Ozark Sinkholes near Washburn, MO
N 36° 35.859 W 094° 00.535
15S E 409758 N 4050713
Two sinkholes caused by typical Ozark karst geology on a ranch near Washburn, Missouri: one sinkhole that is annually increasing in size, and another cone-shaped sinkhole on a steep hillside.
Waymark Code: WMGQE0
Location: Missouri, United States
Date Posted: 03/31/2013
Views: 9
Permission to visit these sinkholes must be obtained from the landowner.
I
am the land owner. Please leave me a message through waymarking.com and I will get back to you when I am available to show you the sinkholes.
The coordinates of this listing are for the bigger sinkhole, which had been the smaller of the two back in 2003 when we moved here. The interesting thing about these sinkholes is that we know the location of an outlet for the cave that is at the bottom of the holes: it is a spring that we call Independence Spring about 150 yards west of the main sinkhole. We can show you both sinkholes and the spring.
When the previous owner showed me around the ranch, he first pointed out the cone-shaped sinkhole on a hillside (about 100 yards southeast of the main sinkhole), which he said that he had discovered whilst out squirrel hunting, because he could hear the roar of water in its depths. That cone-shaped sinkhole has gotten wider, but has also silted in quite a bit. He also waved his hand at the sinkhole near the road, in passing, and said, "There's another one". At that time (2003) it was just a single small hole in the ground.
Since then the sinkhole near the road (the one I call the main sinkhole) has grown so much that it is in danger of destroying the old logging road, which would then have to be re-routed. In 2006 it looked like this:
At the time I did not think to take a better contextual photograph because I never thought it would grow to the size it has. Even then, 3 years after I had first seen it, the ground around the holes was still level.
The smaller, cone-shaped sinkhole (see photo gallery) is located at:
N36°35.811' W94°00.522'