What Caused the Earth to Crack in Mexico?

On or about August 15, 2014, a one kilometer (.6 mile) long, eight meter (26 feet) deep and up to 5 meters (16 feet) wide crack opened in the ground near Hermosillo in Mexico, cutting across Highway 26 between Hermosillo and the coast and puzzling experts and locals as to its cause.

This video footage was taken by the Hermosillo Desde El Cielo (Hermosillo From the Sky). The video was made using a drone and was initially thought to be a fraud because of its quality. Local residents and farmers are being forced to detour around it using extreme caution because the soil is loose and the ground still unstable. In fact, another smaller crack opened nearby across Highway 4. Initial speculation pointed to an earthquake at the San Andreas Fault at about the same time. It’s believed that there was once an underground stream, now dry, in this area and the quake could have caused the unsupported ground to collapse. There has also been heavy rains in the area that could have saturated the ground with water before the collapse, but the land shown in the video appears to be pretty dry.

Location of Hermosillo where the crack occurred.

According to the El Imparcial newspaper, investigators discovered that local farmers had built a rainwater levee that was leaking, which could be another cause of an underground stream. No one has said with any degree of certainty what caused the collapse, so let’s look at some other possibilities. It could be a dormant Mexican volcano beginning to rumble. It’s a remote area of Mexico, a country with sizable oil resources. Could it be the result of drilling or fracking? Are the fracking-related earthquakes in the U.S. gaining intensity and crossing the border? Although it’s a crack and not a hole, could it be related to the Siberian holes which still haven’t been explained conclusively? While we’re waiting for an explanation, has anyone checked the Mayan calendar for 2014 predictions?

by Paul Seaburn
Mysterious Universe