Illinois 185 southeast of Hillsboro is closed due to the formation of a 50-foot-wide sinkhole at Deer Run Mine.

The Illinois Department of Transportation announced that Illinois 185 between Hillsboro and Coffeen is closed due to the sinkhole in a farmer's field adjacent to the road.

The sinkhole is located southeast of the John A. Graham Correctional Center.

This mine has had a long series of problems including underground fires, mine roof collapses, and the ongoing longwall mining sinking of land unevenly over what will be thousands of acres of really good farmland.

A dramatic road collapse under the Rama IV Bridge in Pak Kret, Nonthaburi, sent a motorcyclist and a child tumbling into a sinkhole hole, prompting swift rescue efforts by locals. The incident, which occurred at 11.20am, severely disrupted traffic and led to an immediate closure of the affected area.

A video capturing the heart-stopping moment when a section of the road in front of Wat Bor suddenly gave way has gone viral, thanks to a post by FM91 Trafficpro. The footage shows vehicles navigating the stretch when, without warning, the road collapses, forming a large, deep pit.

A pickup truck narrowly avoids disaster, stopping just in time, but a motorcycle carrying a young man and a child is less fortunate, plunging into the chasm. Onlookers rush to the scene, pulling the pair to safety.

A doctor was injured when he was swallowed up by a sinkhole as he walked down the street.

CCTV footage shows how the wide crater suddenly opened up beneath the man as he strolled down the pavement.

As he dropped into the deep hole, part of the adjoining wall toppled sideways, showering him with rubble.

The victim - an orthopaedic doctor - suffered a broken leg.

Good Samaritans nearby ran over to help the stricken man on yesterday (1 Apr) morning, as reported on Need To Know.

The unlikely volcano, the warmest year, and the collapse of the polar vortex.

The climate events of 2022-24 have been were truly extraordinary. From an unlikely undersea volcanic eruption to the warmest year on record to the collapse of the polar vortex after three sudden stratospheric warming events. This rare convergence presents a unique learning opportunity for climatologists and climate aficionados alike, offering insights into a climate event that may not be repeated for hundreds or even thousands of years.

1. January 2022, the unlikely volcano

Never before have we witnessed an undersea volcanic eruption with a plume capable of reaching the stratosphere and depositing a large amount of vaporized water. This extraordinary event occurred in January 2022 when the Hunga Tonga volcano erupted. The conditions for such an event are rare: the volcano must be deep enough to propel enough water with the plume, but not too deep to prevent it from reaching the stratosphere. Most undersea volcanoes do not produce plumes at all, which makes Hunga Tonga's eruption all the more remarkable.

The Hunga Tonga volcano occupied a unique "sweet spot" at a depth of 150 meters the day before the eruption. In addition, the eruption itself must be exceptionally powerful for water vapor to rise into the stratosphere. The January 2022 eruption of Hunga Tonga was the most powerful in 30 years, since the 1991 eruption of Mt. Pinatubo.

Active undersea volcanoes at the appropriate depth are rare, and the likelihood of one erupting with such intensity is relatively low. We may be looking at an event that occurs once every few centuries, or maybe even once every millennium. Undoubtedly, it was an exceptionally rare event.

While the most powerful eruptions, such as Tambora in 1815, can indeed strongly influence hemispheric weather for a few years, our observations of eruptions such as Agung (1963), El Chichón (1982), and Pinatubo (1991) suggest that their effects dissipate within 3-4 years.

A man witnessed a giant sinkhole appear in the middle of a field, while he was on a hike.

In a short video clip, the walker edges towards the mysterious hole and appears to be shocked by the depth - an estimated 20m.

The sinkhole arose from the collapse of the soil in an area with underground rivers, in Lingenfeld, Germany.

Two parked cars were swallowed by a large sinkhole - 10 metres deep and 10 metres wide - which opened up in the Quadraro district of Rome in the early hours of Thursday.

Police and firefighters closed off the street, Via Sestio Menas, after the chasm opened up at around 01.00. There was nobody injured in the incident.

The vehicles, a Dacia and a Renault, were subsequently removed and the area remained cordoned off on Thursday morning.

It is far from the first time that such an event has occurred in Rome, with the city experiencing a sharp rise in the number of sinkholes in recent years according to the Italian Institute for Environmental Protection and Research.

A shocking incident unfolded in Zhenjiang, China, after a massive sinkhole opened up on the second floor of a shopping mall and swallowed a customer on March 23.

Chilling security camera footage captured the woman disappearing as the floor suddenly collapsed beneath her.

A worker on the floor below was also trapped by debris. Both suffered only minor injuries.

Last month, in the February 2024 issue of the Kosmographia Newsletter I reported on new research correlating a series of large-scale igneous events which produced the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province (CAMP) and the Siberian Traps with mass extinction episodes. On February 8 another paper was published in the journal Global and Planetary Change which further supports correlations between mass extinction episodes with gigantic volcanic eruptions and catastrophic cosmic impacts. The lead author of the paper is Michael Rampino, who has for decades been in the forefront of researching catastrophic events in Earth history. I have been following his work since the early 1980s and hold him in high regard as a scientist who is willing to think outside established paradigms of Earth history. The abstract to the paper begins:

"We find that Large Igneous Province (LIP) volcanism, mostly continental flood basalts (CFBs), along with the largest extraterrestrial impacts show significant correlations with mass-extinction events in the Phanerozoic geologic record. The ages of the 6 major marine mass extinctions (≥ 40% extinction of genera) of the last 541 MY ̶ the end-Ordovician (~444 Ma), late Devonian (~ 372 Ma), end-Guadalupian (~259 Ma), end-Permian (~ 252 Ma), end-Triassic (~201 Ma), and end-Cretaceous (66 Ma) extinctions are significantly correlated with high-quality U — Pb zircon and 40Ar/39Ar ages of 6 continental flood basalts (CFBs) ̶ the Cape St. Mary's, Viluy, Emeishan, Siberian, CAMP, and the Deccan Basalts.

U — Pb zircon dating (Uranium-lead) is a widely used method for dating metamorphic rocks typically employing a thermal ionization mass spectrometer. Zircon is used because it includes uranium and thorium atoms in its crystalline structure when forming but rejects lead, so any lead found in a zircon crystal is radiogenic, meaning it results from radioactive decay. Argon dating can measure Argon isotopes from a single mineral grain. The ratio of Argon 40 to Argon 39 yields the age of the sample.

The extinctions listed above are considered to be major events in the history of life on Earth. A number of less severe extinctions have taken place, although these events are somewhat more difficult to discern in the geologic/palaeontologic record. Nevertheless, a correlation can be discerned between these extinctions and both volcanic eruptions and cosmic impact.

Two young men are "lucky to be alive" after the car they were traveling in was swallowed by a huge sinkhole that opened up early on Wednesday in a road in Naples's Vomero district.

The pair, who were returning from a party after a university exam, were saved by Army soldiers who happened to be stationed in the area as part of the Strade Sicure (Safe Streets) operation.

A parked car also fell into the sinkhole.

"It's a miracle we are alive.

It could have gone much, much worse," said Giulio Delle Donne, one of the two young men who is also a municipal councillor.

2023 started with snowfall in eastern and southeastern parts of the Netherlands and ended with record high water levels due to record-breaking rainfall. The wettest year since measurements began also included other destructive weather events such as storms and tornadoes. Below are some highlights from extreme weather events in the Netherlands in 2023.