WEBVTT - Sinkholes, Part 2 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:05.240 My Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, the production 0:00:05.240 --> 0:00:14.040 of My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:00:14.080 --> 0:00:17.239 Your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, 0:00:17.280 --> 0:00:20.480 and we're back with part two of our discussion of sinkholes. Now. 0:00:20.520 --> 0:00:24.119 In the last episode, we talked about some some fabulous 0:00:24.160 --> 0:00:28.600 examples of sinkholes that suddenly open up and reveal interesting things. Below, 0:00:28.720 --> 0:00:32.720 we talked about how sinkholes form, the geology and hydrology 0:00:32.720 --> 0:00:36.440 of sinkholes, and we talked about some interesting specific examples 0:00:36.479 --> 0:00:39.440 in the world. But today we wanted to get into 0:00:39.520 --> 0:00:42.920 some things about like the religious significance of sinkholes and 0:00:43.280 --> 0:00:46.320 sinkholes as a scientific tool that can help show us 0:00:46.360 --> 0:00:49.600 things about the past UH, and also maybe some sinkholes 0:00:49.640 --> 0:00:53.199 in space. But I thought sinkholes in religion would be 0:00:53.280 --> 0:00:56.280 a good place to start because one of the interesting 0:00:56.520 --> 0:01:03.120 ways of conceptualizing UH deities is that deities are often 0:01:03.960 --> 0:01:09.440 manifestations of natural forces and natural resources, And of course, 0:01:09.520 --> 0:01:12.800 one of the most important natural resources is water, so 0:01:12.840 --> 0:01:15.479 there are all kinds of water deities around the world. 0:01:15.520 --> 0:01:19.520 Coastal civilizations and cultures will have deities associated with the 0:01:19.560 --> 0:01:22.600 ocean that are very important in their culture. But if 0:01:22.640 --> 0:01:25.360 you're if you're more inland, there will often be deities 0:01:25.400 --> 0:01:28.680 associated with where you get your fresh water. Either are 0:01:28.720 --> 0:01:31.880 a very important river or they're even There are lots 0:01:31.880 --> 0:01:35.559 of holy wells that are found throughout the history of 0:01:35.560 --> 0:01:37.680 of Europe, both Pagan and Christian. There are a lot 0:01:37.760 --> 0:01:41.319 of like holy wells and water sources. And the same 0:01:41.440 --> 0:01:46.080 is true of many sinkholes in ancient meso America. That's right, um, 0:01:46.480 --> 0:01:51.880 and in particular the sacred sonotes of the Maya, which 0:01:51.920 --> 0:01:55.000 is what we'd like to talk about here. I was 0:01:55.080 --> 0:01:59.800 reading a piece, really nice piece on Mexico Lore dot 0:01:59.840 --> 0:02:05.840 com dot UK by Maya archaeologist Andrew kenkela Um, just 0:02:06.040 --> 0:02:09.320 titled Sacred Sinkholes, and he discusses some of what we've 0:02:09.320 --> 0:02:12.080 already mentioned in regard to, you know, the large number 0:02:12.480 --> 0:02:17.000 of these sinkholes or sinotes in Mesoamerica. The entire area 0:02:17.040 --> 0:02:20.000 is situated on a limestone bedrock, and we end up 0:02:20.000 --> 0:02:23.000 with with these hollows and then they collapse, and then 0:02:23.040 --> 0:02:27.239 of course then they often fill with water. But so yeah, 0:02:27.280 --> 0:02:29.200 you're world left with something. There's not just a deep pit, 0:02:29.680 --> 0:02:34.200 which alone can be pretty interesting, but pits with water, 0:02:34.320 --> 0:02:37.680 often from deep underground, so you're often talking clean water, 0:02:37.800 --> 0:02:42.440 clear water an ideal resource. Some of these contain as 0:02:42.480 --> 0:02:46.400 much as like fifty meters of water. Uh. He points out. Yeah, 0:02:46.440 --> 0:02:49.000 there are a lot of fascinating things about these sinkholes. 