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The Hole That Ate Daisetta The Woodlands


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This is more "pines" than "woodlands" but either way, it's fascinating for a lot of people.

This has been getting more press nationally than the polygamy cult or anything else out of Texas these days.

2iiv1xd.jpg

I found some more:

sinkhole.jpg

shoopdasinkhole2.jpg

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Not a rumor, that would be the most likely event, and I was actually discussing that with my wife last night. Most likely, an empty saltdome after all the oil had been pumped out. Notice the lake over to the top of the pic. I would say that water eventually seeped over into the saltdome, collapsing the walls and BAM ! You have a sinkhole, that is now stopped. There is probably a few more of these potential dangers in the area.

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Not a rumor, that would be the most likely event, and I was actually discussing that with my wife last night. Most likely, an empty saltdome after all the oil had been pumped out. Notice the lake over to the top of the pic. I would say that water eventually seeped over into the saltdome, collapsing the walls and BAM ! You have a sinkhole, that is now stopped. There is probably a few more of these potential dangers in the area.

I heard a story about this happenning in Louisiana back in the late 50's or early 60's. The cavity was so large that it sucked water in from Vermillion Bay making the tides run backwards for awhile.

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I heard a story about this happenning in Louisiana back in the late 50's or early 60's. The cavity was so large that it sucked water in from Vermillion Bay making the tides run backwards for awhile.

You are referring to the Lake Peigneur incident in 1980, which wasn't a sinkhole like Daisetta.

There was a salt mine under the lake, which Texaco happened to be drilling on. The underlying cause was never discovered, but apparently Texaco personnel made a miscalculation and drilled right into the salt mine. The lake subsequently drained into the salt mine, reversing the flow of the Delcambre Canal and causing Vermilion Bay to flow into the lake.

Amazingly, no one on the Texaco barges or in the salt mine was killed. There were over fifty people in the mine at the time.

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You are referring to the Lake Peigneur incident in 1980, which wasn't a sinkhole like Daisetta.

I saw an excellent "Engineering Disasters" on the History Channel about that. They had an eyewitness who was fishing on the lake when it happened. He saw the vortex and barely made it to shore, just as the shore started to fall into the massive hole it created. Amazing story.

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You must have an exciting marriage, TJ.

LOL! (smacks Red in the back of the head) We were watching the news, and how the reporter was acting soooooooo scared like THEY were about to be sucked into the crater. That is what sparked the conversation. The excitement started AFTER the news !!! ;)

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So we now know the company was doing some weird underground stuff, but do these things ever just occur naturally?

Yes, ALL the time, the one over off of Almeda a few years ago is a good example. Saltdomes are natural, it is what's left over after the oil is pumped out. Water seeping for years and eroding away the earth under a road or plot of land will eventually start to cave under the weight of the remaining earth on top.

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Yes, ALL the time, the one over off of Almeda a few years ago is a good example. Saltdomes are natural, it is what's left over after the oil is pumped out. Water seeping fro years and eroding away the earth under a road or plot of land will eventually start to cave under the weight of the remaining earth on top.

Where on Almeda?

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Yes, ALL the time, the one over off of Almeda a few years ago is a good example. Saltdomes are natural, it is what's left over after the oil is pumped out. Water seeping fro years and eroding away the earth under a road or plot of land will eventually start to cave under the weight of the remaining earth on top.

IIRC, the Almeda sinkhole was caused by a leaking water or sewer pipe washing out the subsoil until the roadway and parking lot caved in. I do not think it was a natural formation such as a saltdome.

