"Sky holes"

Can you imagine? Sinkholes deep enough to hold skyscrapers, set in a scenic, mountainous wilderness:

The secrets to the steepest, deepest, most bizarre sinkholes in the world have been worked out by geologists who recently visited the "tiankeng," or "sky holes" in China's Guangxi and Chongquing provinces. . .

"You could fit a couple of Empire State Buildings in and they’d disappear," said [geologist William] White of the more than 2,000-foot-deep wonders.

Yet until recently, no one outside China had even heard of them. "Even the Chinese didn’t know about these until about 15 years ago," said White.

That’s because the tiankeng are in the boonies. Until recently there were no roads to them, just footpaths through the other-worldly conical hills of China's scenic Guilin region.

Read about how they were formed here, with pictures. More here and here.

Posted by David on October 21, 2006 10:22 AM