0:02:49.040 --> 0:02:51.280 One of which, just before I forget, I wanted to 0:02:51.280 --> 0:02:53.960 call attention to that they explore some of these uh 0:02:54.080 --> 0:02:58.520 senotes in the Yucatan Peninsula in the documentary that we 0:02:58.639 --> 0:03:02.280 recently interviewed Werner Hertzog and Clive Oppenheimer about there, there's 0:03:02.280 --> 0:03:05.680 this segment where they so that documentary is called Fireball, 0:03:06.040 --> 0:03:08.520 and it's about impacts from space and the scars they 0:03:08.600 --> 0:03:11.520 leave on Earth and and what we can learn from them. 0:03:11.560 --> 0:03:13.520 And one of the things they explore is if if 0:03:13.560 --> 0:03:16.320 you look at a map of the senotes of the 0:03:16.360 --> 0:03:19.800 Yucatan Peninsula, there's one part of the Yucatan where there 0:03:19.880 --> 0:03:24.440 is this almost perfect partial ring of sinotes, and it's like, 0:03:24.480 --> 0:03:27.919 what's going on there? And that apparently corresponds to the 0:03:28.000 --> 0:03:31.560 outer rim of the crater that was left by the 0:03:31.639 --> 0:03:36.000 impact from the KPg extinction, the large space impact that 0:03:36.280 --> 0:03:40.880 probably contributed significantly to the extinction of the non avian dinosaurs. 0:03:40.960 --> 0:03:44.400 And so in Fireball there's a segment where where Clive 0:03:44.440 --> 0:03:48.400 Oppenheimer goes down into one of these beautiful ancient senotes 0:03:48.440 --> 0:03:51.240 with a local researcher and and they talk about not 0:03:51.400 --> 0:03:53.480 just what it can tell is geologically we might get 0:03:53.480 --> 0:03:55.760 a little bit more into that later, but but also 0:03:55.840 --> 0:04:00.160 what it means religiously. Yeah, So especially for areas are 0:04:00.200 --> 0:04:03.720 from rivers, these sonotes became very important for just purely 0:04:03.760 --> 0:04:06.600 practical reasons like this is where you could get water. 0:04:06.920 --> 0:04:09.800 This enabled you to live and have you know, have 0:04:10.000 --> 0:04:13.760 have communities that existed further away from those rivers. But 0:04:13.800 --> 0:04:16.240 then they ended up taking on religious power as well. 0:04:16.720 --> 0:04:20.360 And Kintella writes that the ancient Maya regarded senotes as 0:04:20.400 --> 0:04:24.360 one of the three symbolic entry ways Uh to Sibalba, 0:04:24.440 --> 0:04:28.520 the Mayan underworld. So eventually this kind of he describes 0:04:28.520 --> 0:04:32.640 it as a sinote cult emerges, devoted to venturing out, 0:04:33.040 --> 0:04:36.880 like taking these pilgrimages to different senotes, collecting water from 0:04:36.960 --> 0:04:40.479 them from different the different ones, and making what offerings 0:04:40.560 --> 0:04:45.600 up to the watery depths. And their role these these priests, 0:04:45.600 --> 0:04:49.320 these pilgrims, their role would have been seen as vitally important, 0:04:49.400 --> 0:04:54.080 especially during times of drought, you know, when when the 0:04:54.040 --> 0:04:57.800 the the resources of the senotes becomes uh, you know, 0:04:57.839 --> 0:05:00.360 in doubt or seems threatened. Like they seemed to have 0:05:00.440 --> 0:05:03.920 a role in in trying to maintain the balance, to 0:05:04.040 --> 0:05:08.320 try and maintain the balentiful gifts of these places. I 0:05:08.400 --> 0:05:12.040 was also looking at an article on National Geographic titled 0:05:12.080 --> 0:05:14.000 Secrets of the Maya in the Other World, and this 0:05:14.080 --> 0:05:19.360 was by Alma Guillermo Prieto, and this is about the 0:05:20.440 --> 0:05:23.800 sinkholes uh that we've been discussing here and about how 0:05:23.839 --> 0:05:28.520 they were also associated with a key deity which was Chock. 0:05:28.720 --> 0:05:31.000 I believe that it's spelled in this article is c 0:05:31.279 --> 0:05:33.880 H A A K. I've also seen it with the 0:05:34.000 --> 0:05:37.320 with a C H A C. I think. Yeah. So 0:05:37.400 --> 0:05:39.800 here's what they wrote in this article quote or this 0:05:39.839 --> 0:05:43.240 is just a really I think telling passage from it quote. 