New Sub Dives To Crushing Depths

University of Washington Scientists are reporting that they have a new autonomous underwater vehicle that increases both the attainable depth and duration of deployment over current submersibles. Weighing in at just under 140 pounds, the "Deepglider" is able to stay out to sea for up to a year and hit depths of almost 9,000 feet. "Deepglider opens up new research possibilities for oceanographers studying global climate change. The glider's first trip revealed unexpected warming of water near the ocean floor, and scientists are interested in studying whether the temperatures are related to global warming."

Translation:

[Goalie_Ca]

For those who don't speak ancient google translated it to be:
9 000 feet = 2 743.2 meters

Re:Translation:

[mcho]

Here in the US we don't use the Metric System, which is the tool of the devil! My car gets forty rods to the hogshead and that's the way I likes it.

Re:Translation:

[TheMadcapZ]

That joke is older than 1,000,000,000 Sun orbits around the Earth.

Re:

[HoldenCaulfield]

All right, so this may be the joke flying over my head, but since when did the Sun orbit the Earth?

Re:

[644bd346996]

I think you answered your own question. Anyways, lookup Copernicus.

Re:

[broller]

From our point of view, once per day.

Re:

[Creepy]

I know this is derived from a grandpa Simpson quote, but to put the quote in perspective, 40 rods is .125 miles and a hogshead is 63 gallons, so doing the conversion it's .00198 miles per gallon (.00084 km/liter according to google) or roughly a thousand gallons of gas to go 2 miles. That would cost me roughly $30000 per day at current gas prices to get to and back from work.

Re:Translation:

[ZorinLynx]

The real question is, how many libraries of congress do you have to burn to get the same amount of energy? :)

Re:

[Trigun]

And to put that further into perspective, from a quick Google, the current record holder was the Japanese The Shinkai 6500 [jamstec.go.jp] With a maximum recorded depth of 6,527m.

It's still got a few K's to go.

Re:

[MouseR]

The point of the news/record is that this thing is both autonomous AND can last up to a year down there.

That's not the case of this manned submarine.

Re:Translation:

[drinkypoo]

It's still got a few K's to go.

A few Ks hotter or colder?

K is kelvin. km is kilometers (or kilometres, even.)

Re:Translation:

[c_forq]

k can also be thousands, but in that case I believe it is standard to have it be lower case, and almost always is immediately preceded by a number (i.e. 401k).

Re:

[TheClam]

Were you going for (+1, Funny)? Cause you got a chuckle out of me.

Re:

[baldass_newbie]

Actually, that 'k' is a subsection, thus 401(k).
Regards.

Re:

[geobeck]

K is kelvin.

Actually, K is Kelvins (capital letter). But thanks for not saying degrees Kelvin.

Re:

[grammar fascist]

Actually, K is Kelvins (capital letter). But thanks for not saying degrees Kelvin.

I always thought it was degrees Kelvins. Or was that Kelvin's degrees?

Re:

[geobeck]

I always thought it was degrees Kelvins.

Nope. Kelvins are treated as regular units, rather than degrees. So it's correct to read 10 K as "ten Kelvins", as opposed to the common equivalent, which would be -263 degrees Celsius (or -442 degrees Fahrenheit). Must have something to do with the fact that Kelvins are absolute, and therefore cannot be negative, although interestingly enough, it's correct to say 18 degrees Rankine, not 18 Rankines.

Kelvin himself was rather absolute in some of his pronounceme

Re:

[Intron]

The Bathyscaphe Trieste made it to the bottom of the Challenger Deep, 10,916 metres (5969 fathoms) in 1960 with two people on board. In 1995, the unmanned Kaiko made it to a similar depth.

Re:

[throbbingbrain.com]

For those who don't speak ancient google translated it to be: 9 000 feet = 2 743.2 meters

Conversions like that are why people are afraid of the metric system.

"almost 9,000 feet" = almost 3,000 meters.

Re:

[Rudisaurus]

For those who don't speak ancient google translated it to be:

Google isn't really that ancient. It was only incorporated in 1998, I believe.

