Largest and most impressive sinkholes of the world

List of 10 most impressive sinkholes

Sinkholes here have been listed in alphabetic order.

1. Andros Black Hole

Bahamas, South Andros

Crossection of South Andros Black Hole in south - north direction, compared with Boeing 747-400.
Gatis Pāvils, basing on S.Schwabe, R.A.Herbert, 2005, CC-BY-SA-3.0

Black holes are the only formations known in the world where microorganisms have increased the temperature of water - in Andros Black Hole it reaches 40°C. Approximately 300 m wide and up to 47 m deep round karst formation.

2. Crveno Jezero - Red Lake

Croatia, Split-Dalmatia

Crveno Jezero sinkhole. User Tieum512, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0

One of the largest and most impressive sinkholes in the world - approximately 530 m deep, with nearly vertical walls. Contains 280 - 290 m deep lake with endemic species of fish.

3. Dean's Blue Hole

Bahamas, Long Island

Dean's Blue Hole, Bahamas.
Ton Engwirda, Wikimedia Commons, CC-BY-SA-3.0 Netherlands

The 202-203 m deep Dean's Blue Hole is the deepest known blue hole in sea. It is used in yearly world championship of freedivers and numerous world records are set here.

4. El Zacatón sinkhole

Mexico, Tamaulipas

Crossection of El Zacaton sinkhole, compared with Boeing 747-400. Gatis Pāvils, compilation of DEPTX mapping (2007) and M.O.Gary and J.M.Sharp Jr., CC-BY-SA-3.0

The second deepest water filled sinkhole in the world. Total depth of sinkhole is 339 m, lake is 319 m deep. On the surface of lake there are floating several round travertine islands. Lake is formed by volcanically heated acidic groundwater.

5. Great Blue Hole

Belize, Belize District

Great Blue Hole, Belize.
Chris Alnatt, www.ambergriscaye.com, public domain.

124 m deep, perfectly round, submerged, deep blue sinkhole in the middle of atoll. At the depth of 40 metres contains numerous stalactites which provide valuable information about the past of Earth climate.

6. Minyé sinkhole and cave

Papua New Guinea, East New Britain

Crossection of Minyé sinkhole.
Gatis Pāvils, basing on T.Waltham, 2006, CC-BY-SA-3.0

Up to 510 m deep, giant sinkhole in equatorial jungle. Below it is crossed by powerful underground river, opening entrances into enormous, at least 5.4 km long cave with some of the largest cave chambers in the world.

7. Sima Humboldt and Sima Martel

Venezuela, Bolívar state

Sima Humboldt in the middle part of picture and Sima Martel in the far background.
Photo taken in 1992 by Luis Ruiz Berti, public domain.

Some of the oldest and most unique sinkholes in the world. Sima Humboldt is 314 m deep, Sima Martel - 248 m deep, both formed in extremely resistant sandstone over the course of hundreds of millions of years. Bottom of both sinkholes contains patches of unique rainforest with endemic, little explored species.

8. Sótano de las Golondrinas - Cave of the Swallows

Mexico, San Luis Potosí

Caver rappelling down into the Sótano de las Golondrinas. User Stubb, Wikimedia Commons, Free Art License

Sinkhole with enormous, 372 m deep entrance hole and characteristic swarms of birds sprialling up the shaft every morning.

9. Teiq sinkhole

Oman, Dhofar Governorate

One of the largest sinkholes in the world with volume of 90 million m³, depth up to 250 m, width 750 - 1000 m. Two perennial streams enter this sinkhole and disappear underground. This giant pit is especially impressive due to high perennial waterfalls falling into it.

10. Xiaozhai tiankeng

China, Chongqing Municipality

Crossection of Xiaozhai tiankeng, compared with Boeing 747-400.
Gatis Pāvils, basing on T.Waltham, 2006, CC-BY-SA-3.0

Largest known sinkhole in the world, up to 662 m deep and 626 m wide pit with vertical walls. On the bottom grows unique forest.

Map of 10 most impressive sinkholes

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The giant sinkholes of Earth belong to the most impressive natural landmarks.

Wondermondo offers unique review of the largest sinkholes of the world - deepest, most capacious and most unusual ones.

Where are located the largest sinkholes of the world?

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 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 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.

Sótano del Barro, Mexico.
Wikimedia Commons, user Aromgom, public domain

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 volcanically heated water. Some of these giant sinkholes have sealed themselves with travertine lids and may hide unknown organisms inside!

True 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!

Majlis al Jinn in Oman, ascending towards the Cheryl's Drop. Photo from Wikimedia Commons, CC-BY-SA-3.0

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 criscrossed 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.

Remarks and disclaimers to the list of deepest known sinkholes

Below is list of the most impressive sinkholes in the world. When referring to it, please remember:

• List includes naturally formed sinkholes known to Wondermondo which are well pronounced (f.e. NOT included gently sloping valleys e.g. mega-dolines) and at least 150 m deep.
• List includes true sinkholes where the bottom is reached by the sunlight (or bottom would be reached by the sunlight if there would be no lake). It does not include narrow, near vertical caves, f.e. shaped by upcoming springs, like the fantastic Pozzo del Merro. It does not include pits inside the caves.
• Shown depth of the sinkhole itself, e.g. difference between the highest rim and lowest point at the bottom of sinkhole. This depth does not include the depth of deeper caves linked to the main body of sinkhole.
• Numbers of volume for most part are very approximate and include the volume of the main body of sinkhole only.

Deepest known sinkholes of the world

Click on headings to sort the table!

Sources

• 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.