0:05:43.240 --> 0:05:45.880 For men like un Kin, the old gods are still 0:05:45.960 --> 0:05:49.760 very much alive, and Chock, ruler of sinotes and caves, 0:05:50.080 --> 0:05:52.719 is among the most important gods of all for the 0:05:52.720 --> 0:05:55.600 benefit of living things. He pours from the skies, the 0:05:55.600 --> 0:05:59.760 water he keeps in earthenware jars and caves. Chalk is 0:05:59.800 --> 0:06:03.040 one one in many. Each thunderclap is a separate chock 0:06:03.120 --> 0:06:06.279 in action, breaking a jar open and letting the rain fall. 0:06:06.920 --> 0:06:10.520 Each god inhabits a separate layer of reality, along with 0:06:10.640 --> 0:06:15.400 dozens of alternatively complacent and ferocious gods that live in 0:06:15.440 --> 0:06:20.360 the thirteen other worlds above and the nine other worlds below. Together, 0:06:20.680 --> 0:06:24.800 they filled the Maya people's lives with dreams, visions, and nightmares, 0:06:25.040 --> 0:06:29.440 a complicated calendar of agricultural times and fertility rituals, in 0:06:29.480 --> 0:06:32.200 a firm sense of the way things must be done. 0:06:32.720 --> 0:06:35.880 Chock had moved, un Kin said, and that meant the 0:06:35.920 --> 0:06:40.880 planting season would soon arrive. That's beautiful. Yeah. Yeah, So 0:06:40.960 --> 0:06:42.880 in this we see that a cave or sinote could 0:06:42.920 --> 0:06:45.880 be seen as as a dwelling place of chalk, but 0:06:45.920 --> 0:06:48.239 it could also, you know, be seen as this yawning 0:06:48.320 --> 0:06:51.360 mall of the earth, or even this gateway to deeper 0:06:51.400 --> 0:06:56.520 realms of reality. Yeah. And and this combines the multiple version, 0:06:56.560 --> 0:06:59.160 so you you can of course see these senotes as 0:06:59.160 --> 0:07:01.320 a gateway to the under world and a source of water. 0:07:01.920 --> 0:07:04.600 But I was also reading in a different National Geographic 0:07:04.680 --> 0:07:09.920 article um about like the the the specifics of certain senotes, 0:07:10.080 --> 0:07:13.720 like It's not just all senotes are religiously equivalent. There 0:07:13.720 --> 0:07:17.040 would be, for example, some senotes and specific locations that 0:07:17.120 --> 0:07:20.400 have different religious significance for the people who lived nearby. 0:07:20.920 --> 0:07:23.960 The one I was thinking of was a senote that 0:07:24.640 --> 0:07:26.880 as the ancient mind city had a wall, there was 0:07:26.920 --> 0:07:30.880 like many senotes within the wall that could be used 0:07:30.880 --> 0:07:33.440 as a water source. But there's one senote outside the 0:07:33.440 --> 0:07:36.920 city wall that it seems was regarded primarily as a 0:07:36.960 --> 0:07:38.800 place for the burial of the dead, and there have 0:07:38.800 --> 0:07:42.760 been many human remains found down inside that one. Yeah, yeah, 0:07:42.760 --> 0:07:44.560 they yeah, they're They're a whole slew of them with 0:07:44.600 --> 0:07:48.160 different significance. Is the most famous of the sonotes, Uh, 0:07:48.200 --> 0:07:51.080 it's probably the sacred senote at the Maya site of 0:07:51.200 --> 0:07:55.080 Channita Uh where there was this it's been a place 0:07:55.120 --> 0:07:56.680 of of a fair amount of study. There was a 0:07:56.680 --> 0:07:59.960 small building by it that was apparently used for blood sacrifice. 0:08:00.200 --> 0:08:04.320 Is um again tying into traditions related to the you know, 0:08:04.360 --> 0:08:06.720 the sacredness of the spot and the continuation of water. 0:08:07.480 --> 0:08:11.440 Variety of sacred objects were also apparently cast into the soote, 0:08:11.640 --> 0:08:17.360 including precious jade artifacts, gold and copper disks, uh, foods, 0:08:17.680 --> 0:08:21.760 and other organic items that that we've we actually can find, 0:08:21.800 --> 0:08:24.160 you know, evidence of. But uh, yeah, so you think 0:08:24.200 --> 0:08:26.440 of this as like an opening up into the world 0:08:26.480 --> 0:08:29.360 below where you might throw offerings, where you might make 0:08:29.400 --> 0:08:33.640 sacrifices of material or sacrifices of blood. It's hard for 0:08:33.679 --> 0:08:35.920 me not to sort of connect this to some of 0:08:35.960 --> 0:08:38.080 the stuff we were talking about in the previous episode, 0:08:38.120 --> 0:08:41.760 where there is a pretty clear link between pumping too 0:08:41.840 --> 0:08:44.920 much groundwater up. You know, like, uh, there's certain places 0:08:44.920 --> 0:08:48.959 where there's a need for for massive irrigation of fields 0:08:48.960 --> 0:08:51.840 maybe sometime to like protect a certain crop from frost 0:08:51.960 --> 0:08:54.160 or something, so you will pump just tons and tons 0:08:54.160 --> 0:08:57.840 of water to put