Part of the fairway at the Canyon Farms Golf Course in Lenexa, Kansas has had to be closed after a large sinkhole opened up on the course on Friday 19 June 2015. Nobody was injured by the event, however the hole, which is about 3 m deep, presents a major obstacle to golfers, and it is not clear at the current time what can be done to repair the course.
Aerial photograph of the Canyon Farms Golf Course sinkhole. KCTV5.
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. Potash, a potassium salt, is readily soluble and can be dissolved quickly if water gains access to deposits, leading to the rapid formation of sinkholes.
The approximate location of the Canyon Farms Golf Course sinkhole. Google Maps.
The Canyon Farms Golf Course is known to have been partially constructed over an old limestone mine, and this appears to have been the cause of the sinkhole. It is likely that heavy rain in the past weeks has led both to water-logging of surface sediments (increasing their weight) and weakening of buried limestone deposits from which extraction previously occurred. Rainfall can be acidified by carbon dioxide, which dissolves in the water to form carbonic acid, which presents no immediate health threat to humans but which attacks limestone vigorously.
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