Undersea river

October 3, 2014 12:47 PM

Where's the last place you'd expect to find a river? How about at the bottom of the ocean?
posted by Chocolate Pickle (19 comments total)

This neatly confirms hydrographer David Byrne's controversial prediction of water at the bottom of the ocean.
posted by Iridic at 12:54 PM on October 3, 2014 [87 favorites]

Link to the first page/image.

HuffPo has the series on one page, with larger images, plus a link to the site for the photographer, Anatoly Beloshcin: Anatoly.pro (it used to be tecdive.ru, which is the watermark on the bottom left of the photos).

Anatoly Beloshcin also has a video of Cenote Angelita: "Underwater River"
posted by filthy light thief at 1:00 PM on October 3, 2014 [9 favorites]

Thought this looked like a reblog of a reblog, and no links to the original site. Instead of giving the leech site the hits, shouldn't the post link to the originals?
posted by Zack_Replica at 1:05 PM on October 3, 2014 [10 favorites]

I don't know why, but this is triggering my "nope" meter like whoa.

Uncanny undersea river valley?
posted by sparklemotion at 1:21 PM on October 3, 2014

Unfortunately, the photographer went with a rather artsy design for his site, which makes it impossible to link to individual photos. The best I could do was link to this whole gallery, and the relevant photos are scattered around in that. If you want to post about the river, you kind of have to leech.
posted by tavella at 1:22 PM on October 3, 2014

Water dissolving, and water removing!
There is water at the bottom of the ocean!
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 1:28 PM on October 3, 2014 [3 favorites]

This is amazing. The world is amazing.
posted by Joey Michaels at 1:32 PM on October 3, 2014 [2 favorites]

More information on how the "river" is formed:

The river illusion is due to a phenomenon called halocline, a cline caused by a strong, vertical salinity gradient within a body of water. Because salinity (in concert with temperature) affects the density of seawater, it can play a role in its vertical stratification. Increasing salinity by one kg/m3 results in an increase of seawater density of around 0.7 kg/m
The Yucatan Peninsula contains a vast coastal aquifer system which is typically density-stratified. The infiltrating meteoric water (i.e., rainwater) floats on top of higher density saline water intruding from the coastal margins. The whole aquifer is therefore an anchialine system (i.e., one that is land-locked, but connected to an ocean).

There's more information on the linked site, but that's the general idea of the thing.
posted by filthy light thief at 1:43 PM on October 3, 2014 [4 favorites]

I grew up close to the shore of a 50 square km harbour. The water level locally has changed many times in the last 20,000 years or so, and I knew that the location of my house had been 100 m below the waterline at the end of the last ice age. I was surprised, though, a few years ago to see some imaging of the harbour floor (currently some 50 m underwater) and to spot the unmistakable contours of a wide meandering river that ran there circa 5000 BCE.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 1:45 PM on October 3, 2014 [1 favorite]

Water flowing on or under land into a large body of water is river or stream, water flowing within a large body of water at bodies water level is a stream, under is a current.
Lava above ground can be a river, stream, or a flow. Lava below ground above sea level is a flow.
Your trivia lesson concludes.
posted by Mblue at 1:46 PM on October 3, 2014 [3 favorites]

There is a gigantic one of these that is not as clearly differentiated.

As water flows into and out of the Mediterranean, two currents are formed in the strait. An upper layer of Atlantic water flows eastward into the sea over a lower layer of saltier and heavier Mediterranean water flowing westward into the ocean, known as the Mediterranean Outflow water.

It's a gigantic underwater waterfall. Abstract.
posted by vapidave at 2:03 PM on October 3, 2014 [2 favorites]

At the top of the cloud you stop and look around, everything appears surreal and a spooky feeling takes over amplified by the effects of the nitrogen in your brain.

Yes, this is nitrogen narcosis and it's really fucking dangerous. "Ooo, look, pretty bubbles. Wait, wait, I'm out of air, oh fuck, but hey, pretty bubbles, whee..."
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 2:06 PM on October 3, 2014 [1 favorite]

Drowned in a river under the sea.
posted by blue_beetle at 2:21 PM on October 3, 2014 [1 favorite]

Narcosis at 60 feet isn't that dangerous. 130 feet OTOH...
posted by fnerg at 2:25 PM on October 3, 2014

All this stuff makes me regret becoming a programmer instead of an oceanographer.

(I'm sure if I were an oceanographer, I'd feel the same way whenever I heard about cool software things. When you get right down to it my biggest problem is that I have lousy regret management skills.)
posted by aubilenon at 2:35 PM on October 3, 2014 [3 favorites]

Submarines carry instruments to constantly sample the water around them, looking for thermoclines and haloclines. That's because such a boundary reflects sound, and submarines can hide from sonar beneath them.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 3:18 PM on October 3, 2014 [3 favorites]

Long-time cave diver here with many dives at Angelita. It is one of the most beautiful places that I have been. There are shades of blue in Angelita that I have never seen before or since. The illusion is caused by a layer of hydrogen sulfate. I try to dive through the layer quickly for a couple of reasons. First, it numbs my face (the only skin exposed). Second, it makes my gear smell of rotten eggs.

A good overview of the science behind the beauty.
posted by jebellweather at 2:37 PM on October 4, 2014

There are also underwater lakes.
posted by lagomorphius at 6:13 PM on October 4, 2014

Water dissolving, water removing. There is water at the bottom of the ocean.
posted by Buckt at 6:41 PM on October 4, 2014 [2 favorites]