FSU scientist solves 20-year-old cave diving mystery

A decades-old mystery surrounding the death of a Florida cave diver has been solved by a simple experiment by three scientists in a lab at Florida State.
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[@SticksAandstonesBozo]

If your rocking a hoop earring at 80 your the fucking man.

[@justinbrink7425]

I never would have thought of this... I'm sure many divers have died due to this phenomenon

[@rontaviouswynn8230]

i’m from tallahassee and never heard of this . . . very interesting

[@kilobravo2373]

You sure your magnet at the top didn't just drop voltage? Renowned professor, eh?

[@ericlakota1847]

I'm a dare devil wouldn't mind to try diving but cave diving just doesn't even sound smart inless your in a cave people dive all the time and that just isn't fun

[@cavediver2579]

Percolation is nothing new to cave divers. Another reason why I dive CCR in caves.

[@exploringwithnug]

Well that experiment really does make sense. I'm not understanding why it took 20 years to figure that out though.

[@Tyrfingr]

As with most things that are answered, it is obvious in hindsight. Not always so when you are in the moment.

[@amandalewis2415]

I wonder if this is what happened in the Ben McDaniel Disappearance and that’s why they have yet to find his body, maybe he was covered by large rocks and sand

[@adelecovus7482]

I thought the exact same thing. I've just watched divers' explore the restrictions' where Ben disappeared and wondered if this was a consideration. I dont know anything about this subject but with vortex springs being basically a tunnel, would a cave in/boulder situation not be noticed in vortex springs by now. Like i say i have no clue but this video came up as a recommendation due to all the Ben Mcdaniels content i watch and I instantly thought of him. Be interesting to ask the divers that know vortex springs well if this is a possibility. X

[@aerialeggbeater2644]

Adele Covus I have many dives in Vortex. It’s not a cavern, but a fairly small tunnel type cave. I don’t think this could have happened to Ben, unless he got off into a small offshoot deep in the system, and it collapsed. I still think it’s highly unlikely.

[@adelecovus7482]

@@aerialeggbeater2644 hey thanks for your reply. I thought it was stretch too, just desperate for an explanation re' Bens disappearance I guess, must be so awful to have a loved one disappear with no concrete conclusion. Also I'd LOVE to dive but I'm way too panicky at the best of times haha, that's really cool that you dive man I envy your bravery, stay safe mate. X

[@adelecovus7482]

@Joseph Burnside yes we are aware of that but its the missing body etc that is the mystery you might say. X

[@adelecovus7482]

@Joseph Burnside no I'm the farthest from it mate. I'm aware of certain aspects of the hobby but i expressed above I'm a novice in that sense. And please if you have experience in this field I'd genuinely appreciate you're input. I'm not trying to have any flavour of argument here its just a genuine interest in a case which happens to also be about cave diving which I'm a lil obsessed with, i know I'll never do it so i watch all the gopros' etc from dives'. X

[@Flowshow88]

When cave diving first sparked my interest I went on the internet’s down started researching the greatest discoveries ever made by cave diver....let’s just say my interest in cave diving instantly diminished

[@IggyDalrymple]

I lost a friend, Deroy Akins, in a Leon County, FL cave diving accident in 1960. Deroy was from Savannah, GA and a student at FSU

[@nicem8746]

The rock is less buoyant in air than water. The medium around the rock became a mixture of air and water so it was no longer able stay afloat or attached to the ceiling. I’m thinking it’s similar to Bermuda Triangle explanation where the rising gases interrupt the. Bouyancy of the ships making them sink. Interesting

[@Devast8r34]

Another good reason to use liberty ccr with up to 11 hours and perfect air ratios....

[@ilikehiking]

Another excellent reason to dive CCR instead of OC when caving.

[@eristicfreethinker2098]

Always fun when a supposed factual video uses underwater footage from Mexico when talking about a Florida cave.

[@ABW4527]

water makes things flaot in a way, if the bubbles form a bigg enough cavity around the ball then its almost like theres no water and it suddenly becomes heavier like its outside the water.. almost like when you float in water laying backwards, but if you suddenly drain the water your going down with it.. same thing with the top of cave.

[@yggdrasil9039]

That's a good explanation, that makes sense.

[@jquest43]

nope

[@jeezuschrist9887]

Wow, funny how you explained that to me better than a scientist.

