2-mile long crack in Arizona

[Richard]

34-second video on The Weather Channel elaborates about "A long crack in the Earth has been found in the Arizona desert, longer than other similar ones. Meteorologist Orelon Sidney explains that it's due to the pumping out of enormous amounts of groundwater."

https://weather.com/science/nature/...-in-arizona?cm_ven=FB_MKPPC_Arizona_2072017_1

 

[LeeRevell]

This has been occuring in many places. Same process as the limestone sinkholes that we see often here in Florida.

 

[Queen]

This has been occuring in many places.  Same process as the limestone sinkholes that we see often here in Florida.

And on the local news there is always some homeowner, whose house was falling into a sinkhole, looking all perplexed and saying to the camera "how could this happen?".

 

[rvpopeye]

That is a pretty big crack!
If you're plannin' on goin' ta check 'er out.
Don't forget the 'ol sayin and bring a 2x4 !

 

[SoulRaven]

We lived in Pima County out toward Pinal County. I was always so disgusted watching them irrigating fields, watering lawns filled with northern plants and golf courses in a place that got so little rain. Also, our water there was cheaper than anywhere else we had lived where water was more abundant. When we drove over to Pinal once looking around, we came upon a huge commercial cattle producer. They were also growing cotton. All of these things that could have been done elsewhere in the country without this negative impact. "Waste not, want not."

 

[Wabbit]

That crack is huge. I saw some pics of it with people next to it and they were tiny compared to the crack.

 

[Gary68]

california is going to secede,just not the way they have planned

 

[ArtW]

lol

 

[Every Road Leads Home]

This comic strip comes to mind

 

[LeeRevell]

And on the local news there is always some homeowner, whose house was falling into a sinkhole, looking all perplexed and saying to the camera "how could this happen?".

Hehe..... usually "Yankee transplants".

Years ago one opened in the street on my parents' intersection. About fifteen feet wide and ten feet deep. Just suddenly caved in. The city filled it in and repaved the street. Twenty years later, no problem. Nobody drove into it during the three days before it was filled, though one young idiot hotrodder nearly did, that first night. I heard the squeal of his tires as his brakes locked up, but no crash. ;-)

With our substrate statewide consisting of limestone over an aquifer, it is a fact of life here. Same as hurricanes.
Out west, the rock is different, but the mechanics are similar.

 

[SoulRaven]

Wasn't Tombstone and/or Benson, AZ sinking? I know there was concern about that at one time, but didn't follow up on it.

 

[bullfrog]

I believe Arizona was pumping waste water back in the ground at one time, one of the few times when I guess there just wasn't enough maybe?

 

[steamjam1]

Thats alittle sketchy... 2 mile long crack? wow... US humans are such great stewards of the only home we have in the cosmos... EARTH

 

[Vagabound]

Need to find  a larger version of that comic strip. Can't read it because it is too grainy when I enlarge it.

----------

I just had a conversation with a fish and game employee who was doing water testing not far from Yuma, Arizona. He explained that the obvious irrigation canals east of Yuma that run along the main agricultural access roads are often reverse irrigation canals. According to this guy, the local groundwater is too saline to support agricultural crops. So, the government built very long water movement canals. The purpose is to pump the salty groundwater up and out into the canals and then transport it out of the area all the way to the ocean for dumping. Then, with the local water table much lower, fresh water is pumped in from the Colorado River to replace the missing water, pumped into the water table on top of the remaining salty water, and then that water is used to irrigate the crops.

That is a very huge and expensive undertaking, and it doesn't surprise me at all that pumping on that scale would also alter the local geology.

Tom

 

[DrJean]

Well... imo... we can observe the facts (an obvious crack see by human eye is a fact, one apparently seen by satellite only would not be)...

but to assume what is causing them around the world... nah not so much facts.

The sinkholes here in FL have been attributed to low fresh water levels yadda yadda yadda... yet many open up when the aquafir is full (like after a many-hurricane/storm season.

{The Floridan aquifer is one of the highest producing aquifers in the world. It is found throughout Florida and extends into the southern portions of Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina. This aquifer system is comprised of a sequence of limestone and dolomite, which thickens from about 250 feet in Georgia to about 3000 feet in south Florida. The Floridan aquifer system has been divided into an upper and lower aquifer separated by a unit of lower permeability. The upper Floridan aquifer is the principal source of water supply in most of north and central Florida. In the southern portion of the state, where it is deeper and contains brackish water, the aquifer has been used for the injection of sewage and industrial waste. Groundwater flow is generally from highs near the center of the state towards the coast. The Floridan aquifer is the source of many springs in Florida.}

I personally think many of these things have opened/closed raised/lowered countless times over the years of earth and we are just now able to notice.

 

[bullfrog]

Keeping water under ground prevents water being lost by evaporation to the atmosphere. Lake Mead is a good example of how a large shallow lake created by a dam is not the best way to store water.