How low can you go ? dispirited holes , big marine swallow hole that are open to the airfoil , range in depth from tens to hundreds of time deep , but it looks like one in China – the so - forebode Dragon Hole – may take the top ( or should that be the bottom ? ) billet .
Although it ’s been eff about before , a brand new marine survey has bring out that it ’s far deeper than previously recall . At a staggering depth of 300.89 meters ( 987 feet ) , it could fit more than three Statue of Liberties inside it , or one single London Shard skyscraper . The old record was Dean ’s Blue Hole in the Bahamas , which has a depth of 202 meter ( 663 feet ) .
The local authorities has vow to conserve the blue hole for future propagation . “ We will strive to protect the natural bequest left by the Earth , ” Xu Zhifei , frailty city manager of Sansha City , toldXinhua .
Dragon Hole is turn up within a major coral reef name Yongle within the Xisha Islands . topical anesthetic have long shout out it the “ middle ” of the South China Sea , and according to a sixteenth century Formosan legend , this sinkhole is where an ancient submarine ’s golden staff , a weapon system called Ruyi Jingu Bang , amount from . It was slip by the Monkey King from the underwater realm of Ao Guang , the Dragon King of the East Sea .
The Dragon Hole.euronewsvia YouTube
Sadly , as with other downcast golf hole around the world , this one was n’t carved out by an architecturally savvy dragon . Many are thought to have beendissolved by acidic rainwater , which fall on carbonate bed when they were expose to the surface during the last glacial maximum .
Over time , these bed collapsed in on themselves , forming the original sinkholes . When the glacier melted and sea level uprise , they inundate these holes with seawater . It ’s not completely open why blue-blooded fix shape precisely where they do , but it ’s not surprising that they tend to forge near or in coral reef , which are massive depositary of carbonate rocks .
Their terrestrial equivalent weight are experience as cenotes , which contain fresh groundwater as fight to briny saltwater . In both cause , complex networks of horizontal tunnels can extend out from the primary erect shaft , forming labyrinthine wonderland advanced for exploration .
The Great Blue Hole of Belize . Wollertz / Shutterstock
This special underwater sinkhole was explored by a submarine sandwich automaton named VideoRay Pro 4 , which used a cutting - edge depth detector to aver the profoundness of the submarine hepatic portal vein . It was controlled by scientists working with the Sansha Ship Course Research Institute for Coral Protection , which is based in China .
In its shallower segment , Dragon Hole is abode to at least 20 different species of marine aliveness . However , the mechanical explorer found that below 100 cadence ( 328 foot ) depth , the fix is null of almost any atomic number 8 , which means that the vertical tunnel is deadly to most life along two - thirds of its length .
Still , there could be microorganisms below this depth that hold out without needing atomic number 8 to change over food into energy . If they are thriving in this anoxic environment , rather than just existing , then they are screw as “ extremophiles , ” and are likely to be either bacteria or a closely - related group of microbes calledarchaea .
So far , no extremophiles – or magical staffs – have been retrieve at the bottom of Dragon Hole , but life has been found in far strange places within the sea , from hydrothermal vents andexposed mantle rocksto super saltydeadpools .
Gallic freediver Guillaume Néry jump into Dean ’s Blue Hole , the previous record holder . Guillaume Néryvia YouTube
