A pair of giant sinkholes have appeared at the Top of the Rock Golf Course in Taney County, Missouri, on Friday 22 May 2014. The larger of the two sinkholes measures 25 m across by 10 m deep, while the smaller is 8 m wide and 6 m deep. Nobody has been hurt by the appearance of the holes, but they have caused considerable damage to the course, which regularly hosts major tournaments.
One of the sinkholes at the Top of the Rock Golf Course on Friday 22 May 2015. NWA.
Sinkholes are generally caused by water eroding soft limestone or unconsolidated deposits from beneath, causing a hole that works its way upwards and eventually opening spectacularly at the surface. Where there are unconsolidated deposits at the surface they can infill from the sides, apparently swallowing objects at the surface, including people, without trace.
Such sinkholes are quite common in the Top of the Rock area, which lies on karstic limestone (limestone in the process of being eroded away by water percolating through it); the golf course is actually part of a large leisure and tourism complex built around a system of limestone caves in the Ozark Mountains. The sinkholes are currently being investigated by geologists who believe they may be connected to a previously unknown cave or cave system.
The location of the Top of the Rock Golf Course. Google Maps.
See also...
Magnitude 3.6 Earthquake in Pemiscot County, southeast Missouri.
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The United States Geological Survey recorded a Magnitude 2.8 Earthquake at a depth of 7.7 km, roughly 4 km to the west of the city of Malden in Dunklin...
Two workers have been killed at a lime mine in Ste Genevieve, Missouri, on Friday 11 April 2014. John Hahl (54) and Chris Rawson (29) were working in a suspended basket at the mine, collecting loose material from a rockface, when the basket was struck by a falling rock, detaching it and causing the men to fall...
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