Re:Translation:

[Cheapy]

Funny, that's exactly how I read it the first time. My first thought was "What the hell? Ancient google?" Only after reading it twice did I realize he forgot a coma. I think we should fix those kind of problems before our Metric vs. US Units problem :)

Re:

[Lane.exe]

I think you meant to say that the poster forgot a comma. While it is entirely possible that the poster has forgotten someone, somewhere in a comatose state, it is not directly relevant to the grammatical snafu at hand.

Re:

[mdielmann]

It's exactly that kind of thinking that makes interplanetary probes fail!

Re:Translation:

[Cornflake917]

Only after reading it twice did I realize he forgot a coma.

Well, memory loss is a common attribute people have when they wake up from comas.

Re:

[Bastard of Subhumani]

It is? Thanks for the reminder.

Re:

[Aaron England]

It's too bad google didn't teach you the concept of significant digits.

Here's to you and here's to your soccer team

[gadlaw]

We have defeated the evil advocates of the metric system on every single front despite your best efforts. Your meters, your kilometers, your celsius - are all as popular and well known as is your strange game of soccer where men in shorts run around for hours never touching the polka dot ball with their hands. In America we don't learn no stinking metric system just like we don't learn no stinking foreign languages. So please take your amusing feelings of superiority and take your metric system bigotry and

Re:Here's to you and here's to your soccer team

[Malc]

I have a meter that measures kilometres. What's a kilometer, and what does it measure?

Re:

[altek]

Additionally, this is close to 2 miles depth!

Funding guaranteed if ...

[Jerry]

you tie your pet project to Global Warming.

Doesn't matter how, just as long as you don't attempt to prove it wrong.

Re:Funding guaranteed if ...

[east coast]

I'd like to test the effects of global warming on the production and recreational use of the marijuana plant. I swear to God it will be a scientific study.

Serious question

[zyl0x]

How would global warming, if it even exists as people say it does, affect the temperature of water on the ocean floor?

Re:

[High Hat]

Well under the assumption that global warming has an effect on ocean streams this could be a possibility.

Obviously heat radiated from the core of the Earth is a much more likely cause...

Re:Serious question

[san]

That is probably the very question they're trying to answer.

Ocean water is not stagnant and there are currents that mix surface water with warmer water in places where the surface water is colder (and denser) than the deeper water.

Global Warming on the ocean floor? Ha

[brendanoconnor]

I find it extremely unlikely that global warming is having any effect on the ocean floor. Head a mile off the coast of the pacific and swim down 20 feat. You'll notice a couple of things. One, it gets dark very quickly; meaning light doesn't get to travel far. Two, it gets very cold very fast; meaning the heat from the sun is not penetrating all that deeply.

To keep this on topic, cool submersible though. It would be incredible to really explore the very depths of the ocean just to see what kind of life we f

Re:

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Two, it gets very cold very fast; meaning the heat from the sun is not penetrating all that deeply.

And that water has a density maximum at about 4 degrees C. So (to a first approximation, ignoring issues like salinity gradients) 4 degree C water sinks below water at any higher or lower temperature, regulating the deep-ocean temperature - until you get down to where the ocean bottom is heating it faster than it can float away.

Heat input at the top just changes the level where it reaches 4 degrees, not what

Re:

[WindBourne]

1. IIRC, you personally do not believe that Global warming is occurring, but I could be wrong.
2. notice the current transport? That runs accross the surface and then submerges carrying heat with it. Since I am not an oceanographer, I could not make an intelligent guess on it. But, I would guess that are not as well.
3. I suspect that a long term study will find that the ocean is fairly variable. The truth is, that we do not have that good of data related to temps and salinity, except at the surface. That is why a

OMG - It MUST be global warming..

[SuseLover]

So, the very first question is weather this is related to global warming or not. What about.. Or it may be due to hot magma underneath or some previously unknown "conveyor belt"?

Not jumping to conclusions or anything, are we??

Re:

[the dark hero]

So, the very first question is weather this is related to global warming or not. What about.. Or it may be due to hot magma underneath or some previously unknown "conveyor belt"?

Not jumping to conclusions or anything, are we??

No. We have a mat for that. The "Global Warming" square is right next to the "Violent Videogames" and "Acts of Terror" squares. You cant miss it.

