Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey you' welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
Speaker 1: and there's Charles W Chuck Bryan over there. Jerry's hovering
Speaker 1: about and this is Stuff you should Know, another jazzy
Speaker 1: Earth Science edition. Chuck. Yeah, and this is like, I
Speaker 1: know we covered this head of an Internet Roundup? Did we?
Speaker 1: I don't think we covered. I mean, we've done a
Speaker 1: lot of cave stuff. We did sinkholes, cave dwellers, caving,
Speaker 1: cave diving, peleology, and cave diving. So which one like
Speaker 1: it could have come up in cave diving? I think maybe?
Speaker 1: But I feel like I remember showing a picture. I'm
Speaker 1: feeling Internet Roundup. Okay, yeah, we've been. That's kind of
Speaker 1: funny because this, then is the second thing we've done
Speaker 1: that we already did on Internet Roundup and then forgot about.
Speaker 1: That's right, that's a trend. We're trending. Um. But the
Speaker 1: cool thing about this one, Chuck, is that, like these
Speaker 1: things that we're going to talk about today, blue holes
Speaker 1: are so um new scientifically speaking, they're so unexplored um
Speaker 1: that there's a lot we can get wrong, and no
Speaker 1: one will know for like ten or fifteen years. Perfect.
Speaker 1: We'll be done by then, isn't that great? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll be We'll be sipping my ties on the beach
Speaker 1: earning by then. Off German bearer bonds. What is that
Speaker 1: trading places? No, that's a die Hard Okay, I think
Speaker 1: that was a mash up. Oh yeah, that's funny how
Speaker 1: things just kind of invade your subconscious like that. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean trading places. They definitely were sipping drinks on
Speaker 1: the beach, which did not happen in die Hard. No,
Speaker 1: but he says it's like something like that. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he says, by the time the FBI figures out what's
Speaker 1: going on, will be sitting on the beach. I think
Speaker 1: he says sipping my ties earning. Does he say like
Speaker 1: in trading places? That's right? Yeah, but he like breaks
Speaker 1: the fourth wall and stairs right at the camera. We
Speaker 1: need deliver. That would be great. So um, obviously, as
Speaker 1: everyone's picked up by now, we're talking about blue holes
Speaker 1: and if you don't know what a blue hole is,
Speaker 1: I feel like this is definitely one of those ones
Speaker 1: where we need to define it rather than just start
Speaker 1: talking about it out of the gate. Uh, define what
Speaker 1: it looks like or or the reveal of what it is. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll define what it looks like first. How about that?
Speaker 1: All right, Well, it looks like a blue hole in
Speaker 1: the ocean, like, you know, there's ocean, and then all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, it's like, wait a minute, there's a
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes they're pretty circular, like almost exactly circular,
Speaker 1: and sometimes they're oddly shaped, but it's definitely like a
Speaker 1: different color. And what it looks like from a bird's
Speaker 1: eye view is like, well, hey, that looks like it
Speaker 1: might be deeper right there, and it is. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: it's a much much darker shade of blue than the
Speaker 1: surrounding areas because it's a deep, deep hole in the
Speaker 1: sea floor and the stuff around it is usually far
Speaker 1: shallower comparatively speaking, so usually the area around is like
Speaker 1: a much nicer, kind of lighter blue green, clearish color.
Speaker 1: And then this is like this really stark, dark blue
Speaker 1: hole again in the middle of the sea floor, and um,
Speaker 1: it's a they're really popular diving spots. You have to
Speaker 1: be a really good diver, as we'll see, to dive
Speaker 1: on a blue hole, and they're also have long for centuries. Um,
Speaker 1: been known locally um as really great fishing spots, both
Speaker 1: commercially and for sport fishing. But the thing is, it's
Speaker 1: like it's starting to become clear to geologists and biologists
Speaker 1: that these things are kind of dotted all over the world.
Speaker 1: There's some out to see, there's some that are actually landlocked, um,
Speaker 1: but that they share some commonalities, and that these things,
Speaker 1: these blue holes, submerged holes in the ground or the
Speaker 1: sea floor are some of the weirdest, um most amazing
Speaker 1: environments that that are exist on Earth right now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know, we should probably say that fishermen everywhere
Speaker 1: are probably still mad at Jacques Cousteau who in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy two put the Great Blue Hole, which is one
Speaker 1: particularly striking blue hole off the coast of Belize. He
Speaker 1: put that on the map in nineteen seventy two on
Speaker 1: a show that I used to love to watch, The
Speaker 1: Undersea World of Jacques Gusta. Did you watch that? No,
Speaker 1: I saw The Life Aquatic with Steve Zoo though so
Speaker 1: close enough. Yeah, I was. I'm not sure what channel
Speaker 1: it came on, or that was in reruns or if
Speaker 1: I was watching it live, but it was sort of
Speaker 1: like you know that in Mutual Omaha's Wild Kingdom were
Speaker 1: the two big nature shows for me growing up as
Speaker 1: far as turning me onto to all this stuff, right
Speaker 1: the uh. I think the show ran from nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: six to seventy six, so it's entirely possible you were
Speaker 1: watching it live was a youngster. Probably reruns, yeah, but still,
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sure it immediately went in to reruns.