over the fields so so so 0:08:57.920 --> 0:09:00.760 much that you really lower the level of the groundwater 0:09:01.040 --> 0:09:04.080 and suddenly cause lots of sinkholes to to open up 0:09:04.080 --> 0:09:06.280 where the suddenly the you know, the water pressure is 0:09:06.280 --> 0:09:08.960 not what it was below the overburden can't hold up 0:09:08.960 --> 0:09:11.280 its own weight and then collapses. And this has happened 0:09:11.280 --> 0:09:14.360 in the US in places like Florida. I mean, it 0:09:14.400 --> 0:09:16.880 could be it's very easy to see how something like 0:09:16.920 --> 0:09:22.360 that could be interpreted as as the wrath of the gods, right, yeah, absolutely, yeah, 0:09:22.640 --> 0:09:26.079 you're you're messing with the domain of the the earth gods. Now, 0:09:26.120 --> 0:09:29.560 one of the interesting things about these Mesoamerican traditions concerning 0:09:29.600 --> 0:09:33.520 sinots is that it's also thought that that native people's 0:09:34.480 --> 0:09:37.520 um elsewhere in the America has probably carried some of 0:09:37.559 --> 0:09:41.040 these uh these ideas with them, And so when you 0:09:41.120 --> 0:09:45.640 encounter of some North American sinotees, there's there's evidence of 0:09:46.679 --> 0:09:49.160 that these areas that native peoples may have used them 0:09:49.160 --> 0:09:52.040 as burial places as well given them, um you know, 0:09:52.520 --> 0:09:55.920 places of importance in their world views. And one such 0:09:56.000 --> 0:10:01.760 place is Devil Sinkhole northwest of sand San Antonio. Um. 0:10:01.800 --> 0:10:04.560 It's now a state park, but it's a hundred and 0:10:04.600 --> 0:10:07.640 forty ft deep or forty three meters deep, and um 0:10:08.520 --> 0:10:11.360 uh yeah, apparently there's evidence that ancient people's came here 0:10:11.440 --> 0:10:14.560 and probably held it in some esteem. But one of 0:10:14.559 --> 0:10:18.800 the really crazy natural world things about Devil Sinkhole is 0:10:19.000 --> 0:10:21.680 that it is home to, or at least part of 0:10:21.679 --> 0:10:26.800 the year, it is home to three million Mexican freetailed bats. Wow, 0:10:27.120 --> 0:10:30.640 that's a lot of bats. Yeah. So they migrate to 0:10:30.679 --> 0:10:33.280 Mexico for the cooler months, but they roost up in 0:10:33.320 --> 0:10:37.240 the sinkhole other parts of the year. And we've we've 0:10:37.280 --> 0:10:39.520 talked about how amazing bats are in the show before 0:10:39.559 --> 0:10:45.080 and especially especially insectivore uh bats, you know that eat insects. Well, 0:10:45.160 --> 0:10:48.160 it's been estimated that the bats that live in Devils 0:10:48.160 --> 0:10:52.280 Sinkhole again something like three million Mexican freetail bats that 0:10:52.360 --> 0:10:57.560 they consume un estimated thirty tons of beetles and moths 0:10:57.559 --> 0:11:02.720 each night, each night, thirty tons, thirty tons beetles and moth. 0:11:02.800 --> 0:11:05.120 That's crazy. That's one of those facts that makes you 0:11:05.160 --> 0:11:08.720 wonder how many tons of beetles they're just are already, Like, 0:11:08.880 --> 0:11:11.200 is that is that half the beatles in the area? 0:11:11.320 --> 0:11:13.960 Is that one person of the beatles in the area. Yeah, 0:11:14.000 --> 0:11:16.480 I mean, it's just a tremendous biomass out there, and 0:11:17.000 --> 0:11:20.000 these bats are here for it um and most of 0:11:20.000 --> 0:11:22.480 it is insect or arthur pod in some way, or 0:11:22.640 --> 0:11:25.000 you know, most of the animal is is arthur pod 0:11:25.040 --> 0:11:28.720 in some way. And wow, that's just amazing. You can 0:11:28.800 --> 0:11:33.800 measuring insects or beetles in units of like garbage truck fulls. 