Sinkholes: New Study Digs for Deeper Understanding Sinkholes:
New Study Digs for Deeper Understan Beneath the lolling terrain
of Kentucky, Illinois and Virginia lies chemically tortured
bedrock that combines with farming practices to wreak havoc on
drinking water. Armed with electronics this past summer,
Benjamin Schwartz drove his four-wheel-drive truck out to a
field in McCoy, Virginia, during Hurricane Ivan to do battle.
First, he hooked his laptop and an electricity sensor to his
truck battery. Then he sank metal pins into the ground and wired
them up to create an electrical field under the soil.
Measurements of how and where electricity flows allowed him to
create an underground map of precisely when and where flooding
rainwater entered and pooled in hidden pits and fissures, called
sinkholes, in bedrock beneath the surface soil, down to as deep
as 15 yards. Hydrologists need to know how water flows in
sinkholes because they lead to the deeper layers of limestone
that store water. You might think water e