Speaker 1: It was wildly popular. And that particular episode, if you're interested,
Speaker 1: was Secrets of the Sunken Caves. But yeah, he put
Speaker 1: this thing on the map, like, not literally, it was
Speaker 1: on maps already, but he introduced it to the rest
Speaker 1: of the world. UM. And the Great Blue Hole, as
Speaker 1: that one in Belize that he covered is called UM
Speaker 1: is on basically every serious scuba diver's bucket list to dive.
Speaker 1: It's just it's just one of those places you have
Speaker 1: to dive before you die. Hopefully you don't die while
Speaker 1: you're diving on it, but it does happen sometimes it does. Uh.
Speaker 1: And blue holes are basically uh. You know, I mentioned
Speaker 1: sink or episode on sinkholes at the beginning. That was
Speaker 1: a bit of an easter egg, because that's really all
Speaker 1: they are is underwater sinkholes. It's a feature of what's
Speaker 1: known as a karst system k a r st um
Speaker 1: where you have this porous limestone making up the bedrock,
Speaker 1: which you know leads to a lot of things. It's porous,
Speaker 1: so it uh sentiment it like it wears away and
Speaker 1: the road's kind of easier, I think than other kinds
Speaker 1: of bedrock. That's where if you listen to any of
Speaker 1: the caving episodes, is where you're gonna get some some
Speaker 1: of these great stalactites and stalagmites because that acid rain
Speaker 1: drips down and wears away that limestone, and you know,
Speaker 1: it forms little icicles from the top and then when
Speaker 1: it hits the bottom it forms reverse icicles on the floor.
Speaker 1: And some of these blue holes have these stalactites and
Speaker 1: stalagmites because they used to be you know, they used
Speaker 1: to be land, right, they used to be dry caves.
Speaker 1: Like that's the thing. Once they found stalactites and slag
Speaker 1: mites um in these blue holes kind of give up
Speaker 1: to see they're like, okay, this had to have been
Speaker 1: above dry land because the dripping effect of water coming
Speaker 1: from the top and then dripping down to the bottom.
Speaker 1: It's kind of lost in the translation. When the thing
Speaker 1: is already submerged in water, it has to be dry,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. Else not really No, I
Speaker 1: think it just kind of goes every which way rather
Speaker 1: than straight down. So yeah, when they when they started
Speaker 1: finding these um collectively stalactites which come down from the
Speaker 1: ceiling and stalagmites which come up from the floor. They're
Speaker 1: collectively called spelio theems which we've talked about in plenty
Speaker 1: of other episodes, when they started finding speleothems in in
Speaker 1: these um blue holes, they're like, these were once on
Speaker 1: dry land, which is pretty cool. But it also makes
Speaker 1: sense too that these are just caves that formed at
Speaker 1: some point in the great, great distant past on on
Speaker 1: unearthed UM. I mean, where else are they going to form?
Speaker 1: You know? Um? And it also makes sense that as
Speaker 1: a cavern formed through the same process that forms spelio
Speaker 1: theems um. It's just the water kind of carves out
Speaker 1: a hole in the limestone, it dissolves it, and then
Speaker 1: it gets bigger and bigger over time, and then all
Speaker 1: of a sudden you have a cavern that the roof
Speaker 1: of that area is not supported like it is surrounding
Speaker 1: and so it's a vent going to clap in, whether
Speaker 1: it's on dry land and as a sinkhole, or if
Speaker 1: it's on dry land, and then that eventually becomes submerged
Speaker 1: by water, you have a blue hole. So it's just
Speaker 1: a sinkhole that's now out to see because the sea
Speaker 1: level rise. Basically, Yeah, and one of the cool things
Speaker 1: about the Great Blue Hole is when they started looking
Speaker 1: at these stalactites and stalagmites, are like, well, some of
Speaker 1: these look like you would expect because when things dripped,
Speaker 1: they dripped straight down or build straight up. But some
Speaker 1: of these are angled, sometimes up to twelve degrees, and
Speaker 1: they're like, that's pretty interesting. So what it probably means
Speaker 1: is that this thing formed over many, many many years
Speaker 1: and the Earth's tectonic plates started shifting and so they
Speaker 1: started dripping at different angles. So you've got this really
Speaker 1: cool effect that happens where you have these you know, Uh,
Speaker 1: it's something that you wouldn't see normally in a cave. Basically,
Speaker 1: So if a couple of years ago, uh nat g
Speaker 1: O and Richard Branson did an expedition where they were
Speaker 1: are basically tried to map the Great Blue Hole three
Speaker 1: D map. It and they went down there, and they
Speaker 1: they went deeper than I think had been before in
Speaker 1: a in a submarine like that, and found a bunch
Speaker 1: of stuff. Um. They found that it was filling up
Speaker 1: very slowly. I think they likened it to like an
Speaker 1: underwater hour glass. Um, it's very slowly, so it's not
Speaker 1: like it's going to be full anytime soon. Uh. They
Speaker 1: found a two leader bottle of coke, uh, go pro
Speaker 1: camera and some some dead people, some dead humans, a
Speaker 1: lot of dead animals, but some dead humans as well. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So the blue hole um has claimed at least three
Speaker 1: lives that we know of on record right, um, which
Speaker 1: is actually kind of a low ratio compared to some
Speaker 1: other blue holes out there. UM. But they are still
Speaker 1: down there, and like you said, two of them were
Speaker 1: found by Branson and the nat GEO crew and they
Speaker 1: came back and told the authorities and Belize exactly where
Speaker 1: they were. Um. And they also apparently said, but look,
Speaker 1: it's really quiet down there. It's really like a RESTful place,
Speaker 1: like you could do a lot worse for a final
Speaker 1: resting place than the bottom of the blue hole in Belize.