[@newyardleysinclair9960]

Interesting stuff.

[@Lehmann108]

Jeez, for a professor he really doesn't explain this well. An object in atmosphere might weigh 200 pounds, but in water it might weigh 50 pounds. The released air from the scuba divers floats to the ceiling of the cave and what ever is up there slowlygains in weight as it is gradually exposed to air and increases in weight.

[@thunderchief7]

That isn't quite it, although I agree he did not explain it well. What he was trying to say is that various factors can change the specific gravity of water. The specific gravity of water determines how much weight it can support. Adding air to the water -- not necessarily just bubbles, or air at the top of the cave -- lowers the specific gravity. More highly oxygenated water has a lower specific gravity than less oxygenated water.

[@joeymartinez5515]

@@thunderchief7 Lehmann Peters was correct. But let me add that what is technically happening is a change in buoyancy. The density of water is 62.4 pounds per cu. ft. Thus, if an object weighs 3000 pounds in the air and that object occupies a volume of 10 cu. ft, for example, that object will weigh 3000 - 62.4 * 10 = 2376 pounds under water. So what the air bubbles are doing is effectively removing the buoyant force of 624 pounds (in this example) from the object.

[@pieterveenders9793]

Yeah, he explained it in a very weird and incorrect way, which is strange because as a scientist he should have known better. The weight of an object is actually the gravitational pull on that object, something which remains constant on each planet (in this case planet earth). So its impossible for an object to suddenly be of a different weight even though the object does not change, because the gravitational pull won't suddenly change either. A much better way to explain it is that if you have an object attached to the roof, the water underneath it kind of acts like a cushion, pushing back against the weight of that object. Water is fairly dense, weighing 0,998 gram per liter for fresh water. But air is around 200x less dense than water. So if that rock attached to the ceiling weighs 5 tons, and remains in place while the cave is completely flooded with water, then that means that the density of the water along with the strength of the ceiling is enough to prevent it from falling down. But when you release a lot of bubbles, completely enveloping the object, the force pushing back against that object and supporting its weight suddenly becomes 200x less than it was, which clearly can be enough of a reduction that it no longer is able to support it and thus it comes crashing down.

[@jtfike]

@@pieterveenders9793 He wasn’t submitting this to the journal of scientific review, he was explaining it to a layperson. Why is he presenting this? Who is his audience? The hell if any of you know…you are too busy trying to have a larger science-penis. And just when you say you can do a better job of explaining, you do not.

[@rosekay5031]

Isn’t that part of the reason cave divers use rebreathers, that and silt out?

[@SpartanVirus]

It would stand to reason

[@cup_and_cone]

The main reason is they use rebreathers is so they can dive longer and go further in.

[@arnoldstollar5375]

Have spare air to breathe and. Safety lines. Flashlight s.

[@EQOAnostalgia]

Don't cave dive kids, get a nice VR headset instead.

[@NandoValenzuela87]

I thought this was going to be about Ben McDaniel but this couldn't of had been what happened to him they would've noticed the difference inside especially when it's been filmed so much over the years

[@wood8715]

Wow!!

[@JamesMathison98]

You can tell this guy has no clue about any of the equations in the background by him thinking that “rocks change weight”

[@srb2az141]

Rocks waight is increases due to the increase of gravity and lack of buoyancy

[@DoggoWillink]

Weight is based upon mass and gravity, so actually it can change in a literal sense. The mass of an object is constant (in terms of the conditions around it, it can change for other reasons), but if you put it on the moon its weight is different, relatively. When thinking about it in terms of fluids, buoyancy, you could also consider that to be a change in weight. Weight isn’t really a formal concept in physics, it’s not well defined. Typically we take weight to be our mass x earth’s gravity (g), but there are many things that can effect or change the perception of weight. That’s why technically, physicists don’t consider mass and weight to be the same thing, even though in our everyday lives they are taken to be.

[@Heart2HeartBooks]

This is what happens when you hire Affirmative Action Professors.

[@linusp9316]

@@Heart2HeartBooks Gibberish.

[@penguin12902]

Water exerts more pressure on the ceiling than air. Mass of the rock doesn't change, but weight does. Go tread water with a 10lb brick, hold it in the water, then lift it out of the water. You'll find it's much harder to lift out of the water.

[@Wild_Wilderness]

Wow that’s super interesting!