Scientist explains cause of urban sinkholes in the Twin Cities

Sinkhole from above
A sinkhole is pictured at the intersection of Girard Avenue South and West 27th Street in Minneapolis on Monday, April 10, 2023.
Kerem Yücel | MPR News

Potholes have littered streets across Minnesota after weather all over the state has repeatedly shifted extremes back and forth this season. But as some saw in Uptown Minneapolis, potholes weren’t the only craters that opened.

Last week, two sinkholes appeared. One on Girard avenue in Minneapolis which was 8-feet-deep and then another swallowed pavement on U.S. Highway 10 near Armstrong Boulevard in Ramsey.

MPR News host Cathy Wurzer spoke with engineering geologist BJ Bonin about how something like this can happen. Bonin was an author on the Hennepin County Bedrock Collapse Project that focused on investigating sinkholes around Minnesota and worked with others to develop a hazard map.

The report and more can be found online at freshwater.org.

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