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There's an aquatic cave in Death Valley called Devil's Hole; divers have gone to ~600 ft, but the cave is likely over twice as deep. A magnitude 7.6 earthquake

by JamilD 4y ago

There's an aquatic cave in Death Valley called Devil's Hole; divers have gone to ~600 ft, but the cave is likely over twice as deep. A magnitude 7.6 earthquake 1,500 miles away caused 4 ft high waves at Devil's Hole: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mexico-earthquake-triggers-4-foot-waves-death-valley-national-park/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mexico-earthquake-triggers-4-fo... It may be that the aquifer in Devil's Hole is somehow connected to a network of underwater aquifers thousands of miles away in Mexico… but we just don't know, and have no way of knowing right now.

iamgopal 4y ago
Can’t we just use some form of ultrasonic wave from one end and detect at other end ?
- wincy 4y ago
  I’d imagine the amount of energy you’d have to push into the water would be insane to hear it 1500 miles away, wouldn’t it?
  - naavis 4y ago
    Whale noises travel thousands of kilometers underwater. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whale_vocalization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whale_vocalization
    - totalZero 4y ago
      There's an inverse relationship between wavelength and range, and the higher the frequency the better the resolution. https://acousticstoday.org/wavelength https://acousticstoday.org/wavelength
- alanbernstein 4y ago
  What other end?
- BurningFrog 4y ago
  Pour in some traceable mix of chemicals, and see if it turns up somewhere.
  - tuatoru 4y ago
    There're these fish called the Devil's Hole Pupfish. Can't do that.
    - BurningFrog 4y ago
      There is a near infinite number of non toxic chemicals to choose from.
      - tuatoru 4y ago
        Ah, but can you show that they're not toxic to Devil's Hole Pupfish? And the population is tiny and fragile--you're not allowed any test subjects.
        BurningFrog 4y ago
        There might well be 5 separate regulations forbidding it. That's a different question. The safest class of substances I can think of are unusual isotopes. They're chemically identical to the regular elements, which is what matters for life forms, but can be detected by scientific instruments.
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  You'd deafen the poor troglobites.
eesmith 4y ago
As your link says, it's a seiche. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seiche https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seiche . > Earthquake-generated seiches can be observed thousands of miles away from the epicentre of a quake. https://weather.com/news/video/how-mexicos-earthquake-caused-a-seiche-at-devils-hole https://weather.com/news/video/how-mexicos-earthquake-caused... says the waves started about 20 minutes after the earthquake, which was 1,500 miles away. That's about 2 km/sec, which makes it (I think) due to the S-wave. It's certainly not underground water being compressed for hundreds of miles before arriving at Devils Hole, if only because underground water flow doesn't work that way. Seiches happen even in swimming pools, as at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2JwUSD3x2s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2JwUSD3x2s where the pool starts sloshing around from an earthquake about 200 miles away. They don't need to be connected to a larger water system. I see from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devils_Hole https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devils_Hole : > The pool has frequently experienced activity due to far away earthquakes in Japan, Indonesia, Mexico, and Chile, which have been likened to extremely small scale tsunamis and https://home.nps.gov/deva/learn/news/alaska-quake-shakes-water-in-devils-hole.htm https://home.nps.gov/deva/learn/news/alaska-quake-shakes-wat... notes the Alaska earthquake was 2,000 miles away in the other direction.
jakeogh 4y ago
Who named it?

by JamilD 4y ago

iamgopal 4y ago

Can’t we just use some form of ultrasonic wave from one end and detect at other end ?

wincy 4y ago
I’d imagine the amount of energy you’d have to push into the water would be insane to hear it 1500 miles away, wouldn’t it?
- naavis 4y ago
  Whale noises travel thousands of kilometers underwater. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whale_vocalization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whale_vocalization
  - totalZero 4y ago
    There's an inverse relationship between wavelength and range, and the higher the frequency the better the resolution. https://acousticstoday.org/wavelength https://acousticstoday.org/wavelength
alanbernstein 4y ago
What other end?
BurningFrog 4y ago
Pour in some traceable mix of chemicals, and see if it turns up somewhere.
- tuatoru 4y ago
  There're these fish called the Devil's Hole Pupfish. Can't do that.
  - BurningFrog 4y ago
    There is a near infinite number of non toxic chemicals to choose from.
    - tuatoru 4y ago
      Ah, but can you show that they're not toxic to Devil's Hole Pupfish? And the population is tiny and fragile--you're not allowed any test subjects.
      - BurningFrog 4y ago
        There might well be 5 separate regulations forbidding it. That's a different question. The safest class of substances I can think of are unusual isotopes. They're chemically identical to the regular elements, which is what matters for life forms, but can be detected by scientific instruments.
MichaelCollins 4y ago
You'd deafen the poor troglobites.

eesmith 4y ago

As your link says, it's a seiche. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seiche https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seiche . > Earthquake-generated seiches can be observed thousands of miles away from the epicentre of a quake. https://weather.com/news/video/how-mexicos-earthquake-caused-a-seiche-at-devils-hole https://weather.com/news/video/how-mexicos-earthquake-caused... says the waves started about 20 minutes after the earthquake, which was 1,500 miles away. That's about 2 km/sec, which makes it (I think) due to the S-wave. It's certainly not underground water being compressed for hundreds of miles before arriving at Devils Hole, if only because underground water flow doesn't work that way. Seiches happen even in swimming pools, as at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2JwUSD3x2s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2JwUSD3x2s where the pool starts sloshing around from an earthquake about 200 miles away. They don't need to be connected to a larger water system. I see from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devils_Hole https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devils_Hole : > The pool has frequently experienced activity due to far away earthquakes in Japan, Indonesia, Mexico, and Chile, which have been likened to extremely small scale tsunamis and https://home.nps.gov/deva/learn/news/alaska-quake-shakes-water-in-devils-hole.htm https://home.nps.gov/deva/learn/news/alaska-quake-shakes-wat... notes the Alaska earthquake was 2,000 miles away in the other direction.

jakeogh 4y ago

Who named it?