03.Jun.2010 Weekly Fuel – Bottomless Pit Edition

by Jay Cox-Chapman, Design Build Assistant

From Guatemala, news that a terrifyingly enormous sinkhole swallowed an entire factory, which was fortunately closed. The thing is reportedly 60 feet across and 300 feet deep — about as deep as the Statue of Liberty is tall.

The sinkholes — which occur regularly in Central America and Florida, among other places, are a result of the underlying Karst topography. Water (often from leaking infrastructure) dissolves the limestone bedrock, creating a cavity. Additional saturation — in this case provided by the destructive Tropical Storm Agatha — can cause the soil structure to collapse into the void. (Infrastructurist)

This guy got pretty lucky. And possibly didn’t even notice.

Some building scientists have done a study on the effectiveness of sticky rice as a mortar ingredient in traditional Chinese buildings. A pretty cool example of simple but secretly sophisticated technology, especially in earthquake-prone China. (Inhabitat)

And finally, because I can’t seem to leave this story alone, a visualization of what the BP oil spill would do to your region: If It Was My Home. Makes the magnitude of it a bit more real, notwithstanding their neglect of the subjunctive.