Buildings perch precariously over a sinkhole that collapsed in 2010 in downtown Guatemala City.
An aerial view shows the inside of a giant sinkhole that appeared in Guatemala City in 2007.
An aerial view shows workers trying to retrieve cars from a sinkhole in Winter Park, Florida in May 1981.
An aerial picture of trucks near a sinkhole in a mining waste stack near Mulberry, Florida.
An aerial view of the huge sinkhole known as the Blue Hole in Belize.
A man stands near a sinkhole where earth collapsed over a former mine in Picher, Oklahoma..
Adventure kayaker Mick Coyne lowers himself down a sinkhole toward the headwaters of Iceland's Jokulsa River.
Swimmers bask in sunlight falling through the roof of the Ik-Kil cenote in Mexico.
Workers use a crane to lift a bus out of a sinkhole that formed in a street in Lisbon, Portugal.
Cavers drop into Neversink Pit in Alabama.
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Guatemala Sinkhole, 2010Heavy rains from tropical storm Agatha likely triggered the collapse of a huge sinkhole in Guatemala on Sunday, seen above a few days afterward. In the strictly geologic use of the word, a sinkhole happens when water erodes solid bedrock, carving an underground cavity that can then collapse. Many parts of the United States are at risk for that type of event. The Guatemala sinkhole fits into a broader use of the term, which refers to any sudden slump of the ground's surface. Instead of solid bedrock, much of Guatemala City rests atop a layer of loose, gravelly volcanic pumice that is hundreds of feet thick. And at least one geologist says leaking pipes—not nature—created the recent sinkhole. Overall, the risk for repeat sinkholes in Guatemala City is high—but highly unpredictable. (See more pictures of the 2010 Guatemala sinkhole.) —Anne Minard
Photograph by Daniel LeClair, Reuters

Pictures: Guatemala Sinkhole Adds to World's Famous Pits

The sinkhole that opened up in Guatemala adds to the chasms—natural and human-induced—that have appeared from Alabama to Iceland.

June 06, 2010

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