Mother Nature Is Getting Pissed Off... Watch A Sink Hole Devour A Grove Of Trees.

[DonRedwood]

As we suck all the water up out of the water table, or replace it with fracked-up water, do we really think it will cause no change? This Louisiana Sink Hole eats a grove of trees. Eats them. Whole. From root to tip. Mother Nature is getting mad.

[DonRedwood]

1. edited for correct link and I fixed that terrible headline!

[rusty fender]

2. Yikes!

[ZombieHorde]

3. I also have a strong distaste for fracking,

but fracking is just as much a part of nature as a bird's nest or an ant hill.

[LuvNewcastle]

10. I need you to explain that one to me, ZombieHorde.

[ZombieHorde]

13. I think humans are a part of nature, and so I think everything we do

is also a part of nature. Birds build nests, spiders build webs, and humans build machines. In my opinion, a polluted city is just as natural as a forest. Though I do prefer forests, which is one of the reasons I choose to live Montana, which happens to be on fire right now due to lightning striking a dry forest. The smoke in the air right now is not pleasant for many people here.

[LuvNewcastle]

21. I agree that a lot of what we do is part of nature, but not everything.

I think that things that are harmful to the ecosystem, especially with the potential of destroying it, aren't natural. We are the only species that I know of that is capable of wiping out all the other species. It makes wonder if humans are natural beings, at least natural to Earth's environment. Humans are naturally destructive, but our intelligence (if we can call it that) makes us exponentially more so. I guess what I'm saying is that it seems to me that something natural wouldn't be capable of such widespread destruction of nature. Everything else alive seems to live within limits that nature can handle. Why can't we?

[Bluenorthwest]

27. Nature is Mother Kali, creator and destroyer. I mean, you are kidding with all of this 'notihng in

nature is destructive' stuff, are you not? There are animals that die to give birth. Every virus that ever killed anyone is Nature's work. Nature is an unrelenting killer, accountable for every death and for death itself.

[LuvNewcastle]

29. I know about nature's destructiveness; I've been through

plenty of hurricanes. I'm not saying destruction itself isn't natural. Destruction is necessary for creation to happen. I'm saying that man has the potential to destroy it all, including nature itself, and nothing else on Earth has that power. Lions destroy wildebeests, but they don't kill them all at the same time. Man has wiped out entire species in very little time, destruction from which they'll never come back.

See, that's the thing about natural destruction. Things get destroyed, but not to such an extent that there isn't any hope for recovery. Man, however, can do that. Man's destruction is on the level of the kind of destruction that happens when a star goes supernova. There isn't any coming back from that kind of destruction. Man is a part of the Universe's nature, but Earth's? I think we've gone beyond the life/death cycle of Earth's natural processes.

[ZombieHorde]

45. "nothing else on Earth has that power"

The Sun has that power.

[ZombieHorde]

44. Do you think forest fires are natural when started by lightning?

Forest fires are harmful to some ecosystems.

Do you think the mass extinction that has happened here on Earth was natural?

Then the Sun finally perishes, every ecosystem on Earth will be destroyed. Is that natural?

[Hydra]

19. I follow his logic

"Nature" is not a box of canned perfect conditions. Each critter in a system makes changes to the environment to suit their needs. Those changes are neither good nor bad(but they can be depending on who you ask).

A beaver makes huge changes when they dam up a creek. We do the same on an even larger scale. Is it "natural"? Yes, because we're part of nature. Can it be stupid and have nasty consequences? Absolutely.

[malaise]

4. Mindblowing

Rec

[hobbit709]

5. Lucky it wasn't like this one

[LuvNewcastle]

8. Jesus, where is that?

[hobbit709]

9. Guatamala City

[Happyhippychick]

6. Maybe it's the Jewish mother in me

But I was worried the camera guy was going to get swallowed up.

[ZombieHorde]

14. Ha! nt

[DonRedwood]

17. haven't seen you a while zombie...

welcome back, or sorry if I was just not seeing you here.

[ZombieHorde]

18. I've a little busy having fun with my family.

I've been reading and posting almost everyday, just not as much. Thanks, feels nice to be missed.

[DonRedwood]

20. ah...and I've been working a summer job so n ot around much

[LuvNewcastle]

7. It's going to be interesting to see how big that sinkhole grows.

Louisiana has been shrinking a bit every year, but now it seems the process is speeding up drastically. I wonder how much of it will be left in 20 years. Looks like we're going to see a lot more Cajuns here in MS; some will probably go to TX too. The land is a little higher here, but I don't know if it's high enough to stop a sinkhole on the rampage. There's been some talk about gas drilling here, too, but I hope people see this and think twice about allowing it.

[rwsanders]

22. When I was in LA for the BP spill the first time I was in a LA DFW office...

They had an aerial map up that showed the land area in 1940, 1970, and 2000. It showed about a 40% loss and as you said, that means it will accelerate. 20 years was my estimate also before serious losses.
There are places where you drive that are surrounded by levies that you can see on both sides only about 100 ft. from the road.
Just like with climate change, without a serious commitment toward doing something different, it is gone.
The changes that have been made aren't even enough to slow the damage.

[LuvNewcastle]

23. That's so sad, especially since there's nothing we can do about it now.

I've always liked LA. The swamps are beautiful in a spooky kind of way. New Orleans is such a unique city and I love the food from different parts of south LA. The people are rather unique as well; they definitely have their own way of doing things. It's terrible to see it all disappear before our eyes, but their story is a cautionary tale about corruption and how much you're willing to give up for a little bit of money.