0:11:35.440 --> 0:11:38.000 So I love this because, yeah, this is a great 0:11:38.000 --> 0:11:40.080 example of just sort of how like we said in 0:11:40.080 --> 0:11:43.080 the last episode, when a sinkhole occurs, it does not 0:11:43.320 --> 0:11:46.560 you know, create this natural void, like things will move 0:11:46.640 --> 0:11:50.040 into the sinkhole, things will take advantage of this new 0:11:50.480 --> 0:11:53.360 um aspect of the geography, and in this case, the 0:11:53.360 --> 0:11:56.560 bats make it their home. So if you, if you've 0:11:56.559 --> 0:11:58.640 lived in the San Antonio area, you're visited there, and 0:11:58.720 --> 0:12:01.480 you've been to too Devil's Cole, I'd love to hear, uh, 0:12:01.760 --> 0:12:04.000 hear about your experience checking it out. I know, if 0:12:04.040 --> 0:12:05.960 you go during the right time of the year, you 0:12:05.960 --> 0:12:09.280 can actually observe the bats like, uh, moving in and 0:12:09.320 --> 0:12:12.680 out of the of the cavern area. So uh, it 0:12:12.720 --> 0:12:15.120 sounds beautiful. I've read that there are also I mean, 0:12:15.160 --> 0:12:18.280 one of the things is that belief in the sacredness 0:12:18.360 --> 0:12:21.280 of of sinkholes and and their association with the world 0:12:21.280 --> 0:12:24.040 of the gods is not just an ancient belief. It's 0:12:24.080 --> 0:12:26.480 not necessarily extinct. I mean, there are people today for 0:12:26.520 --> 0:12:30.040 whom sinkholes hold sacred importance. And if if you if 0:12:30.080 --> 0:12:32.360 you are one of those people or know some, I'd 0:12:32.400 --> 0:12:34.520 like to hear about that too. Yeah, yeah, I'd love 0:12:34.559 --> 0:12:38.959 to hear, especially the details about any modern rights associated 0:12:39.000 --> 0:12:41.079 with it, and and just sort of the belief system 0:12:41.120 --> 0:12:49.360 built up around it, you know, the stories than Now. 0:12:49.400 --> 0:12:51.360 One of the things we mentioned in the previous episode 0:12:51.360 --> 0:12:54.800 is that the sinkhole is a natural feature that can 0:12:54.840 --> 0:12:59.000 inadvertently serve as a type of scientific instrument, much in 0:12:59.000 --> 0:13:01.120 the same way that like ancient ice. You know, it's 0:13:01.160 --> 0:13:03.280 like nobody intended it to be this way, but we 0:13:03.280 --> 0:13:06.240 can learn things about the ancient climate from taking ice cores, 0:13:06.280 --> 0:13:08.880 so that you know, those layers of ice really give 0:13:09.000 --> 0:13:11.400 us a lot to read into the history of the Earth. 0:13:11.600 --> 0:13:15.000 And apparently sinkholes can do the same thing, right, that's right. 0:13:15.080 --> 0:13:17.320 I mean, you know, we think about how they gobble 0:13:17.400 --> 0:13:19.960 up parts of the surface world, and yeah, they do 0:13:20.120 --> 0:13:22.599 sometimes do scientists a huge favor by collecting and to 0:13:22.720 --> 0:13:26.959 some degree preserving evidence of past life forms, even past 0:13:27.040 --> 0:13:31.640 like storm activity and and and and climates of ancient times. Uh. 0:13:31.679 --> 0:13:34.400 And so when we venture into the sink whole, UH, 0:13:34.440 --> 0:13:37.600 with the right tools or with the right methods, UH, 0:13:37.760 --> 0:13:40.840 we're able to uncover those secrets that have been preserved there. 0:13:41.360 --> 0:13:43.840 And they have just been There've been numerous studies that 0:13:43.880 --> 0:13:47.280 have looked at sinkholes and UH and gathered specific information 0:13:47.360 --> 0:13:50.120 from from these sinkholes, and we're not gonna be able 0:13:50.160 --> 0:13:53.319 to give a full overview of them here in this episode, 0:13:53.360 --> 0:13:55.480 but I wanted to touch on some that I thought 0:13:55.480 --> 0:13:59.040 provided a reasonable overview and in an idea of what 0:13:59.200 --> 0:14:02.760 sort of stuff we can learn from sinkholes. So, uh, 0:14:02.800 --> 0:14:05.840 there's the For instance, in two thousand fourteen, a team 0:14:05.880 --> 0:14:10.559 from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champagne studied genetic 0:14:10.640 --> 0:14:14.880 information extracted from the tooth of an adolescent girl who 0:14:14.920 --> 0:14:18.959 fell into a sinkhole in the Yucatan some twelve thousand 0:14:19.000 --> 0:14:22.760 to thirteen thousand years ago, and this with her remains 0:14:22.760 --> 0:14:26.960 were found alongside the remains of ancient beasts. Because you 0:14:27.000 --> 0:14:29.880 know what what occurs is some of these really treacherous sinkholes, 0:14:30.000 --> 0:14:32.920 is like things will fall in and then they cannot 0:14:32.960 --> 0:14:35.560 get out, and of course they die down there. They 