Speaking of jumping to conclusions

[VENONA]

From TFA:
"The energy-efficient, battery-powered glider carries sensors to measure oceanic conditions including salinity and temperature -- information that is key to understanding climate change."

Which sounds reasonable to me. No causality claims were made. These are scientists, with anomalous data which they're quite naturally curious about. That's what they do. Why are you so quick to assume that wild claims are being made? If it's magma, or a new conveyor belt, fine. Knowing about it is a Good Thing, as

Error in article?

[asadodetira]

I'm working in a buoyancy related problem so I have to point this out. From the full article: "When pressure compresses a hull in a traditional glider, it gains buoyancy and requires more energy to control." If it's compressed, the volume shrinks, it gains density and loses buoyancy.

Re:

[arhines]

Yes, the article appears to be unclear on this. What they mean is that in a traditional glider, the compressibility will be either larger or smaller than that of seawater. In either of these cases, maintaining a steady rate of descent requires more ballast pumping to readjust the buoyancy. These gliders have isopycnal hulls, which have very close to the same compressibility of seawater, and thus require very little ballast pumping in order to maintain a constant glideslope.

Re:

[asadodetira]

I see. That would be too much to write in a wired article for the general public.
Your explanation makes it clear that the seawater compressibility shouldn't be neglected.

Since it's supposed to use little power, I wonder if this would be useful as a means of transporting goods. Would be slow though.

not a submarine

[192939495969798999]

The reason this matters, from TFA, is that this is a glider, not a submarine. It's cheaper, lighter, and more energy efficient than dropping a big ball to the bottom of the ocean. This thing can drive around and look at stuff very similarly to how a non-crush depth submersible could do.

MOD Parent +5

[INeededALogin]

Did anyone even read the article(submitter included). This isn't a sub at all. It is the equivilant of a buoyancy controlled rock with sensors. It is cool stuff though, but these guys aren't gonna be using this thing to look at ship wrecks or follow sperm whales or anything.

Re:

[hcdejong]

Not quite. Unlike a rock, this thing can move around. With those wings, they can convert depth changes into forward motion. It seems buoyancy control uses less energy than a propeller, so they've got a very efficient propulsion system. The tradeoff is a low top speed.

The Religion of Global Warming Strikes Again

[N3WBI3]

How sad is it when a scientist sees something for the first time and rather than say 'I have no clue whay this is happening, I should study the reason this is happening' says 'This might be because of gloabal working, I should go look for a link'.

Re:

[Falkkin]

How sad is it when a non-scientist is presented with evidence of a phenomenon for the millionth time and rather than saying "maybe these scientists are on to something after all" says "this must be religion striking yet again"?

Re:

[VENONA]

Yeah, that would be sad, if it had happened. But it didn't. Please read TFA. No causality claims were made.

Progress?

[PhotoGuy]

It always amazes me, that we (well, humankind that is, I can't take all the credit) managed to dive to almost 40,000 feet with the Challenger [wikipedia.org] in *1951*, but haven't been back or deeper since! There is so much to explore on our own planet, and so much effort is being placed into going out into a vast, mostly empty vacuum, instead of looking under our own massive oceans, which are teeming with life (almost a new form, ever time we look at it).

The discoveries we are likely to make under our oceans, are undoubtedly going to be of far more relevance and benefit to our own lives on this little planet, that anything we find "out there." Yes, I think we should do both, but I think the depths of our oceans are severely and disproportionately neglected, except for the odd diving renegade.

Re:Progress?

[asadodetira]

the challenger was a sailboat carrying instruments. It didn't dive. The bastiscaphe trieste, did though. You probably were thinking about this one. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathyscaphe_Trieste [wikipedia.org]

Re:

[rbanffy]

Believe it or not, going to space is almost easier than going that deep.

IIRC, they had no windows and just touched the bottom before releasing ballast and returning to the surface.

Re:

[asadodetira]

To dive deeper,I guess we'll have to wait until the polar ice caps melt.

Global Warming?

[cdn-programmer]

Why do they think they have to toss in a comment on Global Warming?

Then...

Consider that the oceanic currents have cycle times measured in 1000's of years. Depending on where they are diving, if they are finding unexpected warming then this would mean that mankind would not be responsible for any presumed planetary warming... since the temperature of the water they are measuring was determined centuries ago.

