Oceanographers have confirmed that an underwater sinkhole in Mexico’s Chetumal Bay is the world’s deepest, but what really lies at the bottom of the abyss remains a mystery, Britain’s The Independent reported.
The Taam Ja’ Blue Hole off the southeast coast of Mexico is at least 420m deep, beating the Dragon Hole in the South China Sea, whose bottom is about 300m below sea level, it said.
The Taam Ja’ Blue Hole is near the Yucatan peninsula where the dinosaur-killing asteroid struck the planet 66 million years ago. It was believed to be only about 275m below sea level when it was first discovered in 2021.
A more intensive study has now found that its depth is far more, said The Independent.
The researchers found that the pit was at least 420m deep but it could run deeper still. The profiler they had could only function at a depth of 500m, they said.
The water in the hole was found to have layers of varying temperature and salinity.
One layer at about 400m deep had salinity and temperature values close to those of the nearby Caribbean Sea.
This indicates that there may be an underwater seabed connecting the two seas, the researchers said.
