Sunday, March 1, 2015

Giant crack in the Earth in the Sonora state, Mexico


In the August 2014 a giant trench was reported from the Sonora state of Mexico. Crack is about 26 feet deep, 16 feet wide and over a mile long. The possibilities of the crack are not much to think about. As to see the crack it can be understood that its a collapse of the sediments (mud). As we are well aware of the extraction method of the minerals from subsurface or mountains by mining. A large tonnage of Earth material is extracted which produce a vacant space in the Earth. This is filled later with the material extracted from the mining area or else this will collapse by the space created. The very same situation is of the crack which was reported, can be clearly seen that the material collapsed which opened the crack and not the plates being apart. No other option can be considered but only one that possible subsurface stream which with time and by the aid of earthquake change the course leaving the pores vacant in the subsurface. With overburden these pores would not have sustained the pressure and resulted in Earth collapse. 



It was also said that it rained which is further aid, possible causes are: 
  • Due to mechanical weathering, carrying sediments away from the the surface deep into the vacant pore spaces. Water as a universal solvent can carry loose sediments with itself.
  • Other possibility is that water logged the surface sediments where the cohesion forces is reduced when sediments are covered by the water molecules.
Water can also help in increasing the burden over the vacant pore spaces in the subsurface just like a cloth soaked in the water, when absorbs the weight increases.