A sinkhole opened up in Tarcoola Street, Ferny Hills, on Saturday afternoon. Photo: Natalie Bochenski

Council workers have been unable to pinpoint the cause of a sinkhole in a suburban street on Brisbane's northside.

A tear more than a metre long and four metres deep opened up in Tarnook Street at Ferny Hills around mid-Saturday afternoon. 

Police and Moreton Bay Regional Council maintenance crews were called in to divert local traffic and dig out the asphalt and damp dirt around the tear. 

Georgia Abbott, 14, with her friends in the Ferny Hills street where a sinkhole opened up. Photo: Natalie Bochenski

14-year-old Georgia Abbott, who lives at the intersection with Tarcoola Street, was getting ready for a sleepover with friends when she noticed a depression in the road surface.

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"It was just kind of a little ditch, still smooth, but half an hour after that I had a look and it had cracks in it and had opened up a little bit," she said.

"Then my friends came and we went for a walk, and about 40 minutes after that we came back and there were actual holes in it."

One local resident reported water seen pooling on the road on Saturday morning. 

However Council workers on the scene said initial investigations into the sinkhole - which involved cutting a three metre by three metre hole in the street - failed to find any indication of a leak.

Workers were moving to refill the hole late Saturday afternoon. 

Urban sinkholes are typically caused by water main breaks or sewer collapses when old pipes give way.

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