Unexpected and somewhat scary, sinkholes never fail to interest people. A new study says that more of the phenomena might be coming to West Texas.

This week Zhong Lu, professor in the Roy M. Huffington Department of Earth Sciences at Southern Methodist University, released a study proposing that four West Texas counties just might be ripe for more sinkholes.

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Those counties - Winkler, Ward, Reeves and Pecos - are located in an area roughly the size of Connecticut, in the heart of the oil-rich West Texas Permian Basin.

Back in August 2016 Texas Monthly looked into West Texas sinkholes.

Texas history buffs likely know that starting in 1980 two sizable sinkholes formed near Wink and Kermit. The first one was dubbed Wink Sink 1 and another in 2002 became known as Wink Sink 2.

Luckily these areas aren't heavily inhabited so there won't be any episodes like we have seen in other parts of Texas where sinkholes have swallowed up cars and homes.

The worry though, as Texas Monthly noted, is that a third sinkhole nearby could very well lead to one just giant sinkhole forming.

Lu's geophysical team used radar satellite images to determine that portions of those aforementioned counties are seeing some sinking and lifting, across a 4,000-square-mile area. European Space Agency resources and those from the Texas Railroad Commission were used in the study published in Scientific Reports.

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"The ground movement we're seeing is not normal. The ground doesn't typically do this without some cause," Lu told Phys.Org this week. He said that residents, roads and most importantly some oil and gas lines, so vital to that area's way of life, could be in danger.

It's that oil industry activity, for nearly 100 years, that seems to be causing the ground to shift.

What's needed now, according to scientists like Lu and others, is for more seismic stations to be installed in the area to monitor what's happening while also still allowing for the oil field work to continue safely.

Craig Hlavaty is a reporter for Chron.com and HoustonChronicle.com.