However, closer examination of such a silly statment leaves one with a question... If they had to sen

Another trolling moderator!

[cdn-programmer]

Yup. Yet another trolling moderator on the loose. Is this open fly season?

Yet another trolling moderator

[cdn-programmer]

Yup. Yet another trolling moderator on the loose. Is this open fly season?

What is this... they can't address the issue so they attack the poster? Ad hominem?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem [wikipedia.org]

An ad hominem argument, also known as argumentum ad hominem (Latin: "argument to the person", "argument against the man") consists of replying to an argument by attacking or appealing to the person making the argument, rather than by addressing the substance of the argument.

The issue is how they can know the oce

9000 feet is less than the average ROV: wiki

[viking80]

This sub seems not to reach the depth the average ROV reaches

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ROV [wikipedia.org] ...More than half of the earth's ocean is deeper than 3000 meters, which is the current working depth of most of the ROV technology...

For those who don't know the fathoms, feet and furlongs, 9000 feet is 2743 meter.

Re:

[viking80]

I agree with you on most of this:
1. Time under water: Impressive
2. Distance covered: impressive
but
3. Max depth: Unimpressive

I was only challenging TFA: "increases the attainable depth of deployment over current submersibles", which is still incorrect.

My MiniSub (grad proj) could outpeform Deepglider

[mrnick]

I am building a robotic min submarine for my masters thesis in computer science. I have learned a lot about fluid dynamics and systems control is hostile environments. The remote monitoring and control systems have been developed in G using National Instruments' LabVIEW while the mini sub itself is currently utilizing multiple 8 bit Microchip microcontrollers. Though even as I write this the design process has started for a prefab PCB board that will see these chips replaced by 32 bit Freescale (Motorola)

Thank God for Al Gore!

[Mongoose]

I was cooking on the grill today, and I started to feel warmer and warmer. It started getting so hot the meat cooked to a nice brown. Gobal warming ( thermaldynamics ) must be stopped! If only we could get another pop star to sing about the volcanic vents of the ocean caused by man!

Ahem.

[StickyWidget]

All subs can dive to crushing depths. The problem is getting back up.

Re:Ahem. Mod parent up Funny!

[cdn-programmer]

Damn that is a funny comment!

Unexpected | Unforeseen = Global Warming ?

[fygment]

From the article: The glider's first trip revealed unexpected warming of water near the ocean floor, and scientists are interested in studying whether the temperatures are related to global warming.

"The maiden voyage was wonderful," says Charlie Eriksen, professor of physical oceanography at the University of Washington in Seattle. "On every dive we got within 10 meters of the bottom and we were able to see some interesting bottom temperature and salinity variations that we didn't know about, that I certain

Re:

[PitaBred]

Who the hell modded this troll? It's insightful! The water is deep in the ocean, closer to the earth's core... or does geothermal heat not exist in the mod's world?

Re:

[syphax]

I suppose it's insightful to the good portion of the ./ audience who fancies themselves armchair geologists, oceanographers, climatologists, astrophysicists, etc.

It's along the lines of the "duh, it's only the sun that's causing any warming, if there is any." (That's [wikipedia.org] wrong [realclimate.org], BTW).

Re:

[abigor]

Yeah, all those darned scientist types are just slapping their brows going "D'oh! Of course! We should read Slashdot more often!"

Come on, these are people who have studied this stuff forever. You think they haven't accounted for brain-dead obvious, common-sense stuff like this?

No, actually it does contribute!

[benhocking]

I read a recent blog [scienceblogs.com] where a real scientist showed that hydrothermal vents could contribute as much as 0.0000343 K!

Re:

[Intron]

Temperature in South African mines goes up about 12 deg C per km. Considering that global warming refers to a few degree change, I would call that a significant amount. Don't forget that there are hydrothermal vents on the bottom of the ocean near the hot spots.

It gets grants

[EmbeddedJanitor]

Scientists sell too. They need funding to feed their families and buy machines than go beep. They need to use teaser language to get people interested in their work to get funding.

