Great Blue Hole

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The Great Blue Hole , September 2006
The Great Blue Hole can be seen on the satellite image of the Lighthouse Reef

The Great Blue Hole ( English for large blue hole ) is a round submarine sinkhole off the coast of the Central American state of Belize . It is located near the center of the Caribbean Lighthouse Reef , about 70 kilometers from the city of Belize City . From the air it can be seen as a strikingly dark blue, round surface of the deeper water in the shallow, turquoise blue waters of the Caribbean.

The Great Blue Hole is roughly circular, measures over 300 meters in diameter and is up to 125 meters deep. At the end of the last glacial period it emerged in the limestone layers and forms an access to an underground cave system , which was flooded by the rising sea ​​level . In about 90 meters deep is a hydrogen sulphide-containing thermocline .

The Great Blue Hole was declared in 1996 a national monument and is since then, along with other parts of the reef system Belize Barrier Reef is a UNESCO - World Heritage . In June 2009 the Belize Barrier Reef was added to the list of endangered world natural heritage by UNESCO.

Underwater world

On the south wall of the Blue Hole at a depth of about 35 to 40 meters, the underground cave system opens up for experienced divers. Geologically particularly interesting is a gallery in the rock face, where numerous stalactites and occasional stalagmites formed before the limestone formation sank below sea level . Stalactites with a length of up to eight meters and a diameter of almost two meters were measured.

A television film by French marine researcher Jacques-Yves Cousteau made the Great Blue Hole the most famous diving spot in Belize. At that time, divers of the Calypso extracted a 2.80 meter long stalactite from a depth of about 50 meters.

According to a group of diving experts organized by Forbes Traveler in 2007, the Blue Hole is one of the ten best diving locations in the world.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Anthony T. Jones, Robert F. Dill: Great Blue Hole of Lighthouse Reef Atoll, Belize, Central America . Deep Technical Diving to Collect Sea-Level Records. In: Trevor A. Jackson (Ed.): Caribbean Geology: Into Third Millennium: Transactions of the Fifteenth Caribbean Geological Conference . The University of the West Indies Press, Kingston 2002, ISBN 976-640-100-4 , chap. 17 , p. 181–194 (English, preview from Google Books [accessed February 23, 2010]).
  2. ↑ Anna Vander Broek: World's 10 best scuba spots . In: Forbes Traveler , August 2007.

Coordinates: 17 ° 18'56 "  N , 87 ° 32'4"  W.