Anyone visiting the Yucatan peninsula should take a day to go swimming in a cenote. It’s a magical experience even without diving into the underwater caves (they have some scary signs with warnings about that).
> There’s a symbiotic relationship between the passionate and technical cave explorers who investigate every hole in a cave in their free time (and just for fun) and those in the scientific community who want to study these prehistoric materials but cannot reach where they’re hidden in the underwater darkness.
The lack of cavers in general is becoming a bigger and bigger problem in archaeology and paleoanthropology. Since a lot of archaic human species were quite a bit smaller, they managed to make very elaborate caves their home that are hard for the average adult to navigate. Underwater archaeology is still in its infancy so the training isn't explicitly part of anyone's education.
Last year there was a story [1] on the front page about research into Homo naledi in the Rising Star Cave [2] that was only made possible because they were able to find six petite paleoanthropologists cavers who were able to fit through a "vertically oriented 'chimney' or 'chute' measuring 12 m (39 ft) long with an average width of 20 cm (7.9 in)" to the Dinaledi room in the back of the cave. They found 1,500 human bones there and still have a lot left to excavate.
Diving in the cenotes is pretty damn awesome though! You just have to make sure to dive the ones that have been explored and have designated routes. My third and fourth dives after getting my open water certification were in cenotes around Playa Del Carmen and that experience was just mind blowing. Would love to do it again.
> My third and fourth dives after getting my open water certification were in cenotes around Playa Del Carmen and that experience was just mind blowing.
Overhead diving, especially in caves, is extremely dangerous without extensive training. Too many operators down there will take new divers on very questionable “cavern” tours with sections of no natural light / visible exits, single primary lights, and single tanks.
Do your due diligence and remember nothing in the cave is worth dying for.
In the Yucatan most divers consider there to be a difference between 'cavern diving' and 'cave diving'. Cave diving requires extensive training and is very dangerous. In cavern diving you stay within the naturally illuminated part of the cave and, while there might be something overhead of you at periods, you're not functionally farther from a safe exit than you would be at 130ft depth with no overhead. Of course any overhead obstruction is an added risk but that situation happens in regular recreational diving too.
It wouldn't surprise me to hear that some tour operators bend the guidelines but the diving I did there felt appropriately careful.
He also has some amazing IMAX footage of cenotes, among other caves, in his film Ancient Caves, which is still playing on a few IMAX screens, though it's run is mostly over. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSZL9YbXDGs
NASA worked with a commercial partner to develop the SUNFISH [1][2] for future exploration of Europa. It's been used to explore underwater caves and they have a video showing the generated data from Peacock Springs [3]
There already is a company doing this, I’ve heard the CEO speak at a conference. They are heavily involved in the cave diving community and will likely start making long distance mapping records in the next few years.
will probably never get those commas, hopefully wont need them because this video by Polish students made one of my 'retirement projects' "underwater ROV"
The lead scientist who discovered it (Lee Berger) certainly thinks they did; they haven't found any way they could have accidentally fallen in from the surface and there are no (or almost no?) bones from any other species. He further claims they have evidence of intentional fire use and rock art.
Approximately every other paleoanthropologist is extremely skeptical of this and also constantly mad him for other things like putting preprints on bioRxiv, having too many TV shows, going to space with fossils, etc.
On the other hand, every paleoanthropologist except him seems to run on a system where they never reveal any discoveries or share their work with anyone and take 30 years to write up what they have found in case someone steals their dig sites. It kinda seems like he's right.
If you are a SCUBA diver, but always wished that diving was a bit more technical and rigorous, I highly recommend trying cave diving [1]. You can do a cenote tour in just an afternoon, and if you’re hooked a few weeks of training (spaced over time) will make you into a radically better diver.
A well-known example is the figure of a woman at the entrance of Cenote Dos Ojos; while it was not sculpted as such, it is a carefully selected speleothem that resembles the silhouette of a woman and was intentionally exhibited on a pedestal to decorate the cave entrance, evidence of paleoart from more than 8,000 years ago that anyone can visit.
