The Taam Ja’ Blue Hole sits underwater in Chetumal Bay, Mexico. Image Credit: Juan Carlos Alcérreca-Huerta/Joan A. Sánchez-Sánchez/Frontiers in Marine Science
The Taam Ja’ Blue Hole is now believed to be the world’s deepest such hole, surpassing the Sansha Yongle Blue Hole in the South China Sea by about 480 feet. Its bottom is almost 1,400 feet deep. While this is far from the deepest point in the world’s oceans, it would not be advisable to try and swim down there.
The Taam Ja’ Blue Hole is an underwater sinkhole located in Chetumal Bay at the southeast corner of the Yucatan Peninsula. Its name means “deep water” in the Mayan language and, at over 420 meters (1,380 ft) deep, it is the deepest known blue hole.
It was discovered in about 2003 by a local diver who followed a grouper that went into its mouth. The hole was forgotten until the son of that fisherman began working with marine academic Juan Carlos Alcérreca-Huerta, who took soundings of its depth and was surprised by the results. The mouth of the hole is nearly circular, with a major axis measuring 151.8 meters (498 ft), oriented about 10.76 degrees clockwise from North – similarly to the orientation of major faults in the area.
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Scientists believe that the Taam Ja’ Blue Hole may be connected to a labyrinth of underwater caves and tunnels. These caves and tunnels may have been home to Mayan civilizations in the past.
“On December 6, 2023, a scuba diving expedition was conducted to identify the environmental conditions prevailing at the TJBH,” researchers wrote in a study published Monday (April 29) in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science. During the expedition, the researchers took measurements with a conductivity, temperature and depth (CTD) profiler — a device with a set of probes that read and transmit water properties to the surface in real time via a cable. The data revealed that the Taam Ja’ blue hole is “the world’s deepest known blue hole, with its bottom still not reached,” the researchers wrote in the study.
The researchers explain that blue holes are water-filled vertical caverns, or sinkholes, found in coastal regions where the bedrock is made of soluble material, such as limestone, marble or gypsum. They form when water on the surface percolates through the rock, dissolving minerals and widening cracks, which eventually causes the rock to collapse. Famous examples include Dean’s Blue Hole in the Bahamas, the Dahab Blue Hole in Egypt and the Great Blue Hole in Belize.
Initial measurements of the Taam Ja’ Blue Hole were taken using an echo sounder — an instrument that sends sound waves down to the bottom of the water and measures the speed they come back to calculate distance. However, there are limitations to echo sounding techniques in blue holes due to fluctuations in water density and the unpredictable shape of each hole, which may not be perfectly vertical.
“Confirmation of the maximum depth was not possible due to instrument limitations during the scientific expeditions in 2021,” the researchers wrote in the study.
