speaker 1: the ground under a building. And this is the example

478
00:26:50,920 --> 00:26:53,800
Speaker 1: where we can see sudden collapses that can be deadly

479
00:26:53,840 --> 00:26:57,159
Speaker 1: and destructive and terrifying because suddenly what you thought was

480
00:26:57,240 --> 00:27:00,840
Speaker 1: solid ground is revealed to have long how to avoid

481
00:27:00,920 --> 00:27:04,360
Speaker 1: beneath it, and suddenly it can't support whatever's on it anymore,

482
00:27:04,400 --> 00:27:07,240
Speaker 1: and it all goes down into the void. It's basically

483
00:27:07,240 --> 00:27:09,960
Speaker 1: like a trap door effect. You know. That's the that's

484
00:27:10,000 --> 00:27:12,280
Speaker 1: the terrifying part about it. You know, that's like suddenly

485
00:27:12,320 --> 00:27:15,479
Speaker 1: there is this opening beneath this and and people, you know,

486
00:27:15,720 --> 00:27:18,560
Speaker 1: can can build things without having any idea that that's

487
00:27:18,560 --> 00:27:21,800
Speaker 1: what's down there. Yeah, I mean, we've we've gotten to

488
00:27:21,800 --> 00:27:23,639
Speaker 1: the point where if we know what we're looking for,

489
00:27:23,760 --> 00:27:26,399
Speaker 1: especially you know, we we have more tools at our disposal,

490
00:27:27,000 --> 00:27:32,240
Speaker 1: uh for detecting sinkholes and potential sinkholes, and in keeping

491
00:27:32,280 --> 00:27:36,639
Speaker 1: track of existing sinkholes that may be expanding, but but

492
00:27:36,960 --> 00:27:40,680
Speaker 1: expanding it may have expanded. But yeah, for the most part,

493
00:27:40,720 --> 00:27:43,080
Speaker 1: like that, the the the idea here is that you

494
00:27:43,119 --> 00:27:45,800
Speaker 1: don't know what's going to happen, and then suddenly there's

495
00:27:45,840 --> 00:27:48,400
Speaker 1: this chasm there in the earth. Now. Another thing that's

496
00:27:48,440 --> 00:27:50,920
Speaker 1: interesting to me about sinkholes is that we often think

497
00:27:50,920 --> 00:27:54,600
Speaker 1: about geological events like earthquakes and volcanoes as what people

498
00:27:54,720 --> 00:27:57,720
Speaker 1: sometimes call acts of God, you know, natural events that

499
00:27:58,160 --> 00:28:01,159
Speaker 1: occur for reasons vastly be on our control and that

500
00:28:01,240 --> 00:28:04,479
Speaker 1: we can do nothing to stop. But there is some

501
00:28:04,560 --> 00:28:08,680
Speaker 1: indication that human activity may have more impact on some

502
00:28:08,760 --> 00:28:11,960
Speaker 1: massive geological events than once thought, and it certainly appears

503
00:28:12,000 --> 00:28:15,760
Speaker 1: to have an effect on the proliferation of sinkholes in particular.

504
00:28:16,160 --> 00:28:20,399
Speaker 1: In other words, sinkhole collapses can it seems absolutely be

505
00:28:20,480 --> 00:28:23,639
Speaker 1: invited by human behavior, as will probably discuss more as

506
00:28:23,680 --> 00:28:26,159
Speaker 1: we go on, but in broad strokes, it appears that

507
00:28:26,200 --> 00:28:29,520
Speaker 1: sinkle collapses can be induced by uh SO, one thing

508
00:28:29,600 --> 00:28:33,159
Speaker 1: is human construction and other changes in the top level terrain,

509
00:28:33,320 --> 00:28:36,800
Speaker 1: especially how that affects water drainage. So you're moving earth

510
00:28:36,880 --> 00:28:40,440
Speaker 1: around and changing the way that water drains on the surface.