[rwsanders]

38. I read an economic article about LA that said they suffer the same fate as nations that...

are extraction based economies. The extraction industries provide a few jobs, but overall with the tax breaks, etc. Only the top executives benefit and the rest of the area suffers.
The article used nations like Nigeria and even Saudi Arabia as examples.
The area was interesting. Nature in the raw, like CA.
But you are right, they gave up their heritage and unique culture for "a little bit of money".

[DonRedwood]

24. yikes! But, welcome to DU, despite the scary story

Very glad to have your voice here.

[wercal]

34. This is not a natural sinkhole, and it isn't caused by gas drilling either.

Its a collapsing salt mine:

http://theadvocate.com/home/6678266-125/louisiana-suing-texas-brine-over

[wercal]

11. I don't think this is a sinkhole

The wave action is radiating away from the falling trees. I think the submerged bank sloughed off into the deeper water....which is somewhat supported by the title of the video:

"Slough in".

And the phrase "suck all the water up out of the water table" seems very incongruent with the swampland in the video. Louisiana is famous for its shallow water table...and there's been no news of it dropping suddenly.

[LuvNewcastle]

15. That sinkhole in Assumption Parish has been in the news a lot.

It's huge and it just keeps growing; it's swallowed a lot of homes already. People are guessing that it's because of drilling, but no one's completely sure why it's happening.

[wercal]

33. Per this story, peopel really aren't guessing, and they are very sure of what is happening:

http://theadvocate.com/home/6678266-125/louisiana-suing-texas-brine-over

This story explains that this is not the result of de-watering or oil drilling in the area. Instead, Texas Brine over mined the salt deposit, and it is collapsing.

[LuvNewcastle]

35. Here's a better article about it.

Texas Brine, the company being sued for causing the sinkhole, is a subsidiary of Occidental Petroleum. They used injection mining, which is sending in water by drilling, and then pumping the saltwater to the surface. They were storing oil and gas in the mine and now all that shit is bubbling up to the surface.

http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/08/bayou-corne-sinkhole-disaster-louisiana-texas-brine

[wercal]

37. Nowhere in the article does it state that oil or gas was stored in this particular mine

The oil and gas coming to the surface is naturally in the ground, on top of the salt layer.

[LuvNewcastle]

39. I see that it's important to you that the oil company is given

the benefit of the doubt in this case, even though the article said that storing oil, gas, and nuclear waste is common in these mines. The bottom line is that oil companies are drilling into these mines and removing the salt and the mines have been collapsing. It happens frequently, yet these companies keep doing it. They are negligent, and the state has been negligent for allowing it to continue.

[wercal]

41. Actually nothing is that awfully important to me in this story...

....except a little bit of accuracy would be nice.

You see - the next time fracking genuinely causes a disaster....nobody will listen. At least not if lemmings with a Chicken Little complex scream 'fracking' and 'oil and gas' everytime anything goes wrong....and that is exactly what the OP did.

I have read nothing to date that states the oil and gas industry had anything to do with this. You seem to be ignoring the purpose of the salt extraction in the first place....and contrary to what you are suggesting, it is not being removed merely to make a storage vessel. So, at least until more information is known, this is a salt mine disaster. Not an oil and gas disaster. And to suggest otherwise just sounds histrionic and hurts the credibility of all claims against the oil and gas industry.

But by all means, don't let me stop you. If you want to state that oil and gas had been injected into this mine (with no evidence whatsoever), go right ahead.

But, since I'm always looking to inform....the term 'nuclear waste' generally implies the byproduct of man-made nuclear fission. A better term for the material put in salt domes would be radioactive waste. This is not a hard and fast rule, but the use of the term gives the impression that Yucca Mountain is being emptied into the salt domes.

[DonRedwood]

28. link to newsier post

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014573035

[wercal]

32. Here's another story

http://www.wlox.com/story/23222524/giant-louisiana-sinkhole-burps-again-work-ceased

It characterizes the event in the video as a 'burp', which explains why the waves were radiating away from the event.

This story explains that this is not the result of de-watering. Instead, Texas Brine over mined the salt deposit, and it is collapsing.

http://theadvocate.com/home/6678266-125/louisiana-suing-texas-brine-over

[barbtries]

12. i was scared

for the people taking the video. i suddenly want to learn more about sinkholes.

[ileus]

16. Akzo salt?

[NoPasaran]

25. If Mother Nature was actually pissed off

Why isn't she sinkholing a bank instead of some innocent trees?

[revolutionbrees]

26. Not fracking

The sinkhole was caused by the collapse of an underground salt dome.

[Arugula Latte]

31. Yes, and it was a human-caused collapse -- thanks to a petrochemical company called Texas Brine

Texas Brine's operation sits atop a three-mile-wide, mile-plus-deep salt deposit known as the Napoleonville Dome, which is sheathed by a layer of oil and natural gas, a common feature of the salt domes prevalent in Gulf Coast states. The company specializes in a process known as injection mining, and it had sunk a series of wells deep into the salt dome, flushing them out with high-pressure streams of freshwater and pumping the resulting saltwater to the surface. From there, the brine is piped and trucked to refineries along the Mississippi River and broken down into sodium hydroxide and chlorine for use in manufacturing everything from paper to medical supplies.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023513113

[PowerToThePeople]

36. a longer youtube version that explains

[Glassunion]

40. I don't think she is pissed of at all...

We just gave her another tumor.

[Dreamer Tatum]

42. There is no "mother nature", sheesh nt

[Coyotl]

43. Gravity is the most under-rated force!

[Go Vols]

46. :/