Mysterious gaping crack opens up in Wyoming's Bighorn Mountains
Deep in the foothills of Bighorn Mountains in Wyoming, a dramatic giant crack has opened up in the ground.
Named "The Gash" by stunned onlookers, the huge maw, which some have described as 聽"a mini Grand Canyon," is estimated to measure 750 yards long by 50 yards wide.
First reported by hunting company SNS Outfitter & Guides on , the massive crack is said to be a geological event and nothing manmade.
According to SNS Outfitter & Guides the gaping hole,聽鈥渁ppeared in the last two weeks on a ranch we hunt in the Bighorn Mountains. Everyone here is calling it 鈥榯he gash.鈥� It鈥檚 a really incredible sight.鈥�
Randy Becker, one of the hunters to see the crater, , "An awesome example of how our earth is not as stable as you might think.
"Awesome forces at work here to move this much dirt!!鈥�
SNA Outfitter & Guides shared findings from an engineer in Riverton, Wyoming who examined the area, in a follow up post.
"Apparently, a wet spring lubricated across a cap rock," the company . "Then, a small spring on either side caused the bottom to slide out. He estimated 15 to 20 million yards of movement."
While impressive, this gaping back-country sinkhole is nothing apocryphal, but rather geological.聽
A Wyoming Geological Survey expert called it a 鈥渇airly small event given the overall aspect of how big landslides can be.鈥�
"A number of things trigger them, moisture in the subsurface which causes weakness in soil or geology, and any process that would weaken the bedrock or unstabilize it somehow," Wyoming Geological Survey鈥檚 manager of groundwater and geologic hazards and mapping, Seth Wittke, Grind TV.
Wyoming Geological Survey鈥檚 public information specialist Chamois Andersen聽 the Powell Tribune "an early, wet spring and summer" may have also "had a lot to do with it."
"It is not uncommon to have slides like that," she said.
So, will The Gash keep growing?
鈥淵eah, as long as there鈥檚 room for it to move it could keep moving,鈥� Wittke said.
