Northern Minnesota bean field collapses, falls 25 feet

[TexasTowelie]

POLK COUNTY, Minn. — It is still hard for Wayne Erickson to make sense of what happened on his farm. Simply put, a section of his black bean field fell two stories.

“When I drove out here, it looked like the Grand Canyon. We didn’t have all that slumping going on, it was just straight down. Straight up and down,” Erickson said.

Wayne and Erllene Erickson are the fourth generation on the family farm in Polk County in northwestern Minnesota, and they’ve never seen anything like this. Nobody is sure what caused the huge slide.

“(It’s) kind of scary. It is sad, sad to see it,” Erllene said as she surveyed the fallen field. “Mother Nature does what she wants.”

Read more: https://www.twincities.com/2021/08/26/northern-mn-bean-field-collapses-falls-25-feet/


A farmer’s field near Climax, Minnesota, has some new contours after a portion of the field fell 25 feet. (Kevin Wallevand / Forum News Service)


Footage from a drone camera shows the sheer size of the fallen field. The blue speck near the lower-right edge of the ravine is actually a person. (Courtesy of Brad Thoreson)

[sprinkleeninow]

1. Yikes-a-rooney! 😲

[calimary]

11. Yeah... no shit...

[wyn borkins]

2. Truth Be Told

Erllene asked Wayne several times late last year to replace that durn leaky faucet in the bathroom of the guest house...now see what's happened (!!!).

[TexasTowelie]

5. Erlline always had a hankering for cliffside property

and now her wishes came true!

[cate94]

3. Holy crap! N/t

[TexasTowelie]

4. I think that is what you are supposed to take

after eating a few bowls of those beans.

(my apologies, but you provided the setup to that joke)

[cate94]

6. Good one!

[COL Mustard]

7. I Guess The Earth Really Did Move

Near Climax, Minnesota.









Sorry, I’ll see myself out now. 🤣

[bluecollar2]

9. How long have you been waiting to use that one?

[COL Mustard]

14. Only

All my life!!! Sometimes they really do write themselves!!!

[bluecollar2]

16. Thanks for the laugh...n/t

[dflprincess]

24. Then there's the classic "Fertile Girl Dies In Climax"

This supposedly appeared in a local paper years ago.

And, yes, there is a Fertile MN.

[COL Mustard]

25. Hilarious!!!

Almost as good as Blue Ball, PA or Intercourse, PA. If the Fertile girl had died in Intercourse, that would be a headline!

I crack myself up, but again I'll show myself out.

[Grokenstein]

8. HOW CULD BIDEN LET THIS HAPPIN?

WHY DIDNT HE CAN HAZ A SMOOTHUR APPEERENCE FOR RODAN!?2!

"When he moves, the whole Earth quivers and quakes, and an abyss of horror opens up!!"

(Sorry, I'm just venting.)

[DanieRains]

10. Don Jr. Just Tweeted It Was All Biden's Fault

Yeppers.

[wnylib]

12. Seriously, does anyone know

Last edited Fri Aug 27, 2021, 06:04 AM - Edit history (1)

the geology behind (or should I say "under"?) this kind of drop? It looks like something you would see after an earthquake except there wasn't one. So what causes a chunk of earth to drop so dramatically?

I imagine that the Ericksons are grateful for two things right now. 1. Nobody was in the field when this happened. 2. It happened in the field and not under their house. But they must be wondering now if it could happen again somewhere on their property. I would be.

[Submariner]

13. It might be from over pumping

of the groundwater to irrigate that cropland.

[William Seger]

15. My guess is a cavern collapse

[SheltieLover]

17. Scary stuff

[wnylib]

18. I had geology courses many years ago in college.

They covered things like plate tectonics, volcanoes, mountain building, types of rocks, even the effects of worms in soil.

They never covered drops of huge chunks of earth like this. There has to be some mechanism that causes this.

[SheltieLover]

19. For sure!

My 1st thought is always low water table but, of course, that isn't the only potential cause.

I wonder if they will ever find the cause?

Heartbreaking to see a farmer's land destroyed this way but, as you said, at least nobody was hurt.

[wnylib]

20. I would think of low water table in

another region, but Minnesota is the land of lakes, and of harsh winters with plenty of snow and snow meltwater.

[SheltieLover]

21. True

But I recall a charted bus trip for my kid's sporting event in 1998, during which I had plenty of time to look around at the scenery.

Lots & lots of dried up lakes back then. Perhaps it had been a super dry year, not sure. Although the many locals who had spoken to us about the lakes drying up didn't mention drought or excessive heat.

But that's what came to mind when I saw this.

[wnylib]

23. Well, I guess even Minnesota can

go dry, then. I'll be watching for some additional stories on this.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

22. We're in a pretty bad drought right now.

[dflprincess]

26. There was speciation on the evening news

that the drought coupled with the tortential rains over the last few days may have caused the collapse. There was not a lot of detail provided.