Florida Sinkholes

Sinkholes are incredible destructive unpredictable natural disasters. Florida has many sinkhole occurrences, caused by its limestone soil weakening with dried up water pockets in it. Much like every other natural disaster, sinkholes do take lives. Sinkholes tend to most occur in the mid-Florida to Tampa area. Though sinkholes are not very talked about or are normal occurrences, they do happen and many people do not know what they are. A sinkhole is a natural hole that forms in the Earth’s surface as a result of the chemical weathering of carbonate rocks like limestone, as well as salt beds or rocks that can be severely weathered as water runs through them. Sinkholes develop when sub-surface rock develops a hole or void due to erosion, gradually soil from above seeps to fill the void in the rock, creating an open area or void in the sub-surface soil (“Staff”). Chemical weathering and loose limestone soil are ingredients to a sinkhole, naturally. Although sinkholes are natural humans can and do have an influence when sinkholes do occur. "Excessive groundwater withdrawal for irrigation purposes, for example, can sometimes trigger a sinkhole because it depressurizes the aquifer. Another mechanism that ... occurred here in New Mexico a couple of years ago was brine well pumping. There was a company here that was injecting freshwater into the salt beds in the subsurface and dissolving out the salt to form brine…” (Rossiter). As we now know what sinkholes are and how they happen, the real question is, why in Florida? Sinkholes are a part of the slow, natural process of erosion in Florida’s limestone terrain that occur over thousands of years (“How”). Sinkholes occur in Florida because much of the state’s land sits on soft limestone that is susceptible to dissolving, creating sinkholes. The whole state of Florida sits on top of thousands of feet of carbonated limestone, but the region where most sinkholes happen is the west-central part of Florida.