Belize Blue Hole Mysteries Could Hold Key to Science
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| Belize Blue Hole photographed from above reveals the depths through change of colors of ocean waters. |
Local Press of Centro America continue to promote
Belize´s Blue Hole as a touristic diving point destination, however,
expeditions reveal that the location could host incredible value to science.
Info Bae reported on June 11th that the Blue
Hole of Belize is part of a wider system and Coral Reef Reserve listed as
UNESCO Heritage site. The hole´s cave system can be tracked back to the last glacier
period. Sea levels where then 400 to 500 meters lower than today. The Blue Hole
is 300 meters in width and 123 meters depth. A depth with requires respected by
anyone who knows anything about diving. Information dating as far back as 20
thousand years ago can be found in the Blue Hole´s geological record.
Expeditions to the bottom of the mysterious perfectly
circular Blue Hole seem urge viewers to continue investigating the area. In
2011 Ramon Llaneza documented on video his expedition to the depths.
From the top surface the Blue Hole appears to be
paradise for oceanic life forms, turquoise waters, perfect blues and atoll
conditions but at its depths the Blue Hole is a "extreme zone for life
forms". Has it always been this way? Did the hole once home vertical
corals and deep ocean life as well as stratus organisms living beyond? Questions
that remain unanswered
Much like the ice-tube samples taken from south and
north poles serve to scientists in their journey into the distant past the Blue
Hole and its depths are also a journey into the past, 20 thousand years back
and perhaps even more. But even for human forms life conditions of the depths are
harsh. Depths of over 40 meters are only for professional divers -depths of 120
meters are dangerous due to pressure, decompression limits, human physiology
boundaries and advanced diving skills are required such as Nitro diving.
At diverse depths dead coral skeletons thousands of
years old can be found. The Blue Hole could be an open book of geology speaking
of ancient Era. Fossil coral reefs are strangely found in diverse locations of
the world, sometimes even in artic zones, this proves that the Earth is dynamic
in its continental formation and movement (Pangea and Continental Drift) and
that these zones had once been located in the Ecuadorian boundaries. In the
same way dead corals of the Blue Hole in the depths reveal that those areas
were at top surface once.
The conditions of waters-probably anoxic waters (very low
on oxygen) and chemical hydrological altered are impacted by erosion and other
events. The stratus below of the pitch black environment could host unknown
lower stratus species. Ocean snow falls from the productive surface and provides
nourishment for decomposers and other organisms such as isolated crabs which crawl
through the water pressurized floors.
Erosion, decantation, volcanic-tectonic crust formation,
sedimentation, lithological cycles and rock formation, fossil corals and marine
fossils, limestone boulders, perhaps even magnesium or iron boulders, the some-what
cave looking environment seems to have it all. Stalactites in north side ledge
at 165 feet depth not only reveal that the area was one dry land but that the
area submerged.
The Blue Hole speaks of the great dynamism of the Earth
and Oceans, their constant change and mutation. Missing pages of the geological
book of the history of the ocean and the planet may lay undiscovered in the
mysterious depths of the Blue Hole. Retrieving them and deciphering them proves
to be a challenge.