Speaker 1: And I guess the authorities, I don't know if they
Speaker 1: consulted with the families or what. But I was made
Speaker 1: to think by some of the stuff I read that
Speaker 1: the authorities in Belize said, you know, let's just leave
Speaker 1: them down there and that will be their final resting place,
Speaker 1: which sounds a little morbid from the outside, but that's
Speaker 1: actually kind of customary when it comes to cave diving
Speaker 1: in particular. I think we talked about that a little
Speaker 1: bit in Caved the cave Diving episode, Yeah, for sure. Um.
Speaker 1: And the cool thing about the Great Blue Hole is
Speaker 1: that at one point it was it was in the jungle. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that would make it a different kind of blue hole,
Speaker 1: which is still technically a blue hole, but it's called
Speaker 1: the uh Ankielin I'm pretty sure that's right pool, which
Speaker 1: is a blue hole, but it's landlocked, so like the
Speaker 1: rim is exposed to dry air. It's not underwater like
Speaker 1: on the sea floor because the sea levels just aren't
Speaker 1: that high. And one of the interesting things about the
Speaker 1: Great Blue Hole in Belize is it was at some
Speaker 1: point because sea levels lowered so so dramatically um during
Speaker 1: the last interglacial maximum about twenty six thousand years ago,
Speaker 1: that that a significant portion of this vertical cave which
Speaker 1: is now the Great Blue Hole in Belize was dry.
Speaker 1: It was just totally dry, Like you could walk around
Speaker 1: the top of the rim because it was no longer underwater.
Speaker 1: You could jump in. You would die, but you could
Speaker 1: jump in, and you would go all the way down
Speaker 1: and then maybe at about the bottom, say twenty meters
Speaker 1: of the cave, you would finally hit seawater. So over time,
Speaker 1: the seawater levels have risen from the last time the
Speaker 1: Earth was in a ice age UM, and the seawaters,
Speaker 1: the sea levels have risen so much that now the
Speaker 1: cave is totally submerged and is actually um many meters
Speaker 1: under the surface of the sea because of sea level rise. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and there's there's some really cool things you can learn from, uh,
Speaker 1: from studying these blue holes, and maybe we should take
Speaker 1: a break and learn about those right after this. Alright,
Speaker 1: So there's a couple of really cool things that you
Speaker 1: can learn by studying blue holes. UM. One of them is, uh,
Speaker 1: you can look at this sediment and you can basically
Speaker 1: kind of get a snapshot of of ancient weather patterns. UM.
Speaker 1: I think when they when Branson and the gang went
Speaker 1: down to the Great Blue Hole, they found a lot
Speaker 1: of sediment where it's sort of indicated that UM in
Speaker 1: different areas that indicated that that perhaps the Mayan Empire
Speaker 1: had several severe hurricanes and maybe had something to do
Speaker 1: with them not being around for much longer. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: so the these UM these blue holes are basically at
Speaker 1: a certain level cut off from the ocean above them,
Speaker 1: like there's a point where there's no currents any longer,
Speaker 1: whether the waves can affect it um, where there's no
Speaker 1: oxygen dissolving past a certain boundary that we'll talk about
Speaker 1: in a second, and so beneath a certain depth, they're
Speaker 1: just like this, this perfect record of the Earth's geological history,
Speaker 1: frozen and sequestered from everything else. So if you go
Speaker 1: down there and this is the kind of the trend
Speaker 1: that they're starting to figure out that these are the
Speaker 1: expeditions are trying to launch and start taking samples of
Speaker 1: the sediment, you can get like a really good picture
Speaker 1: of Earth's say like her a cane passed or drought passed.
