Sinking is the act and consequence of sinking or sinking . This verb, in turn, refers to submerge, depress, deform or ruin , according to the context.
For example: "According to the latest reports, the sinking of the ship occurred three hours after the collision" , "The neighbors reported that the sinking of the road was due to lack of maintenance" , "When he insulted his rival in the internal disputes in a debate on TV, the collapse of his political career began .
The idea of shipwreck is usually linked to the process that develops when a boat stops floating in a body of water and begins to sink : that is, to submerge. A sinking can occur in a sea, a river, a lake or a lagoon, to name a few possibilities.
Sinking is due to multiple reasons. In the context of a war, a torpedo or missile can hit the ship, sinking it. An extreme meteorological phenomenon , meanwhile, is capable of causing the ship to become unstable or causing it to impact against a solid body (such as an iceberg, a submerged rock or another ship), damaging its hull and causing water to enter it. Navigation failures are another possible cause of sinking due to possible collisions.
The wreck of the Titanic , which occurred in 1912 , is possibly the most famous sinking in history. This ship collided with an iceberg and, as it sank due to water entering its structure, it ended up breaking. More than 1,500 people died in the accident.
Beyond the sinking of ships, the notion is also used to refer to the deformation of a surface . The carriageway of a route (highway) or street can register a sinking due to a leak or excessive weight, which means the appearance of a hole or a crack .
On the other hand, there is the concept of land subsidence , which refers to a movement of the earth's surface in which the predominant direction is downward. This phenomenon can be seen in places with different slopes and characteristics. Likewise, it can occur for various reasons and its development can reach a wide range of speeds, from very low to very high, depending on the mechanism that opens the doors to this type of instability.
Land subsidence can occur for several reasons; Among the most common is the dissolution of limestone that causes the passage of groundwater. It should be noted that limestone is a sedimentary rock that is composed mostly of calcium carbonate , although it also has calcite, some traces of magnesite and more carbonates.
Although calcium carbonate has a fairly low solubility product constant, if an acid is applied to it it is highly soluble. This has led to a large number of problems in various parts of the world, such as Mexico, Prague, Spain, Venezuela and Florida.
The action of gravity plays an undeniable role in land subsidence. For example, on very steep slopes certain poorly consolidated materials may begin to slide, especially during rainy seasons. Rainwater, for its part, is acidic and this can be accentuated when it comes into contact with plant matter in a state of decomposition.
If the vertical movement is not fast or even if its speed is tiny (for example, if it is measured in centimeters per year) but it has influence in a large area (one that is measured in square kilometers), then we can speak of subsidence , while in the opposite case, collapse .