A team of explorers say they have discovered the world's deepest underwater cave, 404 meters (1,325 feet) down, near the eastern Czech town of Hranice.
Polish explorer Krzysztof Starnawski told The Associated Press Friday he felt like a "Columbus of the 21th century" to have made the discovery.
Starnawski, 48, found the cave Tuesday in the flooded limestone Hranice Abyss, which he has explored since 1998. He scuba dived to a narrow slot at 200 meters' depth and let through a remotely-operated underwater robot, or ROV, that went to the depth of 404 meters.
In 2015, Starnawski himself passed through the slot and went to 265 meters' depth, realizing that was still far from the bottom and that the cavity was widening.
Speaking on the phone from his home in Krakow, southern Poland, he said that the discovery Tuesday makes Hranice Abyss the world's deepest known underwater cave, beating the previous record-holder, Italy's Pozzo del Merro flooded sinkhole, by 12 meters (39 feet.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 30 2016, @07:36PM
Under the sea under the sea
They'll have no labor unions
Just desperate slave labor
Under the sea under the sea
Work to pay your air bills
Unless you can grow gills
Company will have you
By the lungs
Under the sea
(Score: 2) by driverless on Saturday October 01 2016, @08:26AM
We've got the location, now all we need to do is figure out how to get Trump and Clinton to Hranice...
(Score: 2, Disagree) by frojack on Friday September 30 2016, @10:00PM
I thought 404 was Not Found...?
The current depth record for open circuit scuba diving is held by Ahmed Gabr, who descended to 332.35 meters on September 18, 2014.
Most recreational scuba diving organizations set the maximum depth for a certified, experienced recreational divers breathing air at 130 feet. Divers should heed this guideline. The fact that extremely experienced, technical divers have descended beyond 1000 feet on admittedly risky dives does not mean that recreational divers have any business breaking suggested depth limits.
So this guy is not only claiming a new deepest cave, he is claiming a new Scuba record? of 1,325.459 feet.
Guy's got brass ones.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday September 30 2016, @11:20PM
A-AHEM.
So-so, he got lucky and found it because he was in a Polish submarine...you know, the kind with the screen-door?
What do you mean not funny? Fifty years ago we'd have you upside down from a tree with a fork in your ass! [youtube.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 30 2016, @11:45PM
So this guy is not only claiming a new deepest cave, he is claiming a new Scuba record? of 1,325.459 feet.
He is claiming no such thing. How did you miss the robot?
He scuba dived to a narrow slot at 200 meters' depth and let through a remotely-operated underwater robot, or ROV, that went to the depth of 404 meters.
He does claim going to 265 meters (~869 feet), but that's only ~80% of the record you mention.
In 2015, Starnawski himself passed through the slot and went to 265 meters' depth, realizing that was still far from the bottom and that the cavity was widening.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Saturday October 01 2016, @08:30AM
In 2015, Starnawski himself passed through the slot and went to 265 meters' depth, realizing that was still far from the bottom and that the cavity was widening.
Krzysztof and Grynda sent the robot through the slot because they'd dropped most of their vowels down there by mistake and needed to retrieve them so their names would be pronounceable again.
(Score: 1) by aiwarrior on Saturday October 01 2016, @11:04AM
If you find Krzysztof not trivial, take a look at some of their city names:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pszczyna [wikipedia.org] or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Szczecin [wikipedia.org]
Szczecin is a good example because the original german name was actually simple: Stetin. My girlfriend looks at me baffled at why I can't understand the or hear the difference between pronounced -cz, -ś sz, and I am portuguese which means that I can pick up a big range of sounds which most languages can't. A non-native portuguese speaker is very easily discoverable because their sounds are slightly different than any of the dialects known.
Interestingly in the European Cup, Polish TV showed some portuguese immigrants to Poland speaking fluently in Polish and even so she said it was very clear they were not native speakers.