That sinking feeling: NASA radar demonstrates ability to foresee sinkholes

Martin Wilkins

3/11/14

Earth Science Even

Mrs. McClellan

Current Event

Citation

"That Sinking Feeling: NASA Radar Demonstrates Ability to Foresee Sinkholes."ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 7 Mar. 2014. Web. 11 Mar. 2014.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140307131233.htm

That sinking feeling: NASA radar demonstrates ability to foresee sinkholes

            Looking back on the  August, 2012 Bayou Corne sinkhole in Louisiana, NASA now sees that radars, more than a month before the sinkhole had occurred, was detected.  Now even though it would not have prevented the event it would have not been as bad on people and their properties. A sinkhole is created by water drainage and erosion. This then causes the earth surface layers to collapse into holes down below. This was collected by an ongoing NASA project of looking for sinking in the ground along the gulf coast of Louisiana. Interferometric synthetic aperture radar (inSAR) images were looked at for the deformations in the surface. The results from the images showed us that a little bit over a month before the sinkhole deformation had already deformed slightly. The deformation ran horizontal which even though is not a signature of sinkholes, looking at other sinkholes they now saw it is more of recurring pattern  then they thought. The sinkhole formed unexpectedly with tiny earthquakes and even natural gas bubbling from the surface.  The cause of the deformation was a sidewall collapsing of an underground storage unit.  There is usually not an external reason for a sinkhole. They happen when rocks dissolved by groundwater and form caverns. Places most commonly affected are the ones with limestone or other carbonate rocks but can also take place all regions in the United States such as Florida, Texas, Pennsylvania, Tennessee etc.….  Just in February 2013, a man was killed when his house with him in it was taken in a sinkhole in Tampa, Florida. Bayou Corne is on top of salt dome which can help reduce the risks of a sinkhole. But because of the Storage dome wall collapsing, was then filled with water. The dome extends 210 meters past the hole which could affect highway 70 and the remaining houses. But there is no way of tell how big it could get if the sinkhole extended. With NASA’s Air, Land, and Space fleet and their satellites, they plain on monitoring earth’s natural system and protecting us from further destruction.   

            With the technology we have today, we can now prevent the deaths and property damage of sinkholes. Along with this we can warn the public about an upcoming sinkhole.  There is only one of these radars so it cannot prevent all sinkholes but looks at the most impactful regions and can check there. This article shows us that NASA is trying and if we had the technology back in 2012 and we didn’t even notice it imagine what we could have in the upcoming years. Maybe we will find out how to completely prevent these horrific events. A question that appeared in my head while reading this is why did they look back on that specific sinkhole and look at the radars leading up to it ?  I think the most obvious connect to society and this article is the fact that we can now foresee these sinkholes and cause fewer problems to sinkhole victims.

            I think the author of this article did a very nice job and explaining the radar service and describing the event that took place including the size of the sinkhole and what damage was done. A couple of things the author could have explained more were why horizontal surface deformation was not a signature of sinkholes and why vertical were. Another thing is how maybe the walling of the storage dome collapsed, there had to be a reason. But the author did explain a lot of the technical terms and devices that I did not know. Also how the rocks below turned into the caverns. I also think adding if it has expanded or are there any signs of it expanding since the event of August 2012.  I say this since this article was written on March 7^th, 2014.  It would be interesting on if they were able to catch that another sinkhole or the same sinkhole was just simply expanding. Sinkholes are a very interesting topic since it simply to us just disappears into the ground. Another question I have is, do sinkholes just occur on earth or do other sinkholes appear on other planets?  If so do we just seem them has the crater of that planet?