Zacatón

Zacaton is the name of a sinkhole from a group of five related sinkholes or cenotes, in the north-eastern Mexico, Tamaulipas State, are located. Zacaton is the deepest known water-filled sinkhole in the world with a depth of more than 300 m. Its diameter at the surface is about 116 m.

The name Zacaton received the sinkhole because of floating on the water surface grassy islands that can only be moved by the wind. The water of the sinkhole is 30 ° C warm, very mineralienhaltig and smells a bit like sulfur.

Diving

The depth of Zacaton makes the sinkhole into a major dive destination:

• Ann Kristovich has reached here the record in the women's scuba diving in 1993 with a depth of 168 m ..

• On 6 April 1994 appeared Jim Bowden and cave diving pioneer Sheck Exley ( 1949-1994 ) into the sinkhole, with the aim to reach the ground. Bowden dived to a record depth of 281 m, Exley but died in the attempt at a depth of 267 m to 276 m. The probable cause of death was the High Pressure Nervous Syndrome ( HPNS ).

• NASA uses the sinkhole as a trial site for testing of exploration robots to be used for the exploration of the Jupiter satellite Europa. Researchers at the deep phreatic thermal explorer ( DEPTHX ) teams of the University of Texas at Austin developed together with robotics engineers at Carnegie Mellon University and the company Stone Aerospace technologies that are needed to explore Zacaton.