Re:Huh, global warming

[syphax]

The average heat flux from the earth is less than 0.1W/m2 [ou.edu]. Compare that to ~ 1000 W/m2 for the sun. Sure, it varies all over the place (see: volcanoes, etc.), but it's not a no-brainer where any heat anomalies the glider detected came from. In general, the deep ocean is quite cold [ucar.edu] because of that whole thermal expansion thing (also note that seawater is densest a few degrees above freezing (~4 deg C, if I recall). So heating from the bottom tends to cause convection.

You'll note that the scientists quoted don't mention global warming; they are excited to see stuff that they didn't expect. That's good enough to satisfy their intellectual curiosity & need to come up with new and interesting grant proposals.

You'll also notice that scientists in general don't sell newspapers or magazines. It's the journalists whose job it is to butcher the science to sell newspapers and magazines.

Finally, the oceans are very much tied up in our little carbon experiment. A good bit of any extra heat that is trapped in the atmosphere will go into the oceans. Also, a lot of the CO2 that we've emitted is already going into the oceans, which leads to ocean acidification [wikipedia.org]. This is the rate of carbonic acid input (that's CO2 + H2O H2CO3 H+ + HCO3-) is much higher than the ocean can buffer it with CaCO3 (which buffers effectively, but only on very long time scales). In the meantime, hope you don't like coral.

Re:

[syphax]

Oops, ./ ate my brackets. I meant: CO2 + H20 <=> H2CO3 <=> H+ + HCO3- (bicarbonate)
Might as well go all the way: HCO3- <=> H+ + CO3- (carbonate)

Here's the carbonic acid [wikipedia.org] scoop.

Re:

[nido]

A good bit of any extra heat that is trapped in the atmosphere will go into the oceans.

If the heat came from the atmosphere, wouldn't it be detected in surface temperatures? This story seems to indicated the reverse: A good bit of any extra heat that is trapped in the ocean will leak into the atmosphere.

Heat from hydrothermal vents [udel.edu] and other underwater volcanic phenomena heats the ocean water. The Juan de Fuca Ridge is in the pacific ocean along the Washington coastline, so I think it likely that this proc

Re:

[Volante3192]

I can think of many reasons a scientist could try and sell magazines. Fame and Grants come to mind rather quickly.

And at thirty magazine subscriptions, they get a brand new TI-84!

Re:

[gardyloo]

And at thirty magazine subscriptions, they get a brand new TI-84!

The Silver one?!? Fuck dude, I'm so in!

Re:

[syphax]

In my time as a scientist-wanna-be (at Dartmouth, WHOI, MIT), I didn't see a lot of this. What I did see was a lot of tenuous connections in grant writing to whatever topics were hot at the time in funding circles. So yes, e.g. climatologists will find a way to link just about anything they want to research to climate change. But I think that's much more prevalent in grant-writing than in general discourse. Sure, there are some sensationalist scientists out there, but not a lot (name some, please?).

I wo

Re:

[mrcdeckard]

why is it that topics like global warming (and evolution for that matter), everyone thinks they know better than someone whom has (presumably) studied the topic for years by dismissing them as saying what they "cause it sells newspapers/magazines"?

i'm not saying that your theory is wrong (or that the scientist is right), but assessing validity between A) a random poster on /. and B) a researcher at u of w, i think i may be inclined to believe the scientist.

sorry, not to pick on you, but it amazes me how oft

Re:

[ArcherB]

modern science has benefited humanity in so many ways, yet people deny it when it goes against their opinions/politics.

Exactly! I couldn't agree more. Of course, it also needs to be said every time an article comes up where a scientist says something against the group-think, like "Global Warming is not man-made".

While it is OK to voice your opinion, I don't think it is OK to question the ethics of the scientists involved.

The reason...

[Belial6]

The reason is because we have see the 'experts' being wrong all the time. A perfect example is the debate [slashdot.org] I was having just yesterday on the chicken pox vaccine. The experts will tell you how important it is to have your child vaccinated for chicken pox. They will tell you that it is important in reducing the mortality rate from chicken pox. What they don't tell you is that in the 12 years we have been using the vaccine, the average yearly drop in deaths has been 88. Not 88 per thousand. 88 in the ent

Re:

[Belial6]

I really hope so, but that doesn't change the point of my post. The 'experts' are lying to the population. They are massivly over stating the risk. So, if medical 'experts' are willing to lie to us about vaccinations, it makes sense that we should question the environmental 'experts'. I can't think of any reason that we should believe that environmentalists are somehow inherently better than doctors.

