Sinkholes for Dummies

Karst landforms, including sinkholes

The content farmers at HubPages.com are quite helpful to our researchers sometimes. Take, for instance, yesterday's daily check to be certain that the source material for older awards is still active: one of the staffers noticed a "related" link off to the side of an article we featured for its misinformation about sinkholes. Guess what: that article was an even better example of freelancers who shouldn't be writing about the topic! So, without further ado, here's Marcy Goodfleisch and her post, "What Are Sinkholes?

According to her bio, Goodfleisch lives in Austin, Texas. Since Austin's water is sourced from the Edwards aquifer, you'd think Marcy might have picked up some knowledge by osmosis (or by reading the American-Statesman or watching local news). Apparently not, however... Marcy (like Deborah Osae-Oppong before her) merely wanted to capitalize on a recent news story (a golfer swallowed by a sinkhole). Apparently, she did not realize that there are loads of sinkholes not far from her home!
That, however, is not Goodfleisch's biggest problem. No, her problem is that she has no idea what she's writing about. If she did, she would have done a better job of explaining how a sinkhole forms than,

"Sinkholes are naturally formed 'holes' in the earth\h [sic] caused by the erosion of the rock surrounding the holes or depressions.

The erosion (also known as the karst process) happens when water is introduced into rock that is permeable and 'eats' at it, almost chemically, thereby weakening its structure."

The water "'eats' at it, almost chemically"? that's not exactly a clear explanation of the karst process which, FWIW, is a chemical process! Let's see what a knowledgeable person says about karst. Karst, named after a region of Italy where caves and sinkholes are abundant, refers to a process in which water dissolves bedrock, usually limestone or dolomite. The result is subterranean caves. When the roof of a cave collapses, the overlying ground sinks either slowly or rapidly. That's a sinkhole.

There are also man-made sinkholes, generally at the side of a leak in a water main or an underground tunnel. Sinkholes, however, or not caused,

"...when the rock surrounding the hole becomes fragile or brittle enough to cave in..."

...regardless of what Goodfleisch seems to think. She also somewhere got the impression that sinkholes,

"...in Yucatan are thought to be formed from the impact of an enormous meteor that slammed into the earth just off of what is now the tip of that peninsula."

Wait, what? where did that ridiculous notion come from? Ahh, yes, a scientific illiterate's bastardization of a theory mentioned in Wikipedia. Where would the average Dumbass of the Day be without the ability to misinterpret what someone else said in Wikipedia? It boggles the imagination...

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