On the Florida coast, at the bottom of the ocean, there are huge blue holes that formed thousands of years ago. What the unexplored holes contain has remained largely a mystery, but now scientists want to change that.
Investigators flock to a 425-foot “blue hole” off the Florida Gulf coast next month for signs of life, among other things. The hole has been named Green Banana.
Green Banana is located about 155 feet below the surface of the water, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). It was first discovered not by researchers or scientists, but by recreational fishermen and divers, and is similar to sinkholes found on land.
NOAA said there are many underwater sinks, springs and caves scattered across the continental shelf of the Florida Gulf, but they have no idea how many exist or where to find them. Although they vary in size, shape and depth, most are believed to be home to an abundance of diverse plants and animals.
AJ Gonzalez / Mote Marine Laboratory / NOAA
According to researchers at the Mote Marine Laboratory, the holes probably formed about 8,000 to 12,000 years ago, when the Florida coast was about 100 miles further from where it is now due to low sea levels. While there is no clear discovery date, local fishermen and divers have wondered about the mysterious holes for decades.
“It was more like word of mouth … these divers went out and tried to find it, and they had many days where they found nothing and other days where, ‘Eureka! There is a hole!'” Emily Hall, a staff scientist and program manager for the Mote Marine Laboratory, told CBS News on Thursday.
Researcher Jim Culter, senior scientist and program manager at Mote Marine Laboratory, started diving to look for holes in the mid-1990s. Since then, he has confirmed about 20 holes in the region, but suspects there are at least three times that number waiting to be found. Other holes have been reported on the Atlantic side of Florida, but none have been confirmed.
“You always want to go a little bit lower. Every square foot is like, ‘I wonder what’s going deeper and deeper,'” Culter told CBS News on Thursday. “It is exciting to go to a place where you are sure no one else has been.”
In May and September 2019, a team of amateur scientists and explorers from the Mote Marine Laboratory, Florida Atlantic University / Harbor Branch, Georgia Institute of Technology and the US Geological Society, with the support of NOAA’s Office of Ocean Exploration and Research , explored a 350-foot deep blue hole called the Amberjack Hole, located about 30 miles off the coast of Sarasota. In August 2020 and May 2021, the same team plans to explore Green Banana.
“I’ve never been to the bottom of the green banana, it’s pretty deep,” Culter said. Hall added that it takes an “adventurous spirit” to handle intense dives.
“The biggest ones we’ve been working on where the hole opening is about 75-100 feet wide, I definitely want to keep going down towards those,” he said. “But, there are other holes out there where the hole is the size of, say, a manhole cover in the city … I’m a little scared with them!”
Last year’s missions marked the deepest blue hole investigations ever conducted. After deploying divers and more than 600 pounds of equipment to Amberjack Hole, the team discovered that carbon, nutrients, and microscopic life lurked within.
The team even discovered two dead, but still intact, an endangered species, sawfish at the bottom of the hole. Investigators were able to retrieve the remains of one of the 12-foot-long creatures for examination.
While much of the seafloor is an arid wasteland, blue holes offer an “oasis” of diverse marine life, including corals, sponges, mollusks, sea turtles, sharks and more, NOAA said. But little is known about blue holes in general, due to their inaccessibility – many are hundreds of feet underwater, with relatively small openings.
The upcoming mission will present even more challenges than the first for the great team, which Hall says is comprised of passionate and hard-working explorers. Green Banana is not only deeper than Amberjack, but “the configuration of the hole is hourglass-shaped and creates new challenges for lander deployment and water sampling,” said NOAA.
In addition to searching for unique or new species during the mission, scientists seek to explore the role of holes in the global carbon cycle, a possible connection between Florida’s sinks and groundwater, the secretion of nutrients from the hole that could be affecting the surrounding area. and whether or not to make holes in protected areas.
“They are all different. There are similarities between some of them,” Culter said. With future expeditions, researchers seek to discover how unique each hole is, and whether there is a possible connection between them.
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