Instruct: Given a question, retrieve documents that can help answer the question.
Query: Where is the Blue Hole located?
The Great Blue Hole is a giant marine sinkhole off the coast of Belize. It lies near the center of Lighthouse Reef, a small atoll from the mainland and Belize City. The hole is circular in shape, across and deep. It was formed during several episodes of quaternary glaciation when sea levels were much lower. Analysis of stalactites found in the Great Blue Hole shows that formation took place 153,000; 66,000; 60,000; and 15,000 years ago. As the ocean began to rise again, the cave was flooded. The Great Blue Hole is a part of the larger Belize Barrier Reef Reserve System, a World Heritage Site of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
The Mariana Trench or Marianas Trench is located in the western Pacific Ocean approximately east of the Mariana Islands, and has the deepest natural trench in the world. It is a crescent-shaped trough in the Earth's crust averaging about long and wide. The maximum known depth is (± ) at the southern end of a small slot-shaped valley in its floor known as the Challenger Deep. However, some unrepeated measurements place the deepest portion at . For comparison: if Mount Everest were dropped into the trench at this point, its peak would still be over under water.
In 2005, Hawkes and adventurer Steve Fossett teamed up to create a submarine that could be piloted by an individual to the deepest part of the ocean. This spot in the Pacific Ocean, called Challenger Deep, is approximately under the ocean's surface and is thought to be the deepest point in the ocean. Together they began to develop the "Challenger" submersible with this goal in mind. However, in 2007 Fossett lost his life in a fatal accident in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California before the feat could be attempted.
Chevé Cave ( ; ) is a deep cave located in the Sierra Juárez mountain range in the southern Mexico state of Oaxaca. As of 2003, its deepest point has been measured at deep, making it the second deepest known cavern in the Western Hemisphere and the world’s 12th deepest cave. The cave's deepest known point is nearly one vertical mile and seven horizontal miles from the entrance, ending in a terminal sump. The present limit of exploration in Chevé, at 9.3 kilometers from the nearest entrance, represents one of the most remote locations ever attained inside any cave on Earth. The logistics of reaching this point are enormous: more than two kilometers of rope need to be rigged and three underground camps established. Chevé is the deepest proven freshwater hydrological system in the world. Temperatures in Chevé are moderate, ranging from . It has been most thoroughly explored under the leadership of caver Bill Stone.
Blackpool Tower is a tourist attraction in Blackpool, Lancashire, England, which was opened to the public on 14 May 1894. Inspired by the Eiffel Tower in Paris, it is tall and is the 120th tallest freestanding tower in the world. Blackpool Tower is also the common name for Tower buildings, an entertainment complex in a red-brick three-storey block comprising the tower, the ground floor aquarium and cafeteria, Tower Circus, the Tower Ballroom and roof gardens that was designated a Grade I listed building in 1973.
Inferno Crater Lake is a large hot spring located in the Waimangu Volcanic Rift Valley on the North Island of New Zealand, and the largest geyser-like feature in the world. The actual geyser is not visible, as it plays underwater at the bottom of the lake, however, fumaroles are visible on the lake's shore and the rock wall behind it.
At present, hang baits are illegal off Isla Guadalupe and reputable dive operators do not use them. Operators in South Africa and Australia continue to use hang baits and pinniped decoys. In South Australia, playing rock music recordings underwater, including the AC/DC album "Back in Black" has also been used experimentally to attract sharks.
North of this area, on the slope of Mt Haszard, is Inferno Crater, filled with a striking pale blue lake of highly acidic water with a pH as low as 2.2. The crater was blasted into the side of the mountain as part of the 1886 Mount Tarawera eruption event and remains the site of the largest geyser-like feature in the world. Although the actual geyser plays at the bottom of the lake and cannot be seen, a handful of active fumaroles are visible on the shore and the cliff face behind the lake. The water level of this up-to- lake follows a complicated rhythmic cycle that is interconnected with the nearby Frying Pan Lake.
The Colca Canyon, twice as deep as the Grand Canyon in the United States, is situated in the province of Caylloma. The Cotahuasi Canyon is in the La Union Province. Colca Valley provides incredible close-up views of majestic Andean condors soaring in their natural habitat. Cotahuasi, at , is thought to be the deepest canyon in the world. Both canyons offer spectacular scenery and villages as yet unaffected by the modern world.
