The discovery of the world’s largest blue hole
Blue holes are types of underwater holes, similar to those on land.
In September 2021, an expedition on Taam-Ja’ recorded that the site was 274.4 meters below sea level. Therefore, the hole did not appear to be more than 300 meters deep than what was then considered the largest marine hole in the world, Sansha Yongle, located in the China Sea.
At the time, they had used the echo sounder instrument, which calculates the depth of marine areas by sending a wave to the bottom of the sea and seeing how long it takes to return. This method, however, tends to have limitations in more complex marine environments, such as the holes themselves.
In recent research published in the journal Frontiers in Science on April 29, 2024, researchers used a conductivity, temperature and depth (CTD) profiler. In the new expedition, scholars also failed to reach the end of Taam-Ja’, but the recorded depth surpassed that of Sansha Yongle.
The current largest hole in the world has an almost circular shape that reaches 13,690 m². At its surface, the characteristics of the water change significantly, as well as in the water layers below 400 meters, where the conditions of temperature, salinity and water density increase, according to the study.