511
00:28:40,520 --> 00:28:44,440
Speaker 1: That can lead to sinkhole collapses. But also pumping of

512
00:28:44,560 --> 00:28:47,560
Speaker 1: groundwater is a huge thing here. You pump out groundwater

513
00:28:47,640 --> 00:28:51,800
Speaker 1: from deep underground uh The pressure of the natural water

514
00:28:51,960 --> 00:28:55,080
Speaker 1: that's in the ground helps keep the soil above it

515
00:28:55,200 --> 00:28:58,560
Speaker 1: in place. So if you take that water out, you

516
00:28:58,680 --> 00:29:02,560
Speaker 1: lower the groundwater level, you can cause collapses of the

517
00:29:02,640 --> 00:29:07,880
Speaker 1: overburden lying over now evacuated aquifer voids. Another thing that

518
00:29:07,960 --> 00:29:10,120
Speaker 1: seems kind of relevant to that story you started with.

519
00:29:10,320 --> 00:29:13,800
Speaker 1: Remember the single collapse that turned out to lead to

520
00:29:13,880 --> 00:29:17,120
Speaker 1: a mine down below in South Dakota. The mine was

521
00:29:17,160 --> 00:29:20,600
Speaker 1: a gypsum mine. So gypsum is a major mineral that's

522
00:29:20,760 --> 00:29:24,000
Speaker 1: that's in the ground there. We've been focusing a lot

523
00:29:24,040 --> 00:29:25,960
Speaker 1: on limestone, but one thing to note that I did

524
00:29:26,040 --> 00:29:28,280
Speaker 1: read also from the U. S Geological Survey was that

525
00:29:28,840 --> 00:29:32,360
Speaker 1: other types of underlying rock layers, such as minerals like

526
00:29:32,400 --> 00:29:36,520
Speaker 1: salt and gypsum, those can sometimes dissolve and form voids

527
00:29:36,800 --> 00:29:41,800
Speaker 1: much faster than even sedimentary carbonate rocks like limestone. So

528
00:29:41,920 --> 00:29:44,760
Speaker 1: limestone will form these voids with water running through it

529
00:29:45,120 --> 00:29:48,880
Speaker 1: over you know, thousands of years, but apparently, uh, salt

530
00:29:48,920 --> 00:29:52,480
Speaker 1: and gypsum potentially with the right circumstances can form large

531
00:29:52,600 --> 00:30:03,440
Speaker 1: voids in in a matter of you know, days or months. Well,

532
00:30:03,520 --> 00:30:08,080
Speaker 1: let's get into some examples of sinkholes. Uh. And granted,

533
00:30:08,120 --> 00:30:11,320
Speaker 1: there are so many sinkholes that have either existed for

534
00:30:11,920 --> 00:30:14,959
Speaker 1: you know, thousands of years or have just popped up

535
00:30:15,560 --> 00:30:18,520
Speaker 1: in you know, recent decades. But I want to start

536
00:30:18,560 --> 00:30:21,440
Speaker 1: with one that I imagine is instantly coming to a

537
00:30:21,520 --> 00:30:24,160
Speaker 1: number of your minds. And you're you're especially when we

538
00:30:24,160 --> 00:30:27,840
Speaker 1: were talking earlier about click baity uh sinkholes. And that

539
00:30:28,000 --> 00:30:30,680
Speaker 1: would be the two thousand seven and especially the two

540
00:30:30,720 --> 00:30:35,800
Speaker 1: thousand ten Guatemala City sinkholes. Um, they're they're worth mentioning

541
00:30:35,800 --> 00:30:37,280
Speaker 1: for a couple of reasons. So, so, first of all,

542
00:30:37,600 --> 00:30:42,120
Speaker 1: there are some very dramatic photographs of this thing. Photographs

543
00:30:42,160 --> 00:30:46,000
Speaker 1: so dramatic that they they look photoshopped. You know, they

544
00:30:46,160 --> 00:30:49,640
Speaker 1: don't look real. Absolutely, it looks like something out of

545
00:30:49,640 --> 00:30:52,240
Speaker 1: a movie. Yeah. It looks like a hole has been

546
00:30:52,560 --> 00:30:56,320
Speaker 1: like a cylindrical hole has been bored into this city

547
00:30:56,400 --> 00:30:59,880
Speaker 1: scape and it just descends into absolute darkness. It is.