0:14:35.600 --> 0:14:38.800 decay down there, and the remains are down there for 0:14:38.920 --> 0:14:42.440 us to later discover and study. Oh, I hadn't thought 0:14:42.480 --> 0:14:45.280 about this, but I wonder if sinkholes are one of 0:14:45.320 --> 0:14:47.960 these things, uh, one of these terrain features that can 0:14:47.960 --> 0:14:51.920 serve as a natural predator trap. Um. A predator trap 0:14:52.000 --> 0:14:54.240 is I guess a concept in the interaction between the 0:14:54.320 --> 0:14:57.480 landscape and and the animals that live nearby. But you know, 0:14:57.520 --> 0:15:00.440 a classic example is like the librettart It's you know, 0:15:00.520 --> 0:15:04.160 so a an animal becomes stranded and dies in it, 0:15:04.240 --> 0:15:07.560 and then the smell attracts predators or scavengers who then 0:15:07.640 --> 0:15:11.040 themselves become trapped. Another example I was reading about not 0:15:11.080 --> 0:15:14.640 too long ago was there is a geologically active valley 0:15:14.720 --> 0:15:18.840 in the cum Choca Peninsula where often like birds are 0:15:18.920 --> 0:15:22.600 killed by volcanic fumes, and then their decaying bodies attract 0:15:22.680 --> 0:15:25.440 predators into the area, who then also are killed by 0:15:25.440 --> 0:15:29.080 the fumes, and it leads to this feedback cycle. Yeah, yeah, 0:15:29.160 --> 0:15:32.320 it's uh. I think in some cases they definitely are 0:15:32.520 --> 0:15:36.840 serving as predator traps um. So in this particular study, 0:15:37.040 --> 0:15:39.320 one of the reasons this tooth was so important is 0:15:39.560 --> 0:15:42.280 that the researchers were studying the influx of humans into 0:15:42.280 --> 0:15:45.000 the Americas and wanted to see if a specimen such 0:15:45.040 --> 0:15:47.880 as this with a skull shape that was that is 0:15:48.000 --> 0:15:51.360 unusual among other Native American lineages. They wanted to see 0:15:51.360 --> 0:15:54.000 if it fell in line genetically with those lineages or 0:15:54.080 --> 0:15:59.320 represented something else, perhaps winding up with theories about migration 0:15:59.360 --> 0:16:02.160 from Southeast Stagia or even Australia that didn't come in 0:16:02.200 --> 0:16:06.080 through the bearing straight um, and they found that their 0:16:06.160 --> 0:16:09.920 remains did line up with with the bearing straight or 0:16:10.160 --> 0:16:14.600 Barringian migration. Okay, so that's just one cool example. Okay, 0:16:14.680 --> 0:16:16.960 let's hear another, all right here, Yeah, here's one from 0:16:17.400 --> 0:16:21.360 nineteen Researchers from the Florida Museum of Natural History looked 0:16:21.360 --> 0:16:24.600 at the preserved bones of a Craton's carcara and an 0:16:24.600 --> 0:16:28.440 extinct carrion eating falcon from the Caribbean that was killed 0:16:28.480 --> 0:16:30.880 off roughly a thousand years ago when humans first entered 0:16:30.880 --> 0:16:33.240 the region, and they were looking at these remains in 0:16:33.280 --> 0:16:38.280 a flooded sinkhole um on Great Abaco Island in the Bahamas, 0:16:39.080 --> 0:16:41.840 and the whole is a sawmill sink, a a hundred 0:16:41.840 --> 0:16:46.280 foot deep, dark, oxygen free environment that preserved the two thousand, 0:16:46.360 --> 0:16:49.480 five hundred year old bones of this creature enough that 0:16:49.520 --> 0:16:52.680 they could they could conduct genetic studies of it. In fact, 0:16:52.800 --> 0:16:56.160 the bone yielded ninety eight point seven per cent of 0:16:56.200 --> 0:17:00.000 the bird's mitochondrial genome, which is pretty impressive. Again, it's 0:17:00.040 --> 0:17:04.240 like a it's like a deep cooler, you know, it 0:17:04.359 --> 0:17:09.080 preserves these remains uh that if they were dropped, you know, 0:17:09.520 --> 0:17:11.400 in other places on the world, would have just been 0:17:11.440 --> 0:17:16.480 long lost, no ice required. Um. Here's another one of note. 0:17:16.520 --> 0:17:18.800 In two thousand and eighteen, another study from the University 0:17:18.840 --> 0:17:21.840 of Illinois or Banno Champagne studied the remains of a 0:17:21.840 --> 0:17:25.080 giant sloth that fell into a sinkhole in what is 0:17:25.119 --> 0:17:29.280 now Carriblanca in central Belize twenty seven thousand years ago. 0:17:29.720 --> 0:17:33.680 And in this the tooth, humorous and femur were partially fossilized, 0:17:33.880 --> 0:17:37.080 but there was still enough unaltered tissue for stable carbon 0:17:37.160 --> 0:17:40.640 and oxygen isotope analysis to study what the sloth eight. 