A team of Chinese scientists discovered a giant new sinkhole with a forest at its bottom.
According to the Xinhua news agency, the sinkhole is so deep that it can swallow the Gateway Arch. A team of speleologists and spelunkers rappelled into the chasm on Friday, discovering that there are three cave entrances, as well as ancient trees 131 feet tall, stretching their branches toward the sunlight that filters through the sinkhole entrance.
George Veni, the executive director of the National Cave and Karst Research Institute (NCKRI) in the U.S. and an international expert on caves, said this is cool news. The Institute of Karst Geology of the China Geological Survey is the sister institute of NCKRI.
Veni told Live Science that southern China is home to a landscape prone to dramatic sinkholes and caves. Karst landscapes are formed by the dissolution of bedrock. Rainwater picks up carbon dioxide as it runs through the soil and becomes more acidic. It trickles, rushes and flows through cracks in the bedrock, slowly widening them into tunnels and voids. If a cave chamber gets large enough, the ceiling can gradually collapse, opening up huge sinkholes.
Skyscraper-size sinkholes open up on the ocean.
There are differences in geology, climate and other factors that can make the way the karst appears dramatically different in China. In other parts of the world, you don't notice anything when you walk on the karst. Only a meter or two in diameter are the depths of the holes. Cave entrances might be small, so you have to squeeze your way in.
Veni said that 25% of the United States is a pseudokarst, which features caves carved by factors other than dissolution. Roughly 20% of the world's landmass is made of one of these two cave-rich landscapes.
There was a new discovery in the county of Leye in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. The UNESCO world heritage site designation of the region is due to its wonderful karst formations, which include sinkholes, rock pillars, and natural bridges.
According to a senior engineer with the Institute of Karst Geology, the interior of the sinkhole is 1,004 feet long and 150 feet wide. The bottom of the enormous sinkhole seemed like it was another world, as the Mandarin word for it wastiankeng orheavenly pit. The dense undergrowth on the floor of the cave was as high as a person&s shoulders, according to Chen Lixin, who led the cave expedition team. Veni said that Karst caves and sinkholes can be an Oasis for life.
I wouldn't be surprised to know that there are species found in these caves that have never been reported or described by science.
In one West Texas cave, Veni said, tropical ferns grow in abundance; the spores of the ferns were apparently carried to the sheltered spot by bats that migrate to South and Central America.
In addition to being a place of refuge for life, caves and sinkholes are also conduits of underground water. 700 million people rely on the Karst aquifers as their primary water source. They are easily accessed and drained.
Veni said that the only types of aquifers that can be polluted with solid waste are the Karst ones.
There are 30 sinkholes in Leye County. The same researchers have previously discovered dozens of sinkholes in Shaanxi province and a cluster of connected ones in Guangxi.
It was originally published on Live Science.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
