A vocabulary of landscape — a landscape of words
1367 entries
sinkhole
A sinkhole is a closed depression in the ground formed where soluble rock beneath has dissolved and the surface has settled or collapsed into the void. Some form gradually as a bowl in a field; some open in seconds as a shaft. They are the defining feature of karst country, along with caves, disappearing streams, and springs, and in limestone landscapes they can number in the thousands per square mile.
Etymology
The English name is a plain compound and it competes with a set of regional terms that all mean the same thing: Doline, from a Slovene word, is the international scientific term; swallow hole and swallet are English; shakehole is northern English; cenote is the Yucatán term for a water-filled one.
Notes
A sinkhole is the point where surface water leaves the surface, which is why karst regions have so few streams: the water is all underground. That connection makes them the fastest route for anything on the ground to reach the water supply, and it is why they are protected from dumping in law in most karst countries.