Largest sinkholes of the world

The most impressive sinkholes of the world are located in China. These pits are grouped in several locations in Chongqing Municipality, Guangxi, Guizhou, and also Sichuan provinces. Here they are called tiankengs – "heavenly pits". Nature has been generous and offers here to us one of the most amazing sights on Earth – up to 662 m deep (!!!) holes with vertical walls and patches of the unique subtropical forest below. Underground rivers appear at the bottoms of these holes and disappear underground again.

Next largest find of giant sinkholes is Nakanaï Mountains in East New Britain, Papua New Guinea. This is a highly unusual landscape with extremely high rainfall (might turn out to be the wettest place on Earth if somebody would measure it), wild jungle, and, possibly, the most impressive karst landscape on Earth.

Third location to explore giant sinkholes is Mexico. Here are two groups of these amazing landmarks:

• Sótanos in Querétaro and San Luis Potosí states – amazing giant shafts;
• Sistema Zacatón in Tamaulipas. This is true wonder of nature – more than 20 karst features, mostly filled with water and formed by volcanicaly heated water. Some of these giant sinkholes have sealed themselves with travertine lids and may hide unknown organisms inside!

A wonder of European nature is the third deepest sinkhole in world – Crveno Jezero in Croatia and some more giant sinkholes in Croatia and Slovenia.

Other miracles of nature are the ancient sinkholes on Sarisariñama tepui in Venezuela – Sima Humboldt and Sima Martel. These sinkholes have formed in very resistant sandstone – this process maybe took even hundreds of millions of years! Forest on the bottom of these sinkholes has developed in unusual isolation… especially if we take into account that also Sarisariñama tepui is isolated by steep cliffs!

Giant sinkholes can be found also in Bahamas, Brazil, Indonesia, Madagascar, Malaysia, Oman – each of them is unique monument of nature.

Do we know all giant sinkholes?

Most of the giant sinkholes listed below are rather recent discoveries. Several of these formations have not been investigated yet. This is really amazing – because these are giant holes, often deeper than the height of Eiffel tower, large enough to be well visible on satellite images!

There is explanation to this:

• Giant sinkholes are located in regions with active karst processes. Such regions tend to be extremely hard to access physically. Nowadays people often think that Earth has been crisscrossed by curious researchers but this is far from the truth – people have avoided regions which are difficult to access;
• Sinkholes often are located in regions with high rainfall and consequently – eternal clouds. Temperature differences in giant sinkholes often create clouds above the sinkholes. Thus they are not visible on satellite images.

So… you want to find unknown giant sinkholes? Wondermondo offers the following destinations to you:

• Khammouan mountains in Laos. Possibly the largest concentration of enormous sinkholes in the world, most are not explored. May hide the largest sinkholes by volume – there are stories about sinkholes up to 230 million m³ large!
• Central part of New Guinea island. It is known that here are located some of the largest sinkholes in the world but few have been visited and even fewer – measured! Mamo Plateau alone contains more than 100 giant collapse dolines – unfortunately most of them without vertical walls. But there are such nearly unexplored sinkholes as the giant Yogoluk sinkhole in the Indonesian part of the island or Himbiraga sinkhole in Papua New Guinea.
• Sangkulirang mountains in East Kalimantan, Indonesia are little explored but they have extremely impressive karst features.

Other articles about sinkholes

Sinkholes

Category includes outstanding sinkholes – large natural depressions or holes, which for most part represent collapsed caves.

Most sinkholes are formed by karst processes – by natural solution of carbonate (f.e. limestone, dolomite), sulfide (f.e. gypsum) and salt rocks. Solution process is initiated by water.

10 most impressive sinkholes of the world

Unique list of 10 most impressive sinkholes of the world – deepest, most capacious and most unusual ones.

Used sources of information

• Zhu Xuewen, Chen Weihai. Tiankengs in the karst of China. Speleogenesis and Evolution of Karst Aquifers. The Online Scientific Journal.
• Tony Waltham. Tiankengs of the world, outside China. Speleogenesis and Evolution of Karst Aquifers. The Online Scientific Journal.

and other sources.