As sinkholes are appear more and more frequently, I find myself considering what the different causes might be. I know fracking has been going on since 1949, and there are thousands of sites now. They use billions of gallons of water to inject the waste water back in to depths of the earth, so I wnder.....
1) What the effects of extracting oil and gas from the underground is. 2) What long-term and cumlitive effects from fracturing the rocks beneath the surface might be. 3) If the billions of gallons of water used daily by the fracking industry is directly responsible for dangerous depletion of our aquifers. 4) If major settling of the earth will one day occur in the form of some popwerful earthquakes as all of the fractured rock re-settles. Here's the one in Russia: link
Can you immagine that happening in downtown New York?
We have some great scientific minds in the world that just love to publish theories- yet there seems to be almost no interest in this phenomenon. Hmm.....
It seems Ottawa's probably has a more mundane explanation than a mysterious, exciting one:
Exactly why the sinkhole formed is unclear, but what is known is that it formed over a vein of sand, silt and fractured rock so unstable, that workers completing the light rail tunnel below had to inch along cautiously for fear of causing a cave-in.
They already knew they'd found a very fragile spot, it's a wonder they were permitted to keep going with the tunnel. I think this is more likely a case of "Nah, it'll hold!" construction oops than anything. It seems like an obvious end result when weakening the natural support structure around something already weak, that it's going to eventually give out.
Queen of English Language Mangling, Master of the Edit button
This hole on Rideau Street is one block from my office building! I now have a 20 minute wwalking detour to go catch my bus as it passes right where the hole is normally.
They are digging for the O-train and have been for a few years now and thank god this hole didnt reach deeper cause the water would would have filled the tunnel!
Now I cant even get my Timmy's (coffee) before work since this forced the closure of that section of downtown... The coffee in my building sucks!
There are a few more weak spot along Wellington Street towards Parliament....I just hope this doesnt happen again.....traffic has been deadly! (an extra 30 minutes dut to the detours (I now commute nearly 2 hours to work).
There was a Van that fell into the hole and they just left it there before pouring who knows how much concrete to fill the hole (this is above the O-Train tunnel btw....I aint using that damned thing, its an acciedent waiting to happen).
All is supposed to be back in working order by July 1st! I hope so cause that is Canada Day and the streets get pretty busy then.
Teye
You don't have a soul. You are a soul, you have a body!
I was able to take an up to date picture of the area as I left work last night, i ill post it here later today when I am on a PC! Looks more like a construction site now!
i cant post it from my phone, too big!
You don't have a soul. You are a soul, you have a body!