548
00:31:00,240 --> 00:31:04,000
Speaker 1: It's a terrifying image. Um. And and and when this

549
00:31:04,160 --> 00:31:07,960
Speaker 1: these occurred, I mean, these were dramatic, traumatic events. These

550
00:31:07,960 --> 00:31:10,760
Speaker 1: were deadly occurrences. That two thousand seven sinkhole killed five

551
00:31:10,800 --> 00:31:13,680
Speaker 1: people and required the evacuation of more than a thousand.

552
00:31:14,040 --> 00:31:17,520
Speaker 1: The two thousand ten sinkhole swallowed a three story factory

553
00:31:17,800 --> 00:31:22,160
Speaker 1: and killed fifteen people. And in both cases, Uh, it

554
00:31:22,200 --> 00:31:24,360
Speaker 1: seems to there seemed to have been a at least

555
00:31:24,520 --> 00:31:27,080
Speaker 1: a trio of causes. So there was the impact of

556
00:31:27,080 --> 00:31:32,320
Speaker 1: tropical Storm Agatha as well as the Pacaya volcano eruption,

557
00:31:33,040 --> 00:31:37,200
Speaker 1: but also leakage from sewer pipes and all of this

558
00:31:37,280 --> 00:31:42,800
Speaker 1: so work together to erode uncemented volcanic ash, limestone and

559
00:31:42,880 --> 00:31:47,160
Speaker 1: other pyroclastic deposits beneath the city. And this case is

560
00:31:47,200 --> 00:31:51,160
Speaker 1: actually so visually alarming. There's a Snopes article about it,

561
00:31:51,520 --> 00:31:53,040
Speaker 1: not because there seems to be like a lot of

562
00:31:53,040 --> 00:31:57,680
Speaker 1: misinformation about the event itself. Uh, but it gets picked

563
00:31:57,720 --> 00:32:01,239
Speaker 1: up continually on social media as it just happened, as

564
00:32:01,320 --> 00:32:04,040
Speaker 1: if it just happened, you know, this week or today,

565
00:32:04,280 --> 00:32:06,760
Speaker 1: as opposed to a decade ago. Right, So the photo

566
00:32:06,920 --> 00:32:10,239
Speaker 1: is real, the story is real, but it's but what

567
00:32:10,360 --> 00:32:12,920
Speaker 1: needs to be debunked is that people want to just

568
00:32:13,040 --> 00:32:16,320
Speaker 1: like reintroduce it as newly relevant over and over again

569
00:32:16,360 --> 00:32:20,880
Speaker 1: because it will always get attention. It's so dramatic looking. Yeah. Uh,

570
00:32:20,880 --> 00:32:23,800
Speaker 1: there's also a good Atlas Obscure article about it, though

571
00:32:23,800 --> 00:32:26,160
Speaker 1: I have to point out that the Atlas Obscura article,

572
00:32:26,720 --> 00:32:29,280
Speaker 1: I think this is a feature of just things that

573
00:32:29,360 --> 00:32:32,160
Speaker 1: they have cataloged on the site. But it says, sorry,

574
00:32:32,280 --> 00:32:37,600
Speaker 1: great Guatemalan sinkhole is permanently closed, which which is it

575
00:32:37,800 --> 00:32:40,440
Speaker 1: is a weird sentence to read. Now. Meanwhile, up here

576
00:32:40,480 --> 00:32:42,880
Speaker 1: in North America, we have our own sinkholes of note.

577
00:32:43,120 --> 00:32:47,680
Speaker 1: For instance, there are two giant West Texans sinkholes in

578
00:32:47,840 --> 00:32:50,880
Speaker 1: Wink and Kerment, Texas. They're located about a mile apart,

579
00:32:51,520 --> 00:32:54,560
Speaker 1: and these are similar to the Guatemalan sinkholes, and that

580
00:32:54,640 --> 00:32:58,560
Speaker 1: we have definite UH connection to human activities. These were

581
00:32:58,600 --> 00:33:02,560
Speaker 1: caused by oil and gas extraction in the area, especially

582
00:33:02,640 --> 00:33:07,720
Speaker 1: during the heyday of nineteen to nineteen sixty four. UH

583
00:33:07,880 --> 00:33:11,640
Speaker 1: Wink Sinc. Number One opened in nineteen eighty and Wink Sinc.

