White is slated to give a report on the tiankeng to fellow geologists on Tuesday, Oct. 24, at the meeting of the Geological Society of America in Philadelphia.
"It’s a hole through which you can see the sky," said Arthur Palmer, a cave expert at the State University of New York at Oneonta. He was on the same tour of the tiankeng as White in 2005 and recalled that you could even walk into a cavern, through the dark and into the bottom of a tiankeng.
In Tennessee there are some sinkholes on a similar scale, said Palmer, but they are not steep-sided and look like normal valleys — until you notice that there’s no outlet. In China's Guilin region, on the other hand, the entire landscape is dominated by tiankeng and conical hills.
"You have the impression someone took a giant cookie cutter to the land," said Palmer. "You are impressed by how abrupt they are. These do tend to be the biggest in the world."
The provincial government is hoping more people make the trip to see the tiankeng. They’ve already built roads and paths so people can walk down into the holes, said White.
"This is kind of hot-off-the-press," said Palmer of how unknown tiankeng are outside of China.
"Although the processes that form tiankengs have been long recognized, the sheer magnitude of these features had not been anticipated," he said. "It is interesting history."
