As of last week, a large sinkhole the size of three football fields has been eating up large parts of Daisetta - a tiny East Texas oil town 60 miles northeast of Houston. All kinds of crap keeps falling into the tar pit-like cavern these days including a tractor, oil barrels, tires, two grain trucks, utility poles and a shitload of trees. Up next on Mother Nature’s list are a wastewater company and about 100 nearby homes. Fortunately, it seems that the sinkhole’s activity seems to be slowing though it may be several months before geologists can confirm whether the ground has stabilized.

Daisetta (population 1,034) sits on a salt dome; salt domes often collapse, creating sink holes. Though authorities can’t determine what caused the sinkhole, consulting geologist Carl E. Norman has stated that the collapse might have been entirely natural or hastened by injections of saltwater wastes by oil companies under disposal permits from the Texas Railroad Commission, which regulates oil drilling. This is not the first sinkhole to form in Daisetta which has seen at least three sink holes in the town’s history.

[Wikipedia: Sinkhole]