Speaker 1: Apparently UM when when there's spikes and iron content, they
Speaker 1: take that as UM from dust storms from Africa, which
Speaker 1: which UM says that there's probably severe drought around the
Speaker 1: world that year. So there's all of this information you
Speaker 1: can glean that's just trapped and locked in the bottom
Speaker 1: of these these great blue holes because they're so deep
Speaker 1: and so remote and so unaffected by the world above them.
Speaker 1: I just think that's amazing. It's super cool. Uh. The
Speaker 1: other cool thing you can learn about is um sea
Speaker 1: level rise over the years. We don't have the clearest
Speaker 1: picture in science of anciency levels and when they were,
Speaker 1: you know, like exact levels of when there were glacial
Speaker 1: periods and interglacial periods and the rising and falling of
Speaker 1: the seas. But if you go down there and you
Speaker 1: radio carbon date these stalactites and stalagmites, you can compare
Speaker 1: them to the relative depths of the whole cave system,
Speaker 1: and then you can basically say when was their air here,
Speaker 1: when was there water here, and get a pretty, you know,
Speaker 1: at least a much better picture of what the sea
Speaker 1: levels used to look like. Yeah, and they figured out
Speaker 1: that the cave itself was formed um between about a
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty three thousand years ago to about fifteen
Speaker 1: thousand years ago. There are four major dry periods where
Speaker 1: the cave was exposed during that time, and I don't
Speaker 1: know if they figured out from the um the Great
Speaker 1: Blue Hole itself or if they just already knew this,
Speaker 1: But apparently in the past the sea level has risen
Speaker 1: really quickly a couple of different times UM. I think
Speaker 1: eleven thousand years ago and eight thousand years ago. Over
Speaker 1: the course of less than a hundred and fifty years,
Speaker 1: it rose twenty five ft and then again twenty one
Speaker 1: ft in less than less than two centuries, which is
Speaker 1: a really significant rise UM. And having information like that
Speaker 1: is really vital to kind of placing our current sea
Speaker 1: level rise and experience of climate change in context in
Speaker 1: this greater context of Earth's history and possibly it's normal
Speaker 1: rhythms or what's abnormal. So to be able to understand
Speaker 1: that because of the kind of the record that's kept
Speaker 1: in the blue holes is extremely helpful. Yeah. And I
Speaker 1: think the usual level of sea rises about a meter
Speaker 1: every century, so a spike of twenty four and twenty
Speaker 1: ft is really really big. It's I mean, you could
Speaker 1: basically watch it happening. You know, it's start to come
Speaker 1: up around your ankles if you stood in there the
Speaker 1: same place long enough. Another cool thing about blue holes,
Speaker 1: and in particularly the Great blue hole is that there
Speaker 1: is a layer of hydrogen sulfide that basically acts like
Speaker 1: a blanket, uh, And there are different depths depending on
Speaker 1: which blue hole you're talking about, But it's just a
Speaker 1: real concentrated layer of hydrogen sulfide. That is, it's a
Speaker 1: bike product of decaying plant material, and it's kind of stinky.
Speaker 1: It's kind of that sulfury eggy smell that you might
Speaker 1: smell sometimes, and it's uh, really really clear water below
Speaker 1: in this area it is really brown and kind of gross,
Speaker 1: and then you know it's it's so far down it
Speaker 1: doesn't look brown and gross from the top. It still
Speaker 1: looks nice and blue. But it's really a separation point
Speaker 1: where above it you have life and below it there's
Speaker 1: no oxygen getting through, so you have no life now.
Speaker 1: And I saw it described as like kind of hazy brown,
Speaker 1: kind of cobwebby layer. I think in the Great Blue
Speaker 1: Hole in particular. It's about thirty ft thick and it
Speaker 1: starts at about the ninety meter mark and do you
Speaker 1: have to you have to go down past it, and
Speaker 1: I guess creepy. It is creepy, but it's also apparently
Speaker 1: like even though you have a rebreather on or scuba apparatus.
Speaker 1: It still steeps in through your skin while you're swimming
Speaker 1: through it, and people will like throw up and UM
Speaker 1: get itchy, kind of breakout and hives start to get
Speaker 1: nauseated and headaches because it starts it creeps in through
Speaker 1: your skin in just that short time. UM. So it's
Speaker 1: really gross. It's really really toxic in this concentrated form.
Speaker 1: It's like basically UM concentrated gas forms suspended in a
Speaker 1: blanket layer and UM oxygen can't get past it. So
Speaker 1: there it's an anaerobic environment in that lower layer UM,
Speaker 1: which means it should be totally dead and lifeless. But
Speaker 1: one of the things that they're finding out about blue
Speaker 1: holes is that even in this anaerobic, toxic layer UM,
Speaker 1: there is archaea, another type of life that's not quite
Speaker 1: bacteria UM and definitely not you carryotes um or Procariot's.
