KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) -- All lanes are opened after a sinkhole discovered by mowers forced state transportation officials to close the left eastbound lane of I-40 in Roane County Thursday, Tennessee Department of Transportation spokes person Yvette Martinez said in a news release.

Repair work on the sinkhole began Thursday, after the hole's discovery around 9 a.m. The lanes were reopened around 7 p.m.

The lane closure stretched from mile marker 355 to mile marker 356. The sinkhole itself is on the shoulder of the interstate between the Lawnville exit and mile marker 356.

"Crews say the opening [was] one foot in diameter on the surface, but the hole [went] at least four feet deep and [extended] under the left lane of the interstate," Martinez said in the release.

"Workers dug under the surface to find a weakness that spanned 14 feet wide and approximately 15 feet deep," Martinez said. "TDOT geotechnical engineers believe over the course of several years, water flowing through the ditchline in the grassy median seeped into a depression and into the bedrock below the median and shoulder weakening the soil."