Cool interactive site about the deep sea

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neal.fun/deep-sea/

[bamorin]

Jan 5, 2020 23:00:07 GMT -5 @kelliers said:

neal.fun/deep-sea/

unreal how far down some mammals can dive. can't imagine how they can store, and where they store it, the amount of air needed to get that far down, and then back up for another breath.

[Deleted]

Jan 6, 2020 11:26:38 GMT -5 bamorin said:

Jan 5, 2020 23:00:07 GMT -5 @kelliers said:

neal.fun/deep-sea/

unreal how far down some mammals can dive. can't imagine how they can store, and where they store it, the amount of air needed to get that far down, and then back up for another breath.

The reason whales and other deep diving mammals don't get the bends when coming back to the surface - Because whales are holding their breaths. They aren't using scuba tanks. They don't need to decompress.

Scuba tanks rely on compressed air to give oxygen to a diver. This means that as pressure increases (one atmosphere every 33 feet) the volume of air in a tank also is compressed. So to 1/2 its volume at 33 feet.

So what you say!

At 33 feet, that means that the diver is taking in, effectively twice the amount of oxygen at 33 feet than they are getting at the surface.

Again, so what?

Well, starting at about 130 feet or so you are going to start running an experiment on yourself to see where you are going to suffer from oxygen toxicity. That magic number will be somewhere around 132 feet (where you are now effectively taking into your body 100% oxygen) to 330 feet (where every known human is going to go into convulsions and probably die (especially if needing a regulator in your mouth to breath) if only on compressed air).

This does NOT include the issue with the bends. As you are breathing that oxygen, your body is being slammed with nitrogen that effectively is going to turn you into a soda bottle. As you come up slow, that nitrogen (like the carbon dioxide in a soda bottle) will come out of solution in your body and will either slowly do it, allowing you to surface happy, or fast allowing you to surface into an unfun world of pain.

Whales/dolphins/seals/birds take a big breath and hold it. Their lungs collapse into a tiny, tiny thing, as they have evolved to do, as the whale (etc.) goes down and down. To the point that if a breath hold human diver is doing it (again they are running an experiment to see where exactly on the bell curve they are as their lungs are compressed beyond to point of design) any human would die.

Still amazing these animals can dive so deep and for so long.

[oldgraylady4]

Fascinating.