Speaker 1: I can never remember which one we are UM. But
Speaker 1: they lived down there, their extreme aphiles is what they're
Speaker 1: usually called these these days, And there's a whole kind
Speaker 1: of teeming colony of life down there that actually takes
Speaker 1: all of this stuff that accidentally falls into the blue
Speaker 1: holes and digests them and turns them into this bioavailable
Speaker 1: nutriatment ranch sediment that's just kind of trapped down at
Speaker 1: the bottom of the Blue Hole. Yeah, and in the
Speaker 1: Great Blue Hole when they went down there, they saw
Speaker 1: I think they described it as a I say conk
Speaker 1: They were saying conch. I'm not sure which is correct,
Speaker 1: but I've always said conk um, but like a conk
Speaker 1: graveyard down there, basically where it's just littered with all
Speaker 1: these poor little sea creatures that happened to fall below
Speaker 1: that that layer and they can't get back out, and
Speaker 1: it's like Silence of the Lamb's esque. There's even like
Speaker 1: scratch marks where you can tell they've tried to get
Speaker 1: out over the years and we're unable to. Yeah, conk
Speaker 1: fingernails that have peeled off and are stuck on the
Speaker 1: sides of the walls. It's it's a bad jam. What
Speaker 1: do you think about that Claires show? Is it going
Speaker 1: to be any good? I like the concept, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean too, but of a direct sequel, But I don't know.
Speaker 1: I saw that they um, they seem to be recreating
Speaker 1: the Lamb thing, and I think one of the I
Speaker 1: just saw this movie like a week ago and it's
Speaker 1: still just so good. Um. I think one of the
Speaker 1: strengths of is that they don't show any of that story.
Speaker 1: It's all just Clarice and her her telling of the
Speaker 1: story makes it so much creep here. Yeah, there's no
Speaker 1: like flashback scene or anything. Right, So this TV show
Speaker 1: did that, and I'm wondering if that says a lot
Speaker 1: about it or not. I'm wondering who is playing Buffalo Bill,
Speaker 1: because they recreate some of that stuff. It looks like
Speaker 1: my friend, it's our old pal, Tommy Chong, the note holder.
Speaker 1: He got himself a pretty sweet gig he's playing him. No,
Speaker 1: I'm just it's like, man, I mean they should just
Speaker 1: get that that guy. He's around and still creepy looking. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Jamee Gum, the guy who played Jamee Gum. Yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: uh yeah, why not? Uh so where are we here?
Speaker 1: We were talking about little crabs and things trying to
Speaker 1: get up unsuccessfully, which really is super sad. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: there's a whole con Conch graveyard done. Who is saying
Speaker 1: conch where they British? M hmmm, I don't remember because
Speaker 1: I've always heard conk too. So yeah, there's a whole
Speaker 1: conk and hermit crab graveyard down at the bottom of
Speaker 1: the blue hole UM. And it is sad, but it's
Speaker 1: just kind of like the circle of life thing. But again,
Speaker 1: the weird thing about these blue holes is that some
Speaker 1: of them are not circles. It's all just a one
Speaker 1: way deposit of stuff from the top down to the bottom,
Speaker 1: and everything just kind of gets stuck there and again
Speaker 1: forms this pretty cool record isolated in time. UM. That's
Speaker 1: not entirely true of all blue holes. It is for
Speaker 1: the Great Blue Hole UM, and plenty of other blue
Speaker 1: holes where it's just like things go in they don't
Speaker 1: come back out. But there are other blue holes out there, UM,
Speaker 1: including one called Green Banana Blue Hole UM in the
Speaker 1: Gulf of Mexico I think off the coast of Sarasota.
Speaker 1: That is UM pretty deep. It's like, uh, four hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty feet I think for her in thirty five
Speaker 1: ft below the surfaces the bottom of it UM and
Speaker 1: it starts a hundred and fifty four ft below the surface,
Speaker 1: and it's some incredibly vibrant, alive oasis in the midst
Speaker 1: of this relatively barren Gulf of Mexico desert. UH. And
Speaker 1: they are trying to figure out what the heck is
Speaker 1: going on because other blue holes ares just like life suckers,
Speaker 1: and this blue hole is like, have some more life.
Speaker 1: You get some life, You get some life, and you
Speaker 1: get some life. You know. It's a pretty interesting conundrum.