584
00:33:11,760 --> 00:33:14,600
Speaker 1: Number Two open twenty two years later in two thousand

585
00:33:14,600 --> 00:33:16,680
Speaker 1: and two. And I was looking at a two thousand

586
00:33:16,720 --> 00:33:19,959
Speaker 1: sixteen Southern Methodist University study where they were they were

587
00:33:19,960 --> 00:33:21,720
Speaker 1: taking a look at these sinkholes and the fact that

588
00:33:21,720 --> 00:33:24,400
Speaker 1: they seem to be expanding because the ground there is

589
00:33:24,440 --> 00:33:30,520
Speaker 1: still unstable due to changing groundwater levels and dissolving minerals um. However,

590
00:33:30,840 --> 00:33:32,840
Speaker 1: like I said earlier, were now able to use stuff

591
00:33:32,840 --> 00:33:36,440
Speaker 1: like satellite monitoring to keep a better track of sinkhole

592
00:33:36,520 --> 00:33:39,720
Speaker 1: development and progression. But again this is the case similar

593
00:33:39,720 --> 00:33:42,240
Speaker 1: to what we were describing earlier, where we've taken stuff

594
00:33:42,240 --> 00:33:45,080
Speaker 1: out of the ground and in doing so we have

595
00:33:45,200 --> 00:33:48,600
Speaker 1: disrupted like the you know, the natural balance of things down,

596
00:33:48,640 --> 00:33:52,760
Speaker 1: they're making uh, sinkholes more likely to occur. Looking at

597
00:33:52,760 --> 00:33:56,280
Speaker 1: a picture of the wink sinkholes, uh, just not as

598
00:33:56,280 --> 00:33:59,400
Speaker 1: impressive as some of these because the water level seems

599
00:33:59,400 --> 00:34:01,320
Speaker 1: to have been filled up pretty close to the top.

600
00:34:01,400 --> 00:34:03,600
Speaker 1: So it looks like just a weird pit in the

601
00:34:03,600 --> 00:34:06,360
Speaker 1: middle of the desert that could be like a lake.

602
00:34:06,440 --> 00:34:08,759
Speaker 1: It's just you know, water in it. But uh, but

603
00:34:08,840 --> 00:34:11,160
Speaker 1: I imagine if you that water were to drain out,

604
00:34:11,200 --> 00:34:14,000
Speaker 1: it would look pretty pretty messed up. Yeah. Plus the

605
00:34:14,160 --> 00:34:17,920
Speaker 1: bar is pretty high for spectacular looking sinkholes, as we'll

606
00:34:17,920 --> 00:34:20,960
Speaker 1: continue to see as we discuss other sinkholes in the

607
00:34:21,160 --> 00:34:23,440
Speaker 1: in in this episode in the one to follow. Well,

608
00:34:23,480 --> 00:34:25,879
Speaker 1: so I was wondering, what's the what's the deepest known

609
00:34:26,000 --> 00:34:29,080
Speaker 1: sinkhole on planet Earth? Oh, well, if we want to

610
00:34:29,120 --> 00:34:31,880
Speaker 1: go to the deepest, uh, then we have to go

611
00:34:31,960 --> 00:34:36,319
Speaker 1: to China. That is where we encounter China's um. This

612
00:34:36,440 --> 00:34:42,560
Speaker 1: is the the Shijiao uh Tien King or the Heavenly Pit,

613
00:34:43,239 --> 00:34:45,560
Speaker 1: and it's it's name for a nearby village and then

614
00:34:45,800 --> 00:34:49,920
Speaker 1: uh Tian King just means heavenly pit. And it's located

615
00:34:50,280 --> 00:34:55,400
Speaker 1: near chan Qing in southwest China. It's apparently six hundred

616
00:34:55,440 --> 00:34:58,680
Speaker 1: and twenty six meters or two thousand and fifty four