Re:

[Belial6]

I didn't find any specific numbers about re-infection, but we know it is extremely rare with infection/immunity, and the documentation that 2 different pediatricians gave me both stated that frequently the children will still get the pox, but with much milder symptoms. We also know that given only 12 years of immunization data, we have no idea what is going to happen with this in the long run. This means that even when immunized there is a countable chance that you are not actually immune, and as less and

Re:

[Belial6]

That is a good link. I do not suggest that no one gets the vaccine. Only that it be administered at a much later date. When there are real risks to the disease. Even this link states: "This economic factor is a major force in the drive for universal immunization in the United States." When we start injecting things into kids because it is cheaper, I start to ask some pointed questions, and expect honest answers. As much as the CDC is generally a very good organization, the answers they give do help i

Re:

[Belial6]

"but let's remember, there may very well be concerns that those unfamiliar from the issue may not be aware of."

Doctors and the CDC are regularly telling parents that risk of death and money are the reasons to get your kids vaccinated. If the reason is something else, then they are lying, and we should not trust them. Would you really trust a doctor that was suggesting a medical procedure for reasons you knew were invalid?

"of course, it could come to pass that they "experts" were payed off by pharma

Random poster?

[cdn-programmer]

Ad hominem.

I don't think his wife is Random and I doubt she thinks she is random either. What he wrote is correct. Furthermore his wife is an oceanographer, at least according to him. Are you going to question his knowledge of this too?

Re:

[hey!]

No, they made no such conclusion. They are only marking climate change as one possible explanation for differences between expected and measured values.

Any physical oceanographer (my wife happens to be one) will tell you that ocean temperatures are a very complex phenomenon. If the surface temperature of the ocean increased, it wouldn't be seen any time soon as an across the board increase in deep ocean temperatures, because the ocean doesn't vertically mix much in any locality. Instead, surface current

Re:

[hansamurai]

More like the temp of the water is warmer since it's closer to the earth's crust? Why does it seem whenever you hear about something from scientists, they're trying to relate it to "Global Warming"? Cause it sells newspapers/magazines?

It not only sells newspapers, it wins Oscars!

Measuring change.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

They're not interested in the absolute temperature, they're interested in the change in temperature over both short and long time periods.

Of course to measure the change you first have to measure the temperature at all. Then you wait a while and do it again.

Since they couldn't get there to measure it before this is that first measurement. Any comparisons are against models.

Meanwhile the definition of amount of information obtained is "how much it surprised the receiver".

Re:

[Belial6]

I'm not saying your wrong here, but a warning flag to be skeptical comes up when it is suggested that an autonomous robot is a cheaper way to get a temperature than a thermometer on the end of a cable, or a thermometer hooked to a radio transmitter. Feel free to let me know what I am missing that makes high pressure autonomous robots cheaper.

Re:

[Belial6]

That makes sense. I'm not prepared to take it as fact, but it does fall into the 'mostly likely to be true' category when you point that out.

Re:Not that deep...

[hcdejong]

1. It's an autonomous vehicle. Most unmanned subs have to be remotely piloted. Many are tethered to their mothership, severely limiting their range and maneuverability.

2. Its range and endurance are nothing short of phenomenal. They've made a quantum leap in efficiency.

3. It may be the cheapest way to get to a depth of 9000 ft.

Re:

[syphax]

From TFA:

"Gliders are a cost-effective alternative to traditional measuring techniques, which involve expensive boat-trips and floating instruments that simply drift with surface currents."

This one goes a lot deeper than previous gliders, opening up a whole lot more of the ocean to cost-effective data collection.

Using your logic, the Apollo 11 mission was not special because it did not go to Pluto (or whatever is the outermost planet these days).

Re:

[vwjeff]

Read the article you link to. Submariners have NEVER been to the bottom of the trench.