Speaker 1: Does the green banana have that layer? Yes, although so
Speaker 1: I'm sorry it doesn't have the layer, but it has
Speaker 1: plenty of hydrogen sulfide in it. There's some, there's some, yeah,
Speaker 1: And they're trying to figure out why. Because there's another
Speaker 1: hole it's similar called Amberjack Hole that they've explored, and
Speaker 1: it definitely has a layer, but there's also some sort
Speaker 1: of nutrient flux or exchange with Amberjack too, But in
Speaker 1: the green Banana, there's like it's like a two way
Speaker 1: highway going from the top to the bottom up to
Speaker 1: the rim. And what's interesting is they've figured out that
Speaker 1: there are microbes there, I think archaa that actually eat
Speaker 1: the inorganic carbon that leaches out of the dissolving walls
Speaker 1: of the cave underwater. It eats it and turns it
Speaker 1: into organic carbon, which then makes its way up somehow
Speaker 1: to the rim, so that there's actually more life that
Speaker 1: can be sustained there's more bioavailable carbon than would be
Speaker 1: there if those microbes weren't chomping on it and turning
Speaker 1: it into two organic carbon. So it's pretty interesting stuff.
Speaker 1: And like, you don't find this kind of thing just anywhere.
Speaker 1: So they're starting to really figure out that, like, these
Speaker 1: blue holes are very unusual, unique communities, even among compared
Speaker 1: to one another, but especially when you step back and
Speaker 1: compared to like Topeka, it really knocks your socks off. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and these are you know, they're all underwater capses ms.
Speaker 1: There are parts of these cape systems that are still
Speaker 1: unexplored because they're so vast or so deep. Uh, And
Speaker 1: like you said, there's new in there. You know, it's
Speaker 1: dangerous to to get down there, even if you're Richard
Speaker 1: Branson in a fancy, you know, multimillion dollar submarine. One
Speaker 1: of the things in the ones off the coast of
Speaker 1: Florida that they're trying to figure out is whether they
Speaker 1: actually connect to the aquifers in Florida and whether or
Speaker 1: not that is the reason why, uh, there's some saltwater
Speaker 1: intrusion going on in the state's drinking water. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: it's it's possible that that flow of nutrients up and
Speaker 1: down the green banana has to do with some sort
Speaker 1: of tidal connection because there's like a flushing mechanism. Maybe
Speaker 1: it could be from the aquifers. They don't know. Um,
Speaker 1: but that would be a big one to figure out
Speaker 1: because saltwater intrusion, especially down to Miami, is an enormous
Speaker 1: problem and will probably lead to that city being abandoned
Speaker 1: in the next fifty years. Poor Miami. Unless I mean,
Speaker 1: we could always figure out desalination p sesses. But um, yeah,
Speaker 1: that'd be a town to save, if you ask me.
Speaker 1: I love Miami. Oh yeah. Oh it's vibrant. I'm not
Speaker 1: the biggest fan, but you know it's not for everyone. Sure, no,
Speaker 1: but it is. I like it. I think it's a
Speaker 1: great town. Uh. Should we take another break here? Yes,
Speaker 1: all right, we'll take a break and we'll finish up
Speaker 1: with with diving in these things. I guess. Sure, it's okay, Chuck,
Speaker 1: Like I said, you know, Jacques Cousteau kind of said, hey,
Speaker 1: everybody go check out the Great Blue Hole. It's amazing,
Speaker 1: But there are plenty of other blue holes out there
Speaker 1: that everybody wants to dive on, and we should say
Speaker 1: the Great Blue hole is not just famous because of
Speaker 1: Jacques Cousto. It's not just noteworthy because of Jacques Cousto.
Speaker 1: Not like he could have gone to just any blue
Speaker 1: hole and it would have been like the the best
Speaker 1: known blue hole in the world. Like it's incredibly large,
Speaker 1: it's it's not the deepest blue hole on the planet.
Speaker 1: I think that one actually goes to one in the
Speaker 1: South China Sea called the Young Lee Marine Cavern, which
Speaker 1: is about three nearly a thousand feet deep UM. This
Speaker 1: one is uh, I think four hundred and fifteen feet
Speaker 1: deep UM. But it's a thousand feet across. So if
Speaker 1: you combine it's width and its depth, it's the biggest
Speaker 1: blue hole out there as far as we've discovered yet. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's what makes it great, and that's what makes
Speaker 1: it a diving destination. But it is very dangerous. UM
Speaker 1: is not something any kind of novice diver um wants
Speaker 1: to take part in. In fact, I'm sure I'm not
Speaker 1: sure how they You're probably not even allowed to unless
Speaker 1: you're at a certain level of diving ability, would be
Speaker 1: my guess. I think it how they can police that, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's my question too. I don't I don't know
Speaker 1: how they police at all. I've I've read about one
Speaker 1: called Jacob's Well, I think in New Mexico or Texas that, um,
Speaker 1: some people die diving on it, and somebody tried to
Speaker 1: put up a great that kept people out of the
Speaker 1: rest of the cavern system and they just immediately removed
Speaker 1: it and kept going. So I don't know how you
Speaker 1: would police that either. But it is dangerous because it's
Speaker 1: super super deep. It's dangerous because of that layer of
Speaker 1: hydrogen sulfide that we talked about. UM, you know we've uh,
Speaker 1: I know we talked about the Ben's in quite a
Speaker 1: few episodes, but um, nitrogen narcosis can happen at just
Speaker 1: a hundred feet down. So, like, the conditions are just
Speaker 1: so different than anything you would normally encounter as a diver.