617
00:34:58,719 --> 00:35:01,840
Speaker 1: ft long. It is five hundred and thirty seven meters

618
00:35:01,960 --> 00:35:04,520
Speaker 1: or a thousand, six hundred sixty two feet wide, and

619
00:35:04,560 --> 00:35:07,400
Speaker 1: it is between five hundred eleven and six hundred and

620
00:35:07,400 --> 00:35:11,480
Speaker 1: sixty two meters deep or between one thousand, six hundred

621
00:35:11,480 --> 00:35:14,040
Speaker 1: and seventy seven to two thousand, one hundred seventy two

622
00:35:14,320 --> 00:35:17,799
Speaker 1: feet deep, So it's deep. That's a big It is

623
00:35:17,840 --> 00:35:20,080
Speaker 1: an enormous hole. And this is one that I recommend

624
00:35:20,160 --> 00:35:22,799
Speaker 1: looking at pictures of because it's is really splendid looking.

625
00:35:22,800 --> 00:35:26,279
Speaker 1: It's beautiful because it um you have the it's it's

626
00:35:26,440 --> 00:35:29,759
Speaker 1: you have this this this double um. It's like a

627
00:35:29,840 --> 00:35:32,200
Speaker 1: double pit. There's like the initial pit and then the

628
00:35:33,280 --> 00:35:36,120
Speaker 1: pit below. You have vertical walls going down to a

629
00:35:36,160 --> 00:35:38,560
Speaker 1: little area that tapers off, and then more vertical walls

630
00:35:39,239 --> 00:35:43,560
Speaker 1: going down even further. There's some rich vegetation around it. Um.

631
00:35:43,560 --> 00:35:45,920
Speaker 1: It's it's really beautiful to look at, and indeed it

632
00:35:45,960 --> 00:35:48,960
Speaker 1: is a tourist attraction if you travel there. There apparently

633
00:35:49,000 --> 00:35:52,759
Speaker 1: two thousand, eight hundred steps constructed that allow visitors to

634
00:35:52,840 --> 00:35:54,920
Speaker 1: journey all the way down to the bottom of that

635
00:35:55,080 --> 00:35:58,520
Speaker 1: second nested pit which I was reading, I think it

636
00:35:58,560 --> 00:36:01,239
Speaker 1: takes you're gonna spend like a couple of hours doing that.

637
00:36:01,520 --> 00:36:04,080
Speaker 1: I think I read that this is also a limestone pit,

638
00:36:04,200 --> 00:36:06,160
Speaker 1: and yeah, one of the great things about it is

639
00:36:06,440 --> 00:36:09,400
Speaker 1: pits of the size and of of this age. You know,

640
00:36:09,440 --> 00:36:12,760
Speaker 1: it's been around for a long time where the surface

641
00:36:12,840 --> 00:36:16,359
Speaker 1: life has just poured down into it, so you know,

642
00:36:16,440 --> 00:36:19,839
Speaker 1: it looks almost like the forest is spilling into the pit,

643
00:36:20,640 --> 00:36:23,120
Speaker 1: and of course the you know, it's a habitat for

644
00:36:23,160 --> 00:36:26,440
Speaker 1: many animals. I think I saw a report that maybe

645
00:36:26,880 --> 00:36:31,600
Speaker 1: rare like the clouded leopard had been spotted there. I think, oh, interesting. Yeah,

646
00:36:32,239 --> 00:36:34,520
Speaker 1: you see time and time again reading about different sink

647
00:36:34,560 --> 00:36:38,760
Speaker 1: calls that they inevitably become uh like an interesting place

648
00:36:38,840 --> 00:36:41,719
Speaker 1: to look at biodiversity. And we'll get we'll get more

649
00:36:41,760 --> 00:36:44,080
Speaker 1: into that later. But yeah, these are these end up

650
00:36:44,080 --> 00:36:46,520
Speaker 1: being you know, they're not just especially ones that have

651
00:36:46,520 --> 00:36:48,160
Speaker 1: been there for a considerable amount of time. They're not

652
00:36:48,200 --> 00:36:51,040
Speaker 1: just holes in the earth. They don't remain voids. Nature

653
00:36:51,160 --> 00:36:54,920
Speaker 1: feels that void and it does so in very remarkable ways.

