Incredible River Under The Sea!

Hi guys! I just chanced upon these amazing images where divers have discovered a massive underwater river flowing along the bottom of the sea. This amazing undersea river is complete with trees and leaves, river banks, and even waterfalls! I thought I'd share this with you.

Under the sea of Mexico, there is a river called 'Cenote Angelita'. It was discovered by Anatoly Beloshchin and his group of divers. Here are the images:









All images credit: Anatoly Beloshchin

"We are 30 meters deep, fresh water, then 60 meters deep - salty water and under me I see a river, island and fallen leaves… Actually, the river, which you can see, is a layer of hydrogen sulphide," Anatoly Beloshchin said.

This underwater river is a complete river like any conventional one. It flows as much as 115 feet deep at some places, with flow of both fresh water and salty water at varying depths.

Scientists have suspected that undersea rivers can form, after sonar scans of the sea bed have revealed meandering channels in many of the world's oceans.

Ever since news of such rivers under sea were public, scientists all over the world have been looking for more such examples. Many have been found and even more will probably be discovered in the near future.

www.messagetoeagle.com...

Now THAT is cool! I have been in many cenotes in Mexico and this would be an amazing dive. Crazy how it looks like it is just a normal riverbank but under the sea....complete with leaves and all.

S&F! Those pics are amazing!!

I didn't even know such a thing was possible. Mather Nature definitely continues to impress and awe.

Thanks for sharing it.

Here are some more pics of it....so crazy. I have been in cenotes near there in Tulum. If you ever get the chance....you have to go check them out.

www.thisiscolossal.com...

I love it! Now this kind of stuff is what keeps me coming to ATS. It is beautiful.

Is that debris, like old cans on the riverbank?

reply to post by OrionHunterX


That is awesome, it looks like the divers are suspended in mid air.

Thanks for the source, great post. S&F

reply to post by OrionHunterX


Very cool. Thanks for sharing. Keep an eye out for pics of deep ocean skyscrapers too, 'kay?


F&S

I guess spongebob was not that fictitious after all, drinking water whilst in sea etc

Amazing pictures!

How is the waterfall possible!?

edit: Unless some hole that does not have the same salt concentration, causing the HS to "fall".. but that would be almost impossible.

luciddream
Amazing pictures!

How is the waterfall possible!?

edit: Unless some hole that does not have the same salt concentration, causing the HS to "fall".. but that would be almost impossible.

edit on 2/28/2014 by luciddream because: (no reason given)

I didn't see a waterfall in the links, but the water the divers are swimming in is sweet water or fresh water. The water in the pools and river is saltwater as it' is heavier. I don't believe these are "under the sea". They are collapsed formations of limestone. They're abundant in coastal areas on the Yucatan peninsula. I guess the geology is suitable for their formation. Got this info from wiki.

reply to post by OrionHunterX


How incredibly magical...ethereal. How beautiful this planet is. Never ceases to amaze me.

I am just stunned by the wonder of it. Thank you.

Wow! There's so much incredible stuff out here on Earth, but we've barely scratched the surface!

Here's a vid...

The article in the OP makes some unusual claims, and surprise surprise, it's not quite accurate.

The article in the OP conflates two remarkably different things.

1) A recent discovery of an undersea river.
2) A sinkhole in Mexico with a superficial resemblance to a river.

The images and videos of scuba divers in an apparent underwater river are from Cenote Angelita. A cenote is a natural pit - a cave or sinkhole. If you watch the videos of this same area, rather than subscribe to the bizarre notions of the website in the OP, you can see that this is - essentially - in a sinkhole. It might appear to be a river, but it's not moving. There is a layer of slightly acidic (and highly toxic if you were to breathe it) hydrogen sulfate separating two layers of water: freshwater above, and saltwater below. Water with more salt content is denser, and in relatively undisturbed areas (like this sinkhole) freshwater will not mix much with saltwater and will instead remain on top of the saltwater.

The Black Sea undersea river is an entirely different thing. For one, it's actually moving. I don't know that there are any images of it aside from computer models. Part of the reason for this is because much of the upper depths of the Black Sea is brackish water - a classification of water which has a salinity between freshwater and saltwater. It works this way because it is a density current - a river of even denser seawater flowing into the Black Sea from the Bosphorus Strait. It carries sediment and nutrients along its length, as well as having a much higher salinity. Recall that higher salinity will be below lower salinity from earlier - this is the case here as well. Here, there is probably mixing throughout the length of the river, but the speed and volume at which this river moves and the fact that the Black Sea also empties its upper (less dense) waters back through the Bosphorus Strait separates it somewhat. The colder, less-saline (brackish) upper waters of the Black Sea move towards the Mediterranean through this straight, while the denser, warmer waters of the deep Mediterranean move towards the Black Sea as a two-way exchange. This also leads to very low oxygen levels in the deeper parts of the Black Sea.