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Robot Submarine Maps World's Deepest Sinkhole

Posted by kdawson on from the submerge-the-Chrysler-Building dept.

holy_calamity writes "The world's deepest water-filled sinkhole has finally been mapped — by a robotic submarine whose descendants may one day swim on one of Jupiter's moons. The last attempt to find the bottom resulted in the SCUBA diving depth record and the death of a diving legend. The sub's sonar found that the divers had descended to only about 10m from the floor. The sub's mapping also indicated that the sinkhole, which is over 300m deep, could connect to even deeper caves."

24 of 123 comments (clear)

  1. Mel's Hole? by WED+Fan · · Score: 4, Funny

    Mel's Hole

    --
    Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
    1. Re:Mel's Hole? by ricree · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I know that wikipedia isn't exactly the world's most reliable source, but why in the heck hasn't that article been deleted yet.

    2. Re:Mel's Hole? by WED+Fan · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Are you kidding? Art Bell would descend with his minions claiming "Government Cover-Up" if they deleted it.

      --
      Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
    3. Re:Mel's Hole? by Babbster · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Why would it be deleted?

      A) It's hilarious.
      2) It's a recounting of the guy's tall tales and doesn't seem to allege the truth of the stories. It's thus as valid as many other entries that discuss fables, comic books, etc.
      #) It's hilarious. The story of the alternate-universe dimes is reason enough to keep the article in perpetuity!

    4. Re:Mel's Hole? by Skevin · · Score: 4, Funny

      The goatse guy is named Mel? You learn something new every day.

      Solomon

      --
      "Twice half-assed makes an ass whole." --Solomon K. Chang
    5. Re:Mel's Hole? by Whiney+Mac+Fanboy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I know that wikipedia isn't exactly the world's most reliable source, but why in the heck hasn't that article been deleted yet.

      For the same reason that articles on Leprechauns or the Piltdown Man aren't deleted. So someone can go & read about them, find out they're not real things, and the read the story of how the hoax/myth/whatever was perpetutated.

      --
      There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
    6. Re:Mel's Hole? by evilviper · · Score: 2, Insightful

      someone can go & read about them, find out they're not real things, and the read the story of how the hoax/myth/whatever was perpetutated.

      The gaping hole in that theory, is that the Mel's Hole article doesn't bother to corroborate or contradict any of the evidence offered, even though much of it would be trivially easy to track down... Large checks and non-profits don't just appear and disappear without a paper trail. Not to mention travel records, alibis, etc., etc.

      The Piltdown Man article specifically says it was fake, and disproven. No such luck statement for Mel's Hole. And the "DISPUTED" tag at the top of Mel's Hole doesn't exactly lend credence to your claim, either.
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      Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
    7. Re:Mel's Hole? by pudro · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You can't find that out from Wikipedia, because the gravity-based cosmologists there are deathly afraid of people supporting plasma cosmology (which still does have a Wikipedia page). Even if new info is presented as what plasma cosmologists believe but everyone else has moved beyond, it gets immediately cut out. It's like a medical doctor gutting the page on bloodletting, because he disagreed with the practice. No crap, you disagree with it. That doesn't mean nobody should know what it's about. The fact that the Hollow Earth theory has a bigger page than plasma cosmology says a lot about what those idiots are doing to the page (and I say "idiots" NOT because I think gravity-based cosmologists have anything wrong with their own theory - it's just the ones at Wikipedia who feel the need to suppress information).

      --
      Freedom is assumed. Then they try to take it away. The degree to which you resist is the degree to which you are free.
  2. its descendants? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    > robotic submarine whose descendants may one day swim on one of Jupiter's moons

    Wow, robot submarine sex! I wonder if it has the hots for one of those mars rovers...

  3. It's Jules Verne! by able1234au · · Score: 3, Funny

    > The sub's mapping also indicated that the sinkhole, which is over 300m deep, could connect to even deeper caves.

    So begins the journey to the centre of the earth

  4. Deep Diving Risks by wildsurf · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This reminds me of the amazing (and sobering) story of Dave Shaw, who perished in a deep freshwater cavern trying to recover the body of a fellow diver. Quite a read, if you have 20 minutes.

    --
    Weeks of coding saves hours of planning.
    1. Re:Deep Diving Risks by Joaz+Banbeck · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Quite a sad tale as I recall. Shows the dangers of nitrogen narcosis. Makes your judgement horrible.

      Shaw made one serious mistake: he had a plan, and when something went wrong - the corpse's head came off - he tried to modify the plan at 800+ ft below, instead of going up to safety and making a new plan. ( Can't say I would have done better, though )

    2. Re:Deep Diving Risks by flyingsquid · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Personally, I think the bigger mistake was first putting himself in a situation where even the slightest misstep could result in death. He pushed his luck, and his luck ran out. Outside Magazine just loves this kind of death-by-adventure story. There was the one about the kid who went into the backwoods of Alaska to live off the land and starved to death, and there was the one about all the people who died in a storm on Everest (both appeared first in the magazine and were later written up as Into The Wild and Into Thin Air, respectively, both by Jon Krakauer).