654
00:36:56,120 --> 00:37:00,960
Speaker 1: Now there are numerous um heavenly pits in this of China,

655
00:37:01,040 --> 00:37:03,600
Speaker 1: and I can only imagine that there are some really

656
00:37:03,760 --> 00:37:07,840
Speaker 1: interesting traditions and legends about these geologic features, but I

657
00:37:07,880 --> 00:37:10,040
Speaker 1: have to admit that I could not find any of them,

658
00:37:10,080 --> 00:37:13,160
Speaker 1: at least none that had been translated into English. So

659
00:37:13,200 --> 00:37:16,200
Speaker 1: if anybody out there has that information, I would love

660
00:37:16,239 --> 00:37:19,600
Speaker 1: to hear about it, because a sinkhole like this is

661
00:37:19,640 --> 00:37:22,000
Speaker 1: just it's just too amazing. And it's been around way

662
00:37:22,000 --> 00:37:24,879
Speaker 1: too long. It's been around since ancient times, so there

663
00:37:24,880 --> 00:37:27,600
Speaker 1: have to be some cool traditions and legends regarding its

664
00:37:27,640 --> 00:37:31,520
Speaker 1: origin and things that live there, et cetera. Yeah, like you,

665
00:37:31,560 --> 00:37:34,000
Speaker 1: I was looking for similar things and I couldn't find

666
00:37:34,040 --> 00:37:37,359
Speaker 1: any any any cultural context for it. But I would

667
00:37:37,400 --> 00:37:39,839
Speaker 1: love to know if you know out there now there

668
00:37:39,920 --> 00:37:42,480
Speaker 1: is another Chinese sinkhole of note that does have some

669
00:37:42,520 --> 00:37:46,280
Speaker 1: cool legend applied to it, and that is a dragon

670
00:37:46,360 --> 00:37:51,279
Speaker 1: hole in the Paracel Islands. It's nine four feet deep

671
00:37:51,800 --> 00:37:54,640
Speaker 1: two hundred and ninety nine meters, so this is out

672
00:37:54,719 --> 00:37:57,799
Speaker 1: in the ocean. It's also known as the Young Lu

673
00:37:57,920 --> 00:38:01,120
Speaker 1: dragon Hole, named for the fifteenth century Mean Dynasty Young

674
00:38:01,200 --> 00:38:05,040
Speaker 1: Lu Emperor Um. It's also known as the Eye of

675
00:38:05,080 --> 00:38:08,120
Speaker 1: the South China Sea and the tradition here is that

676
00:38:08,200 --> 00:38:12,000
Speaker 1: this is where the Monkey King uh soon Will Kong

677
00:38:12,480 --> 00:38:16,560
Speaker 1: finds his golden cudgel in Journey to the West. So

678
00:38:16,600 --> 00:38:18,960
Speaker 1: this would be his magical staff. If you've ever seen

679
00:38:19,000 --> 00:38:21,120
Speaker 1: a movie with the with the Monkey King in it,

680
00:38:21,280 --> 00:38:23,200
Speaker 1: or seeing images of the Monkey King, this is his big,

681
00:38:23,239 --> 00:38:26,759
Speaker 1: amazing fighting staff. So he actually gets it from this pit.

682
00:38:27,480 --> 00:38:30,320
Speaker 1: Well that is that is what they've sort of taken

683
00:38:30,360 --> 00:38:33,359
Speaker 1: the story and said, oh, this must be the pit okay,

684
00:38:33,440 --> 00:38:35,680
Speaker 1: because in the story he has to retrieve it from

685
00:38:35,719 --> 00:38:39,000
Speaker 1: the underwater kingdom of of Ao Guang, the dragon King

686
00:38:39,040 --> 00:38:42,960
Speaker 1: of the East Sea, and uh yeah, this this amazing

687
00:38:43,040 --> 00:38:47,480
Speaker 1: magical staff, the the compliant golden hooped rod or has