> Among the many extinct species that lived in this region are members of the family Megalonychidae (including the genus Megalonyx, Greek for “large claw”). Fossils of these giant ground sloths are commonly found in the caves, as they probably took refuge within them, such as members of the genus Xibalbaonyx (“great claw of Xibalba”), a polar bear-sized ground sloth with big claws that measured up to 12 feet in height and weighed nearly a ton. They are joined by members of related families, including the genus Nothrotheriops, a grizzly bear-sized mammal that reached five feet tall and weighed 1,000 pounds.
It's unfortunate DNA doesn't preserve well in humid environments. Those many bones could provide a lot of genetic information otherwise.
Okay, Australian Outback holes weren't what I was thinking of. Was mainly thinking about the ability to get a wireless connection underground being pretty rough, especially when it's a cave filled with water. (Sonar based wireless? Sofi?)
Fibre in a cable would work, as would regular ethernet cable - many tourist caves are wired for light show effects.
There are a good number of caves (eg: one former tourist cave on a property I once owned in the WA S'West Karri forrest) that have solution pipes that go straight down from the surface into the roofs of various chambers - they're good for running cable.
Circling back to mining, underground mines can be vast systems of tunnels with custom trucks and trains running about in addition to borehole machines and other stuff - Mining Comms is a whole field with hybrid cable + transmitter (with repeater) hubs, etc.
Not saying this is cheap or easy, but it's all doable - and for the DIY home handy type it can cost time and effort rather than money if they have access to mining auctions | closing down | old stock etc.
I ran into a fellow a while back who was attempting to repurpose in-mountain bunkers as datacenters, so he presumably had some plan for getting the bits in and out — ethernet over power? (the natural water cooling is a plus, and wet limestone sure cuts down on potential covert channels, so maybe there'd be a market among the paranoid?)
look, as a current cave diver and a former devops/survivor of the past 25 years of silicon valley, one of the reasons why diving in the jungle is so delightful is that pagers don't work in the underworld. Now, don't go ruining our last safe spaces.
Somewhere in the long dark ago I saw a human interest story about a hermit who made himself a house in a cave. It was still a cave, but it was clear that someone at least slightly civilized lived there.
Caves like these always make me think of what might be beneath the surface of Mars, Europa, or many other bodies in the solar system with sub-surface oceans.
I desperately want to see that in my lifetime. I give high odds that there's something alive under there. Maybe just single celled organisms or simple worm-like things like what lives near vents in Earth's oceans, but anything would be mind-blowing.
Then I want to see if its biology chemically resembles ours. If it does, it means some form of panspermia is true and the idea that life originated on Earth is the last remaining geocentrism.
Of course for a film they made it a manned mission when IRL we would never do that, not just because it would take too long to get humans out there but because of contamination (in either direction).
There are a whole bunch of creepypastas about things like the first mission to Mars finding a human skeleton in an old Soviet space suit and something written on a rock nearby.
Stuff like: "We are not allowed to leave... they will be coming..."
Been living in the Yucatan the last couple of years. The Mayans believe that cenotes are gateways to the underworld, so it's kinda on point. When people are having bad luck (injuries etc) and there is one nearby, they will pray and make offerings to the spirits that inhabit them. And if that doesn't work they will fire guns into them to scare them away.
> There’s a symbiotic relationship between the passionate and technical cave explorers who investigate every hole in a cave in their free time (and just for fun) and those in the scientific community who want to study these prehistoric materials but cannot reach where they’re hidden in the underwater darkness.
The lack of cavers in general is becoming a bigger and bigger problem in archaeology and paleoanthropology. Since a lot of archaic human species were quite a bit smaller, they managed to make very elaborate caves their home that are hard for the average adult to navigate. Underwater archaeology is still in its infancy so the training isn't explicitly part of anyone's education.
Last year there was a story [1] on the front page about research into Homo naledi in the Rising Star Cave [2] that was only made possible because they were able to find six petite paleoanthropologists cavers who were able to fit through a "vertically oriented 'chimney' or 'chute' measuring 12 m (39 ft) long with an average width of 20 cm (7.9 in)" to the Dinaledi room in the back of the cave. They found 1,500 human bones there and still have a lot left to excavate.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36344397
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rising_Star_Cave
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