From the Wikipedia Article:

"In an unprecedented dive, the United States Navy bathyscaphe Trieste reached the bottom at 1:06 p.m. on January 23, 1960, with U.S. Navy Lieutenant Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard on board. Iron shot was used for ballast, with gasoline for buoyancy.[4] The onboard systems indicated a depth of 11,521 meters (37,800 ft), but this was later revised to 10,916 meters (35,813 ft). At the bottom, W

Re:

[rkww]

"Nothing manmade has ever been to the bottom of the trench and returned."

How much do you want to bet?

Re:

[The Darkness]

How does a sub dive crush "depths"? Depths can't be crushed, AFAIK. This headline is phenomenally confusing.

I agree that the language used in the headline sucks.. but just in case you were serious:

The "Crush Depth" of a submarine is the depth at which it is crushed by the pressure.

Thus the headline translates to: New Sub Dives Deeper than other subs without being crushed

Re:

[The Darkness]

I understand the concept of a crush depth. But the thing that gets crushed is the sub, not the depth. The headline is(was... looks like they fixed it) just miserable. Does no-one proofread any more?

They figure, why bother? That's what the spell checker is for.

For the humor impaired: I'm aware a spell checker doesn't validate grammar.

Re:This is interesting

[meringuoid]

It's been a theory of mine that if there are aliens on this planet that they would be at the bottom of the sea.

The Lobstermen are the worst ones. They just will not die. And the ones who keep mind controlling my operatives.

Well, them and the Sea Devils - they used to give Jon Pertwee a terrible time.

Re:

[Cheapy]

It could only be one thing that caused this mystery...The Lobstermen from Mars have started their global conquest!

Re:This is interesting

[Almost-Retired]

The oceans are indeed a mystery. We haven't studied them near as well as we have the land above, mainly becuase we humans are quite puny in comparison, and absolutely must have a ready supply of breathable air. Preferably at an ambient pressure of less than 100psi.

The deepest we've ever been, and two guys lived through it, is actually deeper than Everest is tall, 37,800 feet to the bottom of the Marianas Trench off the Phillipines. The iron ball, 6 feet in diameter that they were in, suspended from the kerosene ballast tanks of the Navy's Trieste, was squeezed by the nominally 18kpsi pressure, enough to warp the frames of the equipment braces holding the controls and monitors for the tv cameras that I actually helped build back in about 1960. The Treiste ran everything in it and on it from big racks of Sears Die-Hard batteries, each of which had a heavy balloon with half a pint or so of battery acid in them, snapped over the neck of the cell, with a wire cage to keep them from being dislodged by water currents. They brought back a lot of pix of blind, eyeless fish from down there, and they turned the cameras around to look at the batteries once and found that all of the balloons had been driven into the batteries. So don't ever let anybody tell you that water is incompressible, it is at 18,000 psi. So is oil, we had filled the pan & tilt drives with motor oil, and layed a neoprene rubber gasket on the top, then drilled some holes in the cover to let the pressure in. There was about an inch of clearance to the closest gear. One gasket was cut thru, the other was damaged by the turning gears slicing into it but held.

But the guys weren't in very good shape by the time it had surfaced and the gondola opened to let/get them out, so thats a trip they never repeated, and they were using state of the art air recycling gear. If something better has been invented now for that, I'm not aware of it. The danger of it imploding was very real, this was about 2x deeper than Alvin or its successor ilk have ever been. But then Alvin and company have access holes that can be opened, this ball didn't due to the pressure calcs saying they couldn't support it, so it was cut in half, and the seams epoxied together after the guys were inside, and it had to be removed somehow to get them back out. The Navy never said how they opened it once the epoxy was set.

But, man being the curious thing that he is, if better tools can be made, I expect there will be ready volunteers to occupy the viewports for yet another trip into that abyss.

Do you feel lucky? I think I'l stay up here, thank you...

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Cheers, gene

Re:

[MikeHunt69]

Awesome info, thanks for sharing.

Re:

[Deadstick]

if they studied the planet they'd realise its mostly water.

It's mostly iron and silicates. The outer 0.00000001 percent of it is mostly water.

rj

Re:

[nietsch]

Gosh, an open fissure. So what would happen if some underwatervulcano heated a spot on the seafloor with a few degrees. What would happen to the density of this water? Stay there?
In other words: if you heat a single spot of water on the seafloor the warmer water will rise up.
These guys measured the unexpected rise in temperature on every dive. Lots of fissures maybe?