May, 2024
Oceanographers have found the world's deepest underwater cave off the coast of Mexico. The so-called blue hole is so deep that scientists have not yet been able to measure its depth precisely.
This is Taam Ja', an underwater sinkhole off the east coast of Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula, near the border with Belize. 'Taam Ja' means 'deep water' in Yucatan Maya.
The blue hole reaches at least 400 meters deep, scientists write in Frontiers in Marine Science. That already makes it about 100 meters deeper than the previous record holder, the Dragon Hole in the South China Sea.
Oceanographers have not yet reached the bottom of the blue hole. Sound waves got to 274 meters deep without reaching the bottom.
A 500-meter cable also failed to reach the bottom. Because the hole does not run perpendicularly downward, the scientists reached a depth of 420 meters below sea level. "The bottom is still not in sight," the researchers write.
The research team now plans to use robots and unmanned submarines to dive into the hole to find and map the bottom.