Robot Submarine Maps World's Deepest Sinkhole

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."

Comments

Mel's Hole?

[WED Fan]

Mel's Hole

Re:Mel's Hole?

[ricree]

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.

Re:Mel's Hole?

[Skevin]

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

Solomon

Re:Mel's Hole?

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

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.

Deep Diving Risks

[wildsurf]

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.

Re:Deep Diving Risks

[Joaz Banbeck]

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 )

Re:Deep Diving Risks

[flyingsquid]

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.

Re:Deep Diving Risks

[Comatose51]

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.

Holy shit, that is deep....

[(H)elix1]

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.

Re:Holy shit, that is deep....

[Fuji Kitakyusho]

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.

Those bastards

[SuperKendall]

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.

Re:Why not for this one?

[Zeussy]

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.

Perhaps this could map Lost Sea

[dmleach]

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.