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posted by CoolHand on Friday September 30 2016, @07:06PM   Printer-friendly
from the cue-the-jokes dept.

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.)


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  • (Score: 2) by driverless on Saturday October 01 2016, @08:30AM

    by driverless (4770) on Saturday October 01 2016, @08:30AM (#408685)

    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.

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  • (Score: 1) by aiwarrior on Saturday October 01 2016, @11:04AM

    by aiwarrior (1812) on Saturday October 01 2016, @11:04AM (#408718) Journal

    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.