Abstract
In May 2012, a series of ground collapsing events occurred at Maohe village, Liuzhou city, Guangxi province, China during and after a heavy rainfall event. The collapsing incidents resulted in thirty-seven cover collapse sinkholes, eleven donut-shaped subsidence areas and sixty-eight earth fissures. The impact area encompasses more than 40,000 m2. Extensive investigations including land use inventory, advancement of forty-nine exploratory boreholes, and geotechnical and hydrogeological analysis of soil samples were conducted to determine the contributing factors to these sinkhole formations. Because of the heterogeneity in the overburden composition and underling dolomite, the controlling factors may be different for each sinkhole. However, three factors contribute to the scale of the collapsing events: presence of cavities in the underlying bedrock, unique characteristics of overburden materials, and drastic change of groundwater levels. The wide spread cavities in the underlying dolomite make the investigation area inherently vulnerable to ground collapses. The shear strengths of the overburden materials allow for development of soil cavities in the subsurface without skylighting for a long time. The drastic groundwater level increase is the triggering factor and determines the time of the collapses. Higher groundwater levels accelerate the subsurface erosion process and enlargement of soil cavities and cause hydrofracturing and hammer effects on the soils.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Beck BF (2004) Soil piping and sinkhole failures. In: Culver DC, White WB (eds) Encyclopedia of caves. Elsevier, Amsterdam, pp 521–526
Gutierrez F, Guerrero J, Lucha P (2007) A genetic classification of sinkholes illustrated from evaporate paleokarst exposures in Spain. Environ Geol. doi:10.1007/s00254-007-0727-5
Gutierrez F, Parise M, De Waele J, Jourde H (2014) A review on natural and human-induced geohazards and impacts in karst. Earth-Sci Rev 138:61–88. doi:10.1016/j.earscirev.2014.08.002
Lei MT, Jiang XZ, Li Y, Meng Y, Dai JL, Gao YL (2010) Predicting sinkhole collapse by long-term monitoring of karst water pressure in Zhemu, China. Geologically Active: Proceedings of the 11th IAEG Congress, Auckland, pp 355–362
Luo WQ, Jiang XZ, Lei MT, Dai JL, Gao YL (2012) Investigations of large scale sinkhole collapses. Laibin, Guangxi
Sharp TM (2003) Cover-collapse sinkhole formation and soil plasticity. In: Beck BF (ed) Sinkholes and the engineering and environmental impacts of karst. Geotechnical Special Publication No.122. American Society of Civil Engineers, Reston, pp 110–123
Sowers GF (1996) Building on sinkholes: design and construction of foundations in karst terrain. ASCE, New York, p 202
White WB (1988) Geomorphology and hydrology of karst terrains. Oxford University Press, Oxford, p 464
Zhou W, Beck BF (2011) Engineering issues on karst. In: van Beynen PE (ed) Karst management. doi:10.1007/978-94-007-1207-2_2, Springer Science + Business Media B.V.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (Grant No. 41272355) and the National Geohazard Investigation program of China Geological Survey (CGS).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
This article is a part of a Topical Collection in Environmental Earth Sciences on “Engineering Problems in Karst”; edited by Mario Parise.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Lei, M., Gao, Y., Jiang, X. et al. Mechanism analysis of sinkhole formation at Maohe village, Liuzhou city, Guangxi province, China. Environ Earth Sci 75, 542 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-015-5100-5
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-015-5100-5