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For other uses, see Blue hole (disambiguation).
The Great Blue Hole, located near Ambergris Caye, Belize.
The Great Blue Hole, located near Ambergris Caye, Belize. The Great Blue Hole is a large underwater sinkhole off of the coast of Belize. Ambergris Caye, pronounced "am-BER-gris" is the largest Island of Belize located northeast of the country in the Caribbean Sea.

A blue hole is a submarine cave or sinkhole. A cave is a natural underground void large enough for a human to enter A sinkhole, also known as a sink, shake hole, swallow hole, swallet, doline or Cenote, is a natural depression They are also called vertical caves.

Blue holes are roughly circular, steep-walled depressions, and so named for the dramatic contrast between the dark blue, deep waters of their depths and the lighter blue of the shallows around them. Their water circulation is poor, and they are commonly anoxic below a certain depth; this environment is unfavorable for most sea life, but nonetheless can support large numbers of bacteria. Anoxic sea water is sea water depleted of Oxygen. It is generally found in areas with restricted water exchange The Bacteria ( singular: bacterium) are a large group of unicellular Microorganisms Typically a few Micrometres in length bacteria have

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Formation

Blue holes formed during past ice ages, when sea level was as much as 100-120 meters lower than at present. An ice age is a period of long-term reduction in the Temperature of the Earth 's surface and atmosphere resulting in an expansion of continental Ice sheets Mean sea level (MSL is the average (mean height of the Sea, with reference to a suitable reference surface The metre or meter is a unit of Length. It is the basic unit of Length in the Metric system and in the International At those times, these formations were subjected to the same chemical weathering common in all limestone-rich terrains; this ended once they were submerged at the end of the ice age. Weathering is the decomposition of earth rocks, Soils and their Minerals through direct contact with the planet's Atmosphere. Limestone is a Sedimentary rock composed largely of the Mineral Calcite ( Calcium carbonate: CaCO3

Blue holes are typically found on shallow carbonate platforms, exemplified by the Bahama Banks, as well as on and around the Yucatán Peninsula, such as at the Great Blue Hole at Lighthouse Reef Atoll, Belize. A carbonate platform is a sedimentary body which possesses Topographic relief and is composed of autochthonous calcareous deposits (Wilson 1975 The Bahama Banks are the submerged Carbonate platforms that make up much of the Bahama Archipelago The Yucatán Peninsula, in Southeastern Mexico, separates the Caribbean Sea from the Gulf of Mexico. The Great Blue Hole is a large underwater sinkhole off of the coast of Belize. Belize (bəˈliːz formerly British Honduras, is a country in Central America.

The deepest blue hole in the world is Dean's Blue Hole at 663ft. Dean's Blue Hole is the world's deepest Blue hole, which plunges 202 meters to the ocean floor in a bay west of Clarence Town on Long Island, The next deepest holes are only around 350-400 feet deep.

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Karst topography is a landscape shaped by the dissolution of a layer or layers of soluble Bedrock, usually Carbonate rock such as Limestone A cenote (pronounced in Mexican Spanish and in English, plural cenotes; from Yucatec Maya dzonot) is a type of Sinkhole A kibibyte (a contraction of ki lo bi nary byte) is a unit of Information or Computer storage, established by the International
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