# Geophysicists: How the hell does this happen? Gutemalan sinkhole

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geophysicists-how-the-hell-does-this-happen-gutemalan-sinkhole/541741>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [June 3, 2010, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geophysicists-how-the-hell-does-this-happen-gutemalan-sinkhole/541741 "2010-06-03T06:03:56Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![chorpler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chorpler/32/2888_2.png) [@chorpler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chorpler)\
**Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 7:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geophysicists-how-the-hell-does-this-happen-gutemalan-sinkhole/541741/21 "2010-06-07T07:18:37Z")

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The news stories seem to be saying it’s 66 feet wide and 100 feet deep, but in the pictures it looks significantly deeper than that. Is that just an illusion? Then somebody in the comments on one of the articles I read said it’s actually 100 **meters** deep. What’s the truth, does anybody know?

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**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\
**Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geophysicists-how-the-hell-does-this-happen-gutemalan-sinkhole/541741/22 "2010-06-07T14:49:27Z")

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It’s not karst stuff, because it isn’t a solution space. But it _is_ a sinkhole, and Bonis is just being pedantic. We used to get shit like that all the time in the areas around the West Rand gold mines, directly as a result of mining activities not geological processes, and they were still sinkholes too.

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