There's a hole in the bottom of the sea

I was checking out the Chilean coastline in Google Earth and found this .. "hole in the ocean floor" .. for the lack of a better term. And when I signed on to ATS I had one of these very special ATS moments .. imagine I was going to post about a hole in the ocean hat I found on google earth, and the two featured thread titles I looked at as soon as I signed in were "James cameron at deepest point of ocean" and another one "What is this on Google Earth" .. almost stuff for a thread of it's own lol

So back on topic:

"The hole" is located about about 30 Kilometers off the coast, west of Cobquecura, Chile. I've marked it with a yellow arrow for your convenience. The recent earthquake is visible as orange circle to the north east.





The surrounding waters are around 300 - 350 meters deep, and then there's this gaping hole, according to the depth indicator on Google Earth it is almost 7.000 meters deep at the deepest point. That's almost 4 and a half miles straight down. Pay attention to the elevation reading on the bottom of the screen. It shows the reading below my mouse cursor.





So what might that be ? Any oceanographers amongst us ? I'll list my best guesses in rational order

- A glitch in the Google Earth telemetry / data
- Biggest Lava Tube on earth
- A geological anomaly
- Secret USO launch base, most likely with a USO factory and an alien holiday inn

I searched for maps of this part of the ocean that would display more accurate depth readings but to no avail, so any input is greatly appreciated.

Looks like a dark spot to me, I'm sure there is at least 100 of them on Google -
Good find?! Meh, anything out of the ordinary happen around there?

Well, if it is really a hole, I sure hope someone has plans to drop a camera down there. I haven't looked yet, but I wonder how far down those mini sub camera thingy's can go. (yes, that is the extent of my scientific language!)


Just searched. if it is only 7 meters there should be no problem. Can you do a history on that spot, to see if has been there in previous years?

reply to post by HigherLearningSociety


If there's "100 of them" how about you point me to another almost circular 7000 meter deep hole in relatively shallow water ? And what is a "dark spot" ? Thanks for the effort, but you no cookie for you.

reply to post by chiefsmom


Someone could ask James Cameron to paddle over here and take a look, I mean he's almost around the corner

That my friend is just the drain plug.
2nd

What is the rough diameter of the hole?

reply to post by H1ght3chHippie


That's really a cool find and goes to show how mysterious our oceans are. I did a quick search around Google earth and couldn't find anything like it, but I could also spend all day looking.

VB

Interesting.

Not trying to derail your thread or anything, but there is also a very deep hole, named "the hole to hell" in the Atlantic i think. Sadly i cannot dig up any info about this, but maybe someone can shed some light on it ?

Will google some more...

reply to post by chiefsmom

Well, if it is really a hole, I sure hope someone has plans to drop a camera down there.

i think mother nature is getting tired of us trying to look up her skirt. that's the real source of the earthquakes.

reply to post by H1ght3chHippie

Come on

There are holes just to the north of the one you are showing, and some more to the south

Just took some snapshot, there are many more.

54°36'56.84"S 72°53'48.93"V


44°03'13.38"S 65°01'37.68"V


This is a hole.
Van Turkey
38°55'37.06"N 43°29'19.14"Ø

reply to post by Mianeye


None of the examples you provided indicates extreme depth according to the Google Earth elevation data.

I figure these are circular discolorations, and they are indeed not uncommon. Check my coordinates again and hover your mouse cursor over it and check the depth.

Inb4 hollow earth theory?
In all seriousness, someone should check it out. It's not that far from the coast, would be pretty easy to get there by boat!

reply to post by H1ght3chHippie

yeah i did notice that, but take a look at some of the darker patches further north, they are pretty deep to, i think it's a glitch in cartography, i can only zoom down to a depth 1.700 m.
I actually did a search on some of those depths in that area, and couldn't find anything at all about the hole, but the trench running along the coast is 8000 m. at it it's deepest, so i will say a glitch.

I admit my pictures didn't do justice compared to your hole

looks more so like a raised area than a hole. kind of like an underwater volcano perhaps.

edit i see your elevations now so definitely not a raised area. perhaps an old impact crater?

If its not an anomaly in the Imaging from the Satellite shots, It could possibly be the throat of an uncharted Caldera Volcano.

Just a theory by the way.

Also i remember reading about the Atlantic hole called "the hole to hell.'' That's been quite some time ago, it was either the US Navy or civilian explorations that pinged it with radar cant remember.

There's so much of the Ocean floor that we've yet to chart, such an exciting area of geological studies.

reply to post by Pegasus2000


Been searching for hours now, looking for this site "hole to hell", but so far no luck, I think i found Jimma Hoffa's dead body on some obscure page on google thou

But i found a top ten list of "weird holes" on the planet. Pretty interesting:
Top 10 Holes

Pains me i cannot find any info on this. Guess i will email a oceanographer next couple of hours.

EDIT: Ohh.. there was a reference to a place about 900 km SW of Acapulco, but what i can tell, its hydrothermal vents. The "hell-hole" place, is clearly a very deep hole in the ocean.

Originally posted by mikelkhall
That my friend is just the drain plug.
2nd

You made my week.

~Namaste

Perhaps someone that is more familiar with how the satellites work on this can help here, but how is Google ranging a hole that would drop almost 7,000 meters, under water (in terms of the difficulties of pinging the bottom through water)? It looks like a rather small diameter hole for the depth we're all talking about as a number, so wouldn't the satellite also need to be almost precisely.....scientifically precisely...over the length of the hole to get an aligned shot down that distance?

It just seems in thinking about this that at 7,000 meters long, even a real WIDE pipe would become a tiny margin of error to align a beam straight down, wouldn't it? Maybe I'm thinking about the wrong methods entirely.

I wonder if this hole in the bottom of the ocean has any hard, fibrous tissue that could be used to research this further? Also, if there is any hard, fibrous tissue, I wonder if it would have some sort of growth on the hard fibrous tissue down in this hole in the ocean?

Sorry, I couldn't resist ! The thought of caves down in the ocean really intrigues me.. We have so many caves above the ocean line, why can't there be just as many, if not more, below? The life forms there would be an intriguing mix of cave and deep sea ocean life...