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Let's fine tune these explanations a little better before it gets too far out of hand. Salt Domes are NOT filled with Oil. Salt domes are general solid salt. This not exactly table salt like you may think, it's solid Halite structures and small amounts Anhydrite in them, but are generally solid salt, just un-refined. It's very zebra striped looking if you look at a vertical cross section of it, because it's layered with black and white Halite. Oil companies don't drill into salt domes seeking oil reserves, the reservoirs are generally draped around the dome on the edges. If anything we avoid the domes because of the presence of abnormal geo-pressures in relation to the domes. Salt domes are naturally formed during the tectonic phases in geologic time. Salt domes or "diapirs", are generally formed because of the buoyancy of salt. I know it's hard to think of rock as being buoyant, but relative to the more dense sedimentary rock of the Gulf Coast, salt is light. This in mind during the Tectonic phase, the salt pushes up and forms a dome. Around these domes faulting occures causing influxes of ground water from the tables sometimes, and in some cases causes the salts to dissolve. This can cause natural erosion and hollowing. Water and salt do not work well together, one consumes another. However salt does act as an effective trap for hydrocarbons, because of it's lack of porosity. But many times, the salt chemically changes the rocks makeup next to it in such a way that oil will no longer seep into them. In a sense, it destroys the porosity of a reservoir rock. So it's a toss up sometimes. Sometimes they work in favor of the Oil company sometimes they don't. But as I said before, we DO NOT drill into the and pump them out. Salt domes are all over our area, a lot of people probably don't know that there is a huge salt dome being mined under Hockley Texas, and has been for many many years. They actually blast the dome under Hockley almost daily. Other domes are mined by drilling a shaft into them and flushing them out with water, then the brine produced is run through huge compressors, thus causing mechanical vapor recompression and through the evaporation process they produce salt crystals, in an almost pure form. Baytown has one of the most state of the art, mechanical vapor recompression evaporation plants in the US. There are times when salt domes, are naturally hollowed out, but generally it's induced by human means, however don't blame it on the oil companies.

saltdometrap.jpg

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Let's fine tune these explanations a little better before it gets too far out of hand. Salt Domes are NOT filled with Oil. Salt domes are general solid salt. This not exactly table salt like you may think, it's solid Halite structures and small amounts Anhydrite in them, but are generally solid salt, just un-refined. It's very zebra striped looking if you look at a vertical cross section of it, because it's layered with black and white Halite. Oil companies don't drill into salt domes seeking oil reserves, the reservoirs are generally draped around the dome on the edges. If anything we avoid the domes because of the presence of abnormal geo-pressures in relation to the domes. Salt domes are naturally formed during the tectonic phases in geologic time. Salt domes or "diapirs", are generally formed because of the buoyancy of salt. I know it's hard to think of rock as being buoyant, but relative to the more dense sedimentary rock of the Gulf Coast, salt is light. This in mind during the Tectonic phase, the salt pushes up and forms a dome. Around these domes faulting occures causing influxes of ground water from the tables sometimes, and in some cases causes the salts to dissolve. This can cause natural erosion and hollowing. Water and salt do not work well together, one consumes another. However salt does act as an effective trap for hydrocarbons, because of it's lack of porosity. But many times, the salt chemically changes the rocks makeup next to it in such a way that oil will no longer seep into them. In a sense, it destroys the porosity of a reservoir rock. So it's a toss up sometimes. Sometimes they work in favor of the Oil company sometimes they don't. But as I said before, we DO NOT drill into the and pump them out. Salt domes are all over our area, a lot of people probably don't know that there is a huge salt dome being mined under Hockley Texas, and has been for many many years. They actually blast the dome under Hockley almost daily. Other domes are mined by drilling a shaft into them and flushing them out with water, then the brine produced is run through huge compressors, thus causing mechanical vapor recompression and through the evaporation process they produce salt crystals, in an almost pure form. Baytown has one of the most state of the art, mechanical vapor recompression evaporation plants in the US. There are times when salt domes, are naturally hollowed out, but generally it's induced by human means, however don't blame it on the oil companies.

saltdometrap.jpg

I love helpful diagrams. Thanks. And the tidbit about Hockley. I never really thought too much about how salt is everywhere, and someone is extracting it. Then I read that book "Salt" -- a really engaging read. Science for the history nerds, and vice versa.

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  • The title was changed to The Hole That Ate Daisetta The Woodlands

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