What do five Porsches, several Kentucky thoroughbreds and a three-story building in Guatemala City have in common? They’ve all been swallowed by sinkholes.
Sadly, the sudden cave-ins sometimes claim people’s lives as well. On February 28 the earth opened up underneath the Seffner, Fla., bedroom of Jeff Bush, entombing him. The freak accident highlighted Florida’s vulnerability to sinkholes, and the seemingly sheer randomness of death by earth.
But geologists are fighting back. The battle isn’t just one man versus the ground; it’s science versus society’s tendency to put structures in harm’s way.
Sinkholes are just one manifestation of a much larger geographic phenomenon known as karst. You’ve seen karst landscapes if you’ve been through the Hill Country of central Texas or to Mammoth Cave in Kentucky. Karst can form anywhere you get rock that is easily dissolved — like limestone or its chemical relative, dolomite — and water draining through that rock.