0:17:41.359 --> 0:17:44.800 And this in turn revealed details about local climate and 0:17:45.040 --> 0:17:48.480 local environment there in that region at that time, which 0:17:48.520 --> 0:17:51.320 is pretty pretty astounded. Did did it say exactly what 0:17:51.359 --> 0:17:54.720 the sloth did eat? Um? I didn't get into the 0:17:55.200 --> 0:18:00.240 the the nuts and berries of of that bay, simply 0:18:00.280 --> 0:18:02.520 suffice to say, I'd love to come back and discuss 0:18:02.680 --> 0:18:05.560 um uh giant ground slots more in the future though. 0:18:05.600 --> 0:18:10.000 But but basically it provided them the information they needed to, 0:18:10.119 --> 0:18:12.520 you know, to actually gaze back in the past and consider, 0:18:12.720 --> 0:18:14.600 you know, what it was consuming, and that means what 0:18:14.640 --> 0:18:17.480 was around it, what was you know, how it was 0:18:17.520 --> 0:18:19.600 able to make its home in in the world at 0:18:19.600 --> 0:18:22.520 that time. So it's pretty amazing. We could probably do 0:18:22.760 --> 0:18:25.680 a whole episode or series of episodes just on really 0:18:25.720 --> 0:18:29.560 interesting studies finding out what ancient peoples and creatures eight 0:18:29.840 --> 0:18:33.359 using analyzes and chemical analyses of these kinds. Yeah, I 0:18:33.400 --> 0:18:37.720 mean it reveals so much, so much. Absolutely. One I 0:18:37.760 --> 0:18:40.320 was just reading not too long ago that was kind 0:18:40.359 --> 0:18:44.800 of funny to me was, um, was chemical analysis of 0:18:44.840 --> 0:18:47.840 a gigantic copper light found. I think it was around 0:18:47.840 --> 0:18:51.040 the city of York in England that revealed it was 0:18:51.119 --> 0:18:53.680 left by a human I think like a thousand years 0:18:53.680 --> 0:18:57.159 ago or so, you know, roughly, and revealed a diet 0:18:57.200 --> 0:19:01.680 heavy and meat and bread, but also just just riddled 0:19:01.720 --> 0:19:04.960 with intestinal worms. So then you get the double You 0:19:04.960 --> 0:19:09.280 have the fossilized poop, but then on the fossilized creatures 0:19:09.320 --> 0:19:11.960 that were arriving inside it. Awesome, awesome, But I guess 0:19:12.000 --> 0:19:13.760 if it's about a thousand years ago, I'm not sure. 0:19:14.359 --> 0:19:16.679 I'm not sure if that counts as fossilized. I don't know. 0:19:16.960 --> 0:19:19.000 That's a good question. I don't know. So it was, 0:19:19.359 --> 0:19:22.199 you know, poop from hundreds of years ago, so you know, 0:19:22.320 --> 0:19:25.440 roughly around a thousand years ago. But is that technically 0:19:25.440 --> 0:19:28.000 a fossil or is that just very well preserved poop. 0:19:28.359 --> 0:19:31.440 We'll have to come back and discuss in the future. UM. 0:19:31.560 --> 0:19:34.960 Here's a two thousand twenty study from go Through University 0:19:35.000 --> 0:19:37.600 in Frankfort. They dove into one of the most impressive 0:19:37.640 --> 0:19:40.600 sinkholes in the world, the Blue Hole. I believe we 0:19:40.640 --> 0:19:44.760 mentioned this um in the last episode, at least in passing. UH. 0:19:44.800 --> 0:19:49.199 This is a flooded car sinkhole on Lighthouse Reef in 0:19:49.280 --> 0:19:52.679 Belize and they were able to to to drill up 0:19:52.720 --> 0:19:57.840 and analyze a sedimentary quote storm archive covering two thousand 0:19:57.960 --> 0:20:01.720 years of history, built layer by layer by layer in 0:20:01.760 --> 0:20:04.439 the dark depths of this whole, and it revealed a 0:20:04.440 --> 0:20:07.760 lot about the frequency of tropical storms in their area. 0:20:07.840 --> 0:20:11.480 Over time. They found quote hurricanes in the Caribbean became 0:20:11.520 --> 0:20:15.280 more frequent in their force varied noticeably around the same 0:20:15.320 --> 0:20:18.880 time that classical mind culture in Central America suffered its 0:20:18.920 --> 0:20:22.200 final demise. So again, just a chance to do gaze 0:20:22.240 --> 0:20:26.480 back in time and see what what was going on, um, 0:20:27.000 --> 0:20:29.640 you know, with the climate and with weather patterns. By 0:20:29.720 --> 0:20:33.199 looking into the sinkhole. So as the suggestion there, I 0:20:33.200 --> 0:20:36.000 assume it's not totally known, but the suggestion there may 0:20:36.040 --> 0:20:40.760 be that the organizational decline of the mind civilization was 0:20:40.880 --> 0:20:44.600 in some ways possibly related to changes in weather patterns. 