688
00:38:47,520 --> 00:38:50,440
Speaker 1: it also been translated as the as you will gold

689
00:38:50,480 --> 00:38:55,920
Speaker 1: banded cudgel? Um? Oh I see compliant or as you will? Yeah, yeah,

690
00:38:55,960 --> 00:38:59,080
Speaker 1: it's um. They're also there's legends that this may have

691
00:38:59,120 --> 00:39:01,680
Speaker 1: been you the gray It's measuring stick for determining the

692
00:39:01,760 --> 00:39:04,759
Speaker 1: depth of the Great Flood, So it has that would

693
00:39:04,800 --> 00:39:06,520
Speaker 1: make sense that you know, it would be underwater because

694
00:39:06,520 --> 00:39:09,759
Speaker 1: there's this connection to the depths, and so anyway he

695
00:39:09,840 --> 00:39:12,960
Speaker 1: dives down into this hole and retrieves it. Now is this. Uh,

696
00:39:13,040 --> 00:39:15,120
Speaker 1: this is a picture of this pit that you've attached

697
00:39:15,200 --> 00:39:17,680
Speaker 1: here for us to look at. Yes, so again it's

698
00:39:17,680 --> 00:39:19,759
Speaker 1: out out in the water, and it's just like a

699
00:39:19,800 --> 00:39:23,200
Speaker 1: sudden deep section of the of the water, a hole

700
00:39:23,719 --> 00:39:28,120
Speaker 1: in the sea floor that contains you know, dark depths.

701
00:39:28,160 --> 00:39:31,719
Speaker 1: You may have seen pictures of sinkholes in tropical oceans

702
00:39:31,760 --> 00:39:34,239
Speaker 1: like this before, for example, if you've ever seen a

703
00:39:34,239 --> 00:39:36,600
Speaker 1: picture of the Great Blue Hole, which as I think

704
00:39:36,719 --> 00:39:41,640
Speaker 1: is in Belize. Um. So the way that looks from

705
00:39:41,719 --> 00:39:43,840
Speaker 1: above is that, yeah, you'll see a sort of just

706
00:39:44,080 --> 00:39:48,640
Speaker 1: ring of dark blue surrounded by much lighter blue as

707
00:39:48,719 --> 00:39:52,719
Speaker 1: as I guess, that just reflects the sudden difference in depth. Yeah, exactly,

708
00:39:52,719 --> 00:39:54,640
Speaker 1: it's this is very much in keeping with the Great

709
00:39:54,640 --> 00:39:59,240
Speaker 1: Blue Hole, just maybe less dramatic looking, but still extremely beautiful. Now.

710
00:39:59,000 --> 00:40:03,200
Speaker 1: In is reported by Danny Lewis for Smithsonian mag dot com,

711
00:40:03,239 --> 00:40:07,800
Speaker 1: researchers discovered uh like something like forty nine sinkholes clustered

712
00:40:07,800 --> 00:40:12,000
Speaker 1: close together while serving the chin Lang Bashan Mountains in

713
00:40:12,080 --> 00:40:17,440
Speaker 1: China's uh uh Shaanxi Province, the largest being one thousand,

714
00:40:17,480 --> 00:40:19,880
Speaker 1: seven hundred and six ft or five hundred and nineteen

715
00:40:19,880 --> 00:40:23,720
Speaker 1: meters wide and a thousand and fifty or three hundred

716
00:40:23,719 --> 00:40:27,480
Speaker 1: and twenty feet deep. So um, yeah, it's uh. We

717
00:40:27,800 --> 00:40:30,440
Speaker 1: keep finding these things, you know, or in many cases,

718
00:40:30,480 --> 00:40:33,799
Speaker 1: rediscovering them, and every time discoveries like this, you're made.

719
00:40:34,040 --> 00:40:36,839
Speaker 1: You know, it's not just an interesting geologic curio, it's

720
00:40:36,880 --> 00:40:42,360
Speaker 1: a fresh opportunity to gaze back in time to understand geology, biology,

721
00:40:42,520 --> 00:40:46,120
Speaker 1: and even the climate of the region in in times past.

