Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments
Search

News for nerds, stuff that matters

Slashdot Log In

Log In

Create Account  |  Retrieve Password

Robot Submarine Maps World's Deepest Sinkhole

Posted by kdawson on Tue May 22, 2007 10:30 PM
from the submerge-the-Chrysler-Building dept.
Robotics Science
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."
+ -
story
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

Robot Submarine Maps World's Deepest Sinkhole 50 Comments More /

 Full
 Abbreviated
 Hidden
More
Loading... please wait.

  • Mel's Hole? (Score:5, Funny)

    by WED Fan (911325) <akahige AT trashmail DOT net> on Tuesday May 22 2007, @10:33PM (#19231793) Homepage Journal

    Mel's Hole [wikipedia.org]

    • Re:Mel's Hole? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ricree (969643) on Tuesday May 22 2007, @10:37PM (#19231819)
      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? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by WED Fan (911325) <akahige AT trashmail DOT net> on Tuesday May 22 2007, @10:50PM (#19231901) Homepage Journal

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

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Babbster (107076)
        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!

      • Re:Mel's Hole? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Whiney Mac Fanboy (963289) * <whineymacfanboy@gmail.com> on Tuesday May 22 2007, @11:20PM (#19232071) Homepage Journal
        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 [wikipedia.org] 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.

        • That's true, but the introductory sentences have the wrong tone. I'm not sure how exactly to fix it, but it sounds too much like something out of Uncyclopedia (or maybe the Onion).

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by evilviper (135110)

          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 specifical

        • But the article is stubbed as disputed. I do not think it should be deleted, as it is a great artifact of human stupidity.

          • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

            by pudro (983817)
            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 th

    • Re:Mel's Hole? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Skevin (16048) * on Tuesday May 22 2007, @11:09PM (#19232005) Journal
      The goatse guy is named Mel? You learn something new every day.

      Solomon

    • Those bastards (Score:5, Funny)

      by SuperKendall (25149) on Tuesday May 22 2007, @11:26PM (#19232099)
      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.

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

        Perhaps his hole was a giant wombat hole. I for one wouldn't want to mess with a three metre wombat. Nothing like that has been seen for 100000 years. I think the Government did the right thing to suppress information about the Hole.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tzanger (1575)

        Hey everybody, I have found a magic speed bump. I'm not gonna tell you where it is, or show you pictures of it, but if you drive over it, you will be able to raise the dead!

        I bet if you drive over any speed bump fast enough, the dead will at least jump...

  • its descendants? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 22 2007, @10:35PM (#19231807)
    > 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...

  • It's Jules Verne! (Score:3, Funny)

    by able1234au (995975) on Tuesday May 22 2007, @10:47PM (#19231887)
    > 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

  • Deep Diving Risks (Score:5, Interesting)

    by wildsurf (535389) on Tuesday May 22 2007, @10:54PM (#19231933) Homepage
    This reminds me of the amazing (and sobering) story of Dave Shaw [away.com], 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 (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Joaz Banbeck (1105839) on Wednesday May 23 2007, @12:05AM (#19232295)
      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 (Score:5, Insightful)

        by flyingsquid (813711) on Wednesday May 23 2007, @01:49AM (#19232789)
        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 (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Comatose51 (687974) on Wednesday May 23 2007, @03:21AM (#19233267) Homepage
          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.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Prune (557140)
            Mod parent "+1, He Gets It"
          • Exactly, it's his own fault he's dead but he knew that might be the case when he set off and so did the other divers.

            He wanted the rewards of successfully recovering a body from that depth more than he worried about dying in the attempt and that's a perfectly rational judgement, it is people like this who push boundaries and it's good that they do.
          • "If all of us waited until all the conditions were 100% right, nothing amazing will ever be achieved."

            Or we'd work for NASA. And yes.

          • Re:One thing is certain... (Score:4, Insightful)

            by gEvil (beta) (945888) on Wednesday May 23 2007, @07:50AM (#19234643)
            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

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by 4D6963 (933028)

        As I understood it, it wasn't the head coming off the problem, it was the body being loose instead of stuck, making it hard to put in the bag.

        Anyways, that story was creepy.

    • Thanks a lot for the article. Incredible, sad, yet still good in a way. Like his friend, I can't feel sorry for him. That's just the risk he accepted. In the end, he got the job done, which brings the whole story to a good ending.
  • 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.... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Fuji Kitakyusho (847520) on Wednesday May 23 2007, @12:13AM (#19232341)
      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.

    • Re:Holy shit, that is deep.... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by QuantumG (50515) <qg@biodome.org> on Wednesday May 23 2007, @01:07AM (#19232607) Homepage Journal
      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.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by zippthorne (748122)
        We already have centitech [wikipedia.org] 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.
    • The reason you deal with decompression sickness is that you breathe in air at 90' and the ascend. As you go up, the compressed air starts decompressing and filling up volume. In your joints, that causes the bends. In your lungs, it will cause a lot of pain.

      If, however, you take a normal breath at the surface, descend 90', and then ascend, the air will not expand and cause problems.

      I've heard that free divers' lungs will crush to the size of a baseball or smaller at depth.
      • No but you have another problem.

        As you descend the air is forced into your blood stream under pressure. And you have all this extra oxygen, which you use. As you ascend the air is withdrawn and you can end up with less oxygen than you need. Not good, it's why a lot of free divers black out on the ascent.

      • I think you're confusing the bends with an embolism.

        When you breathe at the surface and descend to 90', the air in your lungs will still be under 90' of water pressure (plus atmospheric pressure on top of that). Just like the air you would breathe from a tank at that depth. There will be less volume in your lungs but the pressure is the same and it will still be driven into (absorbed by) your tissues. When you ascend, bubbles will form in your tissues and cause the bends. People breathing from the surface

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by PeeAitchPee (712652)
      Exley was a pioneer. He literally wrote the book on cave diving [amazon.com] 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
  • Dick Cheney's top secret bunker has been located in a sinkhole. ;)
  • Altogether now:

    We all hack in a robot submarine, a robot submarine, a robot submarine....

  • Perhaps this could map Lost Sea (Score:4, Interesting)

    by dmleach (917181) on Wednesday May 23 2007, @07:03AM (#19234299)
    The world's largest known underground lake is Lost Sea [thelostsea.com], 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 [cavediveflorida.com] 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.
  • Now, the next time I go to the world's deepest sinkhole, I won't have to worry about getting lost. Is it on Google Maps yet?
  • It's during the Fraser Cain and Pamela Gay interview segment.
    http://www.theskepticsguide.org/skepticsguide/podc astinfo.asp?pid=95 [theskepticsguide.org]

All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2010 Geeknet, Inc.