Belize — the land of the infamous Great Blue Hole, Caribbean beaches and a rich tapestry of cultures. But what lies within the famous dark blue natural wonder has been mostly a mystery, until now.
A team of scientists, including Virgin billionaire Richard Branson, has returned from a mission to the bottom of the Central American nation’s Great Blue Hole — one of the world’s largest sinkholes.
The groundbreaking voyage kicked off in December 2018, and saw the group descend to the bottom of the 125 metre hole to find out exactly what lives inside.
Using two submarines, the group hoped to discover what sat at the bottom of the mysterious hole, which was discovered in 1971 by underwater explorer Jacques Cousteau.
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In an interview with CNN Travel, chief pilot of the expedition Erika Bergman said the underwater discovery was “really cool”, and captured images to create the first 3D map of the hole.
“We did our complete 360 sonar map and that map is now almost complete,” she said.
“It looks really cool, it’s this mesh-layered, sonar scan of the entire thousand-foot diameter hole.”
According to Bergman, one of the most exciting discoveries inside the sinkhole were never-before-seen stalactites, which are mineral formations shaped like icicles.
“That was pretty exciting, because they haven’t been mapped there before, they haven’t been discovered there before,” she said, noting the journey sent divers into darkness,” she said.
“You lose all of that Caribbean sunlight and it just turns completely black, and it’s totally anoxic down there with absolutely no life.”
