L Roebuck
Technical Support
Caving
^V^ Just a caver
Posts: 2,023
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Post by L Roebuck on Jul 9, 2007 7:21:40 GMT -5
UT sinkhole study could link to space explorationBy Katie Flores In late May, researchers, including a group of UT graduate students, finished their final exploration of the El Zacaton sinkhole in coastal Mexico. El Zacaton is the largest water-filled sinkhole in the world. Scientists are hopeful that research conducted along the east coast of Mexico may provide a means to continue exploration of space and perhaps one day find life on other planets. UT geological sciences graduate student Marcus Gary and UT geology professor John Sharp were part of the team that investigated the land and its life forms and mapped the sinkhole all the way to the bottom - 319 meters deep. Gary was one of the first people to pursue interest in the area. Gary first visited the sinkhole in 1993 and returned to it in 1994 with a group of cave divers that included Jim Bowden, a former UT diving instructor, and Florida diver Sheck Exley. Bowden set a record by cave diving 925 feet into El Zacaton. Exley did not make it back to the surface alive. Nevertheless, the immense depth of this cave interested Gary, who was curious about the make-up of the area. Gary began planning a way to explore the depths of the sinkhole. Realizing that conventional diving equipment could not do the job, he sought other options. His ideas eventually led to the development of the Deep Phreatic Thermal Explorer, or DEPTHX. Full Article
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