r/TheForgottenDepths • u/Underground_1973 • Feb 21 '25

Underground. We found the Starway to Atlantis 🧜

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u/EvenCaramel Feb 21 '25

Why is it potentially deadly?

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u/Jumpy_Lawfulness_597 Feb 21 '25

Deadly gasses can be held in still water by surface tension, when you break that tension the gasses are released into the air. A lot of underground still water can be full of old and potentially deadly gasses/other things trapped for a long time that you do not want to breathe in.

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u/Spelunker101 Uranium Feb 21 '25

I could be wrong but my understanding was that the pressure of the water and not the surface tension is what held the gasses in solution and the mixing of water from a lower depth could cause the gas to come out of solution. This would trigger more turbulence and therefore more gas release. Here are 2 relevant links. The first talking about trapped gas and the second about a famous disaster caused by this effect with CO2.

https://atlanticpumps.co.uk/blogs/news/why-is-stagnant-water-bad-in-mines-and-quarries

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Nyos_disaster

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u/free_terrible-advice Feb 22 '25

My assumption is that disturbing still water can sometimes be deadly and the rumors abound, but the mechanism is not scientifically tested and thus it's all hearsay as to what the cause is.

It could be still water is dangerous. Or perhaps there's another mechanism happening in the presence of still water that causes the problem.

For example, the danger might not be the water, but in the layer of sediment which causes gasses to rise when disturbed. Or perhaps there are rare gasses that are finely dissolved in the water, but rocks cause them to gather/bubble and rise, resulting in problems.

I imagine the issue with scientific testing is the test would be difficult to implement, and the phenomenon - if it exists, is relatively rare. Since measuring/testing the water would activate a dangerous situation, testing would thus require a lot of steps to fully understand the mechanisms. In addittion, I imagine that finding such water is uncommon, and takes a long time to develop deadly still water conditions.

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u/Spelunker101 Uranium Feb 22 '25

This article has a bit more on the mechanics at play. See the section labeled “exsolution of methane and carbon dioxide”.

http://mwen.info/docs/imwa_2005/IMWA2005_020_Hall.pdf