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 this particular case it was a very spacious set of cenotes with a guiding string along the safe route. So it felt pretty safe. It was also the day after we had done some open water diving so the dive master got a feel for our skills (I would assume) and none of us were particularly foolish. I doubt I'd ever want to go diving in actual caves with anything even remotely tight for space.
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
Thanks so much for sharing this! Quite wonderful. I'd love to go back with my 360 camera to get some footage because flat screen video never quite catches the feeling of being in those kinds of spaces.
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.
> 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