Don't Call The Guatemala Sinkhole a Sinkhole : Discovery News

Don't Call The Guatemala Sinkhole a Sinkhole : Discovery News: "The giant sinkhole that opened beneath downtown Guatemala City over the weekend is all the rage right now. There's just one problem: it isn't a sinkhole.

'Sure, it looks a lot like a sinkhole,' geologist Sam Bonis told Discovery News from his home in Guatemala. 'And a whale looks a lot like a fish, but calling it one would be very misleading.'

Instead, Bonis prefers the term 'piping feature' -- a decidedly less sexy label for the 100-foot deep, 66-foot wide circular chasm. But it's an important distinction, he maintains, because 'sinkholes' refer to areas where bedrock is solid but has been eaten away by groundwater, forming a geological Swiss cheese whose contours are nearly impossible to predict."