Speaker 1: You can't just use your regular rule book and playbook
Speaker 1: and think everything is going to be just fine. Like,
Speaker 1: it's very specific conditions. Really got to know what you're
Speaker 1: doing as far as blue hole specific diving goes. Uh.
Speaker 1: And like we mentioned earlier, those three people died, um
Speaker 1: at least three people. UM, there's probably been more, I
Speaker 1: would guess, but three verified people have died in the
Speaker 1: Great blue Hole alone. Yeah, from what I saw, when
Speaker 1: you dive a blue hole, it's a combination of technical diving,
Speaker 1: which is like really really deep diving that requires all
Speaker 1: sorts of planning and skill, combined with cave diving, which requires,
Speaker 1: like we we talked about before, all sorts of finesse.
Speaker 1: Like if your flipper just flicks one of these spilea
Speaker 1: them's um, it just dissolves into a cloud of silt
Speaker 1: and you don't have any idea what's up and what's
Speaker 1: down any longer. So it is really really tricky. Um,
Speaker 1: and you know people do die. Uh. You saw that
Speaker 1: one article I think I sent from fizz dot org
Speaker 1: I think where I was talking about them, um searching
Speaker 1: the cave system under Dean blue Hole in the Bahamas,
Speaker 1: and um, they came across a diver who was still
Speaker 1: wearing his nineteen seventies scuba equipment and had been left
Speaker 1: in place there after dying there. So it's like really
Speaker 1: really dangerous diving. And there's a blue hole in Egypt
Speaker 1: that's considered the graveyard, the diver's graveyard, I think, so
Speaker 1: that that diver looked like Brad Pitt in Once upon
Speaker 1: a Time in Hollywood basically. I mean, wouldn't that make
Speaker 1: it exponentially creepier to just the fact that it's like
Speaker 1: seventies diving equipment, that's just something about it would make
Speaker 1: that horrifying to come upon in a dark cave. It's
Speaker 1: cooler looking equipment, for sure. They should have never progressed
Speaker 1: past that design into the you know, mountain dew electric
Speaker 1: yellow kind of thing that they've got going on today.
Speaker 1: Back when they were called skin divers exactly. I don't
Speaker 1: even know what that means. I don't either. Um, I
Speaker 1: don't either, because you usually are wearing a wet suit.
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe there there it's like the opposite of dry
Speaker 1: suit diving. I don't know, who knows. Everybody in the
Speaker 1: seventies was stoned on pot so you can't make heads
Speaker 1: or tails at what they're talking about these things. Blue
Speaker 1: holes are also a good place to go if you
Speaker 1: are a free diver, uh and if you're interested in
Speaker 1: setting any kind of a free diving record, a blue
Speaker 1: hole is a great place to go, even though it's
Speaker 1: dangerous because it's super deep. Um. We talked about free
Speaker 1: diving before, but that's you know, that's diving without the
Speaker 1: scuba gear. It's people that can hold their breath really
Speaker 1: really long time, people that can um whose bodies can
Speaker 1: adjust to those depths uh better I guess, or maybe
Speaker 1: they're just trained to adjust better than other people. And
Speaker 1: I think um it was the site up until semi
Speaker 1: recently where they actually had a competition. They are called
Speaker 1: Vertical Blue where they have set world records, but don't
Speaker 1: think they do it there anymore, right, I don't know
Speaker 1: if they hold Vertical Blue or not. But there is
Speaker 1: a type of free diving called um no Limits free diving,
Speaker 1: which is I think they stopped recording records because they
Speaker 1: didn't want to encourage people to do this any longer.