0:20:45.320 --> 0:20:48.800 That's my understanding that it would have would have impacted UH, 0:20:48.840 --> 0:20:54.120 that that civilization UH and would have con potentially contributed. Yeah. 0:20:54.160 --> 0:20:57.159 I also ran across a two thousand seventeen study from 0:20:57.160 --> 0:21:01.080 the University of Hawaii at Manoa that looked into uh 0:21:01.280 --> 0:21:05.600 um uh Makawaii Cave and Kauaii, the largest limestone cave 0:21:05.640 --> 0:21:09.520 in Hawaii and only accessible via a sinkhole. So it's 0:21:09.520 --> 0:21:13.600 a it's a rich fossil site providing insight into Hawaiian life. 0:21:13.640 --> 0:21:18.439 The sinkhole Paleo Lake contains ten thousand years of sedimentary information, 0:21:18.800 --> 0:21:21.600 revealing a rich diversity of natural information as well as 0:21:21.600 --> 0:21:24.399 Polynesian artifacts. So in this study they were able to 0:21:24.440 --> 0:21:29.040 find supporting evidence in the coral fragments there to discover 0:21:29.200 --> 0:21:34.040 the source of the mega earthquake UH in the Aleutian 0:21:34.200 --> 0:21:38.360 Islands that spawned the devastating eight six tsunami that hit 0:21:38.840 --> 0:21:42.400 uh sen Ricou, Japan. So UH you know again, it's 0:21:42.440 --> 0:21:45.479 It goes beyond merely being able to go in and 0:21:45.520 --> 0:21:48.080 find the remains of creatures, you know, which is I 0:21:48.119 --> 0:21:50.160 think the first place your mind goes when you think 0:21:50.200 --> 0:21:52.960 about sinkholes, but able to to be able to go 0:21:53.000 --> 0:21:56.320 in there and find some some shattered bits of coral 0:21:56.640 --> 0:21:59.720 and then compare that to uh two other bits of 0:21:59.720 --> 0:22:02.800 in form nation and sort of pieced together like seismic 0:22:02.800 --> 0:22:06.679 activities that occurred centuries ago. And I have I have 0:22:06.720 --> 0:22:09.199 one more here. This one's really fun too. Back in 0:22:09.320 --> 0:22:13.280 nineteen seventy a twenty five thousand year old sinkhole in 0:22:13.359 --> 0:22:17.520 Wyoming Natural Trap Cave and Big Horn Canyon was found. 0:22:17.800 --> 0:22:20.720 It measured fifteen feet across about eighty five ft deep, 0:22:21.280 --> 0:22:23.919 and when they went into it, they discovered fossils of mammoths, 0:22:24.160 --> 0:22:29.159 short faced bears, camels, and um collared limmings. But they 0:22:29.200 --> 0:22:31.480 ended up boarding it up after that for thirty years 0:22:31.480 --> 0:22:35.159 to prevent accidental falls, because the Natural Park Service I 0:22:35.240 --> 0:22:38.720 was reading describes that, uh, this particular sinkhole is quote 0:22:38.880 --> 0:22:43.240 virtually impossible to see until it is directly underfoot, and 0:22:43.280 --> 0:22:45.119 if you look at pictures of it, yeah, it looks 0:22:45.160 --> 0:22:49.440 because if you fell like it widens out underneath, So 0:22:50.160 --> 0:22:52.240 you wouldn't like skid along the side of this or 0:22:52.280 --> 0:22:54.400 even like it would just you would just plummet down 0:22:54.400 --> 0:22:57.399 to the bottom. Yeah, it's not a cone. It's not 0:22:57.440 --> 0:23:00.480 even a cylinder. It's like a jug with with you know, 0:23:00.640 --> 0:23:04.600 bottle opening. Yeah, so it's it's very impressive. You should 0:23:04.600 --> 0:23:06.439 look it up. They have some wonderful pictures of it 0:23:06.480 --> 0:23:09.199 in the National Park Service does. But so, yeah, they 0:23:09.280 --> 0:23:11.240 ended up bordering it up, boarding it up for thirty years. 0:23:11.240 --> 0:23:13.600 But when scientists finally got a chance to dig in again, 0:23:13.920 --> 0:23:17.600