      But I have a hard time crying too much about those stories where someone takes a lot of risks and then dies. Either you're incompetent and in over your head, in which case you deserve whatever you get. Or, you know the risks but take them anyway, figuring a potentially short, but adventure-filled life is better than a long, boring, risk-averse one, in which case you knew exactly what you were getting into, so you can't complain too much. Still, they do make for great reading.

    3. Re:Deep Diving Risks by Comatose51 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I'm not sure if people like him needs anyone to feel sorry for or to even pass any judgment on him. From the article, his friends certainly didn't. They accepted the fact and that was it. He accepted the risks and knew that there's always an element of chance. His luck ran out and he's dead. There's a great deal of stoicism that I admire in people like that. If all of us waited until all the conditions were 100% right, nothing amazing will ever be achieved.

      --
      EvilCON - Made Famous by /.
  5. Holy shit, that is deep.... by (H)elix1 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Wow. Just wow. This guy was trying for a 1000' dive? This guy did a 400' dive on air? Just as a few notes. With the PADI (recreational) diving, you can hit about 90' before you have to start dealing with decompression. 130' and you start hitting nitrogen narcosis as O2 gets toxic as the pressure increases. I've got buddies who are crazy enough to hang tanks and do 160' on air, and even they both admit that one was feeling a bit drunk/stupid from air and had been rescued by their buddy. After the third time, they gave up on the deep O2 dives.

    --
    +++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
    1. Re:Holy shit, that is deep.... by Fuji+Kitakyusho · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Crazy. I've done ~380 fsw on trimix, with four different decompression gases, and it was a logistical headache. I know that one team has done the Edmund Fitzgerald on SCUBA, but at those depths the logistical issues, risks and costs escalate to the point that you have to wonder what you are gaining over surface supported surface supply or saturation diving - a much safer option than SCUBA. Stunts like the one Sheck pulled, or those by Jim Bowden, etc., are nothing more than showboating for the sake of setting records. Problem is, the record you set might not be the one you were shooting for. (Most preventable death award goes to...)

      With trimix being so accessable now, it doesn't make any sense to me why anyone would continue to endanger themselves by doing deep dives on air. Actually, considering the widespread availability of nitrox, using air for any diving whatsoever doesn't really make sense anymore. I don't.

      As for 1000' deep sinkholes, using a ROV is probably the right idea.

    2. Re:Holy shit, that is deep.... by QuantumG · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Wonder if we'll ever have nanotech suits that make diving as safe as a submarine (or, hopefully, safer).

      Then I guess you'll have divers who wish for the good old days when you had to have skill to dive.

      A similar technology for space suits is probably a lot easier though. Only a single atmosphere of pressure, and a near vacuum environment.

      --
      How we know is more important than what we know.
    3. Re:Holy shit, that is deep.... by PeeAitchPee · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Exley was a pioneer. He literally wrote the book on cave diving and was the first person in the world to log over 1,000 cave dives. Slashdotters may also be interested to know that he was a North Florida math teacher who wrote his own software ("Dr. X") to help calculate gas mixes etc. during deep dives into the many caves which are part of the Florida Aquifer system. I submitted a story a few years ago on the tenth anniversary of his death but it was rejected -- glad to see he's finally being mentioned here.

    4. Re:Holy shit, that is deep.... by zippthorne · · Score: 2, Interesting

      We already have centitech suits that make diving as safe as a submarine. Actually probably a bit safer, considering they're rated for over three times the depth of a typical submarine. Not quite as fun though, since it's more like diving in your own personal submarine.

      --
      Can you be Even More Awesome?!
  6. Those bastards by SuperKendall · · Score: 4, Funny

    I can understand the "man" taking Mel's hole away from him, possibly to store with the Ark in that large warehouse.

    But shutting down his wombat-rescue operation? That's just plain mean.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  7. Re:meh by markov_chain · · Score: 3, Informative

    A bathyscaphe has been to 35,810 feet or so.

    --
    Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
  8. Re:Why not for this one? by Zeussy · · Score: 5, Informative

    Its not the depth, its the fact that its a sinkhole. uncharted at that, you need a ROV that can work in an enclosed space and create a map to know where it is accurately and how to get back.

    --
    Automation - The Car Company Tycoon Game
  9. Perhaps this could map Lost Sea by dmleach · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The world's largest known underground lake is Lost Sea, in Tennessee between Chattanooga and Knoxville. It's worth stopping off if you're ever in the area. Back in the 1970's, a group of divers tried to map the lake. The bubbles from their air tanks dislodged so much debris from the ceilings of the caves that they were unable to complete the project. I wonder if something like this robot would be able to finish the job.

  10. Re:One thing is certain... by gEvil+(beta) · · Score: 3, Insightful

    We all die. Sooner or later. We all die.

    I recently watched a few people get into a flamefest on another site because someone made the comment that "America is tied for first for the highest mortality rate." It was great watching all the "America: Love it or leave it" people come out saying there was no way that was possible and calling the guy a troll and telling him that America was the greatest country so it couldn't be true, etc. None of them seemed to be able to figure out that the guy was saying "everyone dies". : p

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    This guy's the limit!