Speaker 1: It's like the most extreme version of one of the
Speaker 1: most extreme sports there is. Free diving on its own,
Speaker 1: it's just crazy nuts. But um no limits free diving
Speaker 1: is where you have I think flippers on in a
Speaker 1: wet suit in a mask, and that's it. You just
Speaker 1: take a deep, deep breath and hold it, and then
Speaker 1: you take a weighted sled that pulls you, plunges you
Speaker 1: down to the depths of the blue hole very very quickly,
Speaker 1: and then when you reach the level that you're trying
Speaker 1: to reach usually just set a new record. Um, you
Speaker 1: grab onto a buoy that's down there and it takes
Speaker 1: you back up really quickly, and I was like, how
Speaker 1: can you not get the bends? And the key is
Speaker 1: the trick is you're not breathing at depth. You're just
Speaker 1: holding your breath when you breathe it. That's how nitrogen
Speaker 1: bubbles can get dissolved into your bloodstream, if you're just
Speaker 1: holding your breath. I guess that that could happen, but
Speaker 1: I think it's much less likely for it to happen
Speaker 1: either way. It's not it can't possibly be good for
Speaker 1: your body because these guys are holding like they're holding
Speaker 1: their breath for nine minutes I saw in one case.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine what it does to your body going
Speaker 1: that fast down and then that fast back up again,
Speaker 1: Like I can't go eight feet down in a swimming
Speaker 1: pool without my ears doing something funny. You just come
Speaker 1: up like, oh, it didn't hurt. But it's I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously it's practice and training and all that stuff,
Speaker 1: but I say, no, thank you. Yeah, And so we
Speaker 1: should tell people like with the depths, we're talking about
Speaker 1: the guy who holds the record right now is named
Speaker 1: Herbert Niche. He doved seven hundred and two feet like
Speaker 1: this back in two thousand and seven, and in two
Speaker 1: thousand and twelve he did it again, this time to
Speaker 1: eight hundred and thirty one ft by but by that
Speaker 1: time they weren't recording records any longer, so it's an
Speaker 1: unofficial record. But eight hundred and thirty one feet on
Speaker 1: a breath and then back up this nuts man. So
Speaker 1: when you can imagine that when people try this stuff,
Speaker 1: they die sometimes. And at that vertical blue competition at
Speaker 1: Dean's Blue Hole, which is a Ankiellen pole or pool
Speaker 1: up in the Bahamas, Um, it's a guy named Nicholas
Speaker 1: Mvoli died back in two thousand and twelve. Very sad
Speaker 1: it is. It's a very dangerous thing to do free diving.
Speaker 1: It's also a dangerous thing to do diving on blue holes.
Speaker 1: But I guess it's one of those ones where that
Speaker 1: you work toward a goal and you finally get to
Speaker 1: do it and your life has changed forever. Kind of
Speaker 1: you know, you got anything else? I got nothing else?
Speaker 1: I don't either. Man. If you want to know more
Speaker 1: about blue holes, there is a lot to learn. Out there,
Speaker 1: so just start researching and uh, thank us later. And
Speaker 1: since I said thank us later, it's time for listener mail. Uh.
Speaker 1: This is a good one. This was in response to
Speaker 1: the in Double a CP episode. Hey guys, just finished
Speaker 1: listening to in Double a CP made me think of
Speaker 1: my father's college days. He attend an old miss when
Speaker 1: James Meredith joined the school. Uh, and one day saw
Speaker 1: an opportunity to help a young field reporter named Dan
Speaker 1: Rather move his equipment from the registration building to the library.
Speaker 1: My dad kept in contact with Mr Rather and let
Speaker 1: him know that he was actually living in the same
Speaker 1: dorm as Mr Meredith. Uh. And that is how his
Speaker 1: time as a stringer began um, providing mostly audio clips
Speaker 1: of events happening at the school. He said. At the
Speaker 1: time he was selling reels to CBS, ABC, UH, CBC
Speaker 1: and the BBC, making around six to eight hundred dollars
Speaker 1: a week, which is real money for a college kid
Speaker 1: in the sixties. I mean, that's real money now. It
Speaker 1: was only a matter of time before the university found
Speaker 1: out who was providing the footage and offered my dad
Speaker 1: the choice of stopping or being expelled. He opted for expulsion,
Speaker 1: thinking he could just enroll in another college, but then
Speaker 1: learned that his and scripts were flagged and he could
Speaker 1: not just pick up and move to another school, so
Speaker 1: he had to go I know right, Uh, So he
Speaker 1: had to go back to Old Miss and promised not
Speaker 1: to report anymore so he could finish and get his degree,
Speaker 1: which he did. Uh. Several years later, he married my
Speaker 1: mom and they took a trip to the CBS studios
Speaker 1: near them, and my dad suggested they pop in to
Speaker 1: say hi to Dan Rather. My mom thought he was
Speaker 1: pulling her leg. They went to the studio as to
Speaker 1: speak to him and was promptly asked if they had
Speaker 1: an appointment and was turned away. As they were leaving,
Speaker 1: Dan Rather walk by and said John last name redacted,
Speaker 1: How the heck are you curse word redacted? Uh? And
Speaker 1: according to my mom, she almost fainted. Anyway, my family
Speaker 1: has always taken a lot of pride that my dad
Speaker 1: helped shed light on the UH integration at Old Miss. Granted,
Speaker 1: his role could have been filled by almost any of
Speaker 1: the students living in his dorm, but he was the
Speaker 1: one who did it. And that is Brenda in sarah Sota, Florida.
Speaker 1: That's a great story. Brendan, they jibes quite well with
Speaker 1: our blue holes theme because there's some office hea soda too. Totally.
Speaker 1: That's great. Yeah, the University of Mississippi's like, you better
Speaker 1: stop reporting now get back to class and journalism school exactly.
Speaker 1: Uh well, thanks again, Brenda, And if you want to
Speaker 1: get in touch with this, like Brenda did, you can
Speaker 1: send us an email to Stuff Podcast at iHeart radio
Speaker 1: dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of
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