722
00:40:46,360 --> 00:40:48,719
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, because this is an interesting thing. You were

723
00:40:48,719 --> 00:40:51,840
Speaker 1: pointing out when we started looking at this, that sinkholes

724
00:40:51,880 --> 00:40:55,120
Speaker 1: are often used as a kind of scientific time capsule,

725
00:40:55,280 --> 00:40:58,359
Speaker 1: that there are ways that sinkholes can tell us things

726
00:40:58,400 --> 00:41:02,480
Speaker 1: about the past the face can't do quite as easily. Absolutely,

727
00:41:02,480 --> 00:41:05,480
Speaker 1: and I think we'll start our next episode by diving

728
00:41:05,480 --> 00:41:09,359
Speaker 1: into that discussing the ways that sinkholes are are very

729
00:41:09,400 --> 00:41:12,799
Speaker 1: often time capsules that we can unlock, that we can

730
00:41:12,960 --> 00:41:15,879
Speaker 1: we can venture into not just to you know, to

731
00:41:15,440 --> 00:41:17,759
Speaker 1: to to be in awe of the of the you know,

732
00:41:17,800 --> 00:41:21,800
Speaker 1: this dramatic environment around us, but to uncover the secrets

733
00:41:21,800 --> 00:41:24,200
Speaker 1: of the Earth and the secrets of the ecosystem. I

734
00:41:24,239 --> 00:41:25,840
Speaker 1: can't wait. We got a lot of cool stuff to

735
00:41:25,840 --> 00:41:29,360
Speaker 1: talk about next time. We can talk about uh, sinkholes

736
00:41:29,400 --> 00:41:33,600
Speaker 1: in religions, sinkholes in space, sinkholes as time capsules. It's

737
00:41:33,640 --> 00:41:36,759
Speaker 1: gonna be great, that's right. And in the meantime, if

738
00:41:36,800 --> 00:41:38,640
Speaker 1: you want to check out other episodes of Stuff to

739
00:41:38,640 --> 00:41:40,360
Speaker 1: Blow Your Mind, you know where to get them. You

740
00:41:40,400 --> 00:41:41,879
Speaker 1: can get them in the Stuff to Blow your Mind

741
00:41:41,880 --> 00:41:44,800
Speaker 1: podcast feed and you'll find that wherever you get your podcast,

742
00:41:45,080 --> 00:41:49,040
Speaker 1: Just rate, review and subscribe, uh to support us. We

743
00:41:49,080 --> 00:41:50,879
Speaker 1: have core episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind every

744
00:41:50,880 --> 00:41:55,399
Speaker 1: Tuesday and Thursday. On Mondays and Wednesdays we have let's say,

745
00:41:55,400 --> 00:41:57,600
Speaker 1: an episode of the Artifact. We have some listener mail

746
00:41:57,760 --> 00:42:00,239
Speaker 1: trickling in every week, and on Fridays we do a

747
00:42:00,239 --> 00:42:03,960
Speaker 1: little weird house cinema. That's our chance to discuss a

748
00:42:04,000 --> 00:42:06,719
Speaker 1: weird movie, you know, and not not lean into the

749
00:42:06,719 --> 00:42:10,160
Speaker 1: science too much, but more lean into the weird. Huge

750
00:42:10,200 --> 00:42:13,760
Speaker 1: thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson.

751
00:42:14,040 --> 00:42:15,640
Speaker 1: If you'd like to get in touch with us with

752
00:42:15,760 --> 00:42:18,400
Speaker 1: feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest topic

753
00:42:18,440 --> 00:42:20,840
Speaker 1: for the future, just to say hello, you can email

754
00:42:20,920 --> 00:42:31,600
Speaker 1: us at contact at Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.

755
00:42:31,640 --> 00:42:34,120
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind's production of I Heart Radio.

756
00:42:34,480 --> 00:42:36,600
Speaker 1: For more podcasts for my heart Radio with the i

757
00:42:36,680 --> 00:42:39,480
Speaker 1: heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you're listening to

758
00:42:39,520 --> 00:42:52,880
Speaker 1: your favorite shows,