The Abismo Guy Collet (SP-090) is the deepest cave in South America, and the deepest in the world that is formed in quartzite. Located in a tepui in northern Brazil near the border with Venezuela, this cave was first explored by cavers in 2006 to a depth of 671 meters.
Madagascar lies entirely in the Indian Ocean Whale Sanctuary, a whale sanctuary that covers the Indian Ocean south to 55º S. The sanctuary prohibits commercial whaling and aims to facilitate the recovery of whale populations, allow whales to do their jobs within the ecosystem, and foster public awareness. This sanctuary’s conservation efforts are uniquely important for several reasons. The sanctuary allows for the Sperm whale and the Oman Humpback whale to recover their population which has been diminished by illegal soviet whaling operations in the 70’s. The sanctuary also allows the population recovery of the Bryde’s whale from Japanese whaling operations which still continue to this day as Japan does not respect the sanctuary and continues its operations claiming that their operations are purely scientific. Approximately 600 whales are killed each year by Japanese scientific whaling operations.
Boybuloq Cave (also known as Boy Bulok) is a limestone cave in Uzbekistan and the deepest known cave in Asia. It is located high in the Gissar Range of mountains, near to Dehibolo, Uzbekistan's highest village. The cave and wider area is inaccessible for much of the year due to snow. Long-known to local people because of a nearby spring the cave was first explored by speleologists in 1984. Since then expeditions have mapped of passages in the cave and reached a total depth of . The cave could potentially extend much deeper and become the deepest in the world.
Above-average sea water temperatures caused by global warming is the leading cause of coral bleaching. According to the United Nations Environment Programme, between 2014 and 2016 the longest recorded global bleaching events killed coral on an unprecedented scale. In 2016, bleaching of coral on the Great Barrier Reef killed between 29 and 50 percent of the reef's coral. In 2017, the bleaching extended into the central region of the reef. The average interval between bleaching events has halved between 1980 and 2016.
Mount Victoria Railway Station Group is of state significance as a large complex of buildings illustrating clearly the pattern of development of railway facilities in the Blue Mountains area. It is the most substantial railway station complex in the Blue Mountains and indicates the former importance of the location with the former locomotive depot (now demolished) to service terminating trains for railway tourism associated with Jenolan Caves and handling goods trains over the steep grades of the Blue Mountains, particularly the section to Lithgow. The structures indicate the importance of Mount Victoria as a health and holiday resort, the RRR accommodation provided in the station building reinforcing this.
The Cullinan diamond was found below the surface at Premier Mine in Cullinan, Transvaal Colony, by Frederick Wells, surface manager at the mine, on 26 January 1905. It was approximately long, wide, deep, and weighed . Newspapers called it the "Cullinan Diamond", a reference to Sir Thomas Cullinan, who opened the mine in 1902. It was three times the size of the Excelsior Diamond, found in 1893 at Jagersfontein Mine, weighing . Four of its eight surfaces were smooth, indicating that it once had been part of a much larger stone broken up by natural forces. It had a blue-white hue and contained a small pocket of air, which at certain angles produced a rainbow, or Newton's rings.
On 23 January 1960, she reached the ocean floor in the Challenger Deep (the deepest southern part of the Mariana Trench), carrying Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh. This was the first time a vessel, manned or unmanned, had reached the deepest known point of the Earth's oceans. The onboard systems indicated a depth of , although this was revised later to ; fairly recently, more accurate measurements have found Challenger Deep to be between and deep.
The Waimangu Volcanic Rift Valley is the hydrothermal system created on 10 June 1886 by the volcanic eruption of Mount Tarawera, on the North Island of New Zealand. It encompasses Lake Rotomahana, the site of the Pink and White Terraces, as well as the location of the Waimangu Geyser, which was active from 1900 to 1904. The area has been increasingly accessible as a tourist attraction and contains Frying Pan Lake, which is the largest hot spring in the world, and the steaming and usually pale blue Inferno Crater Lake, the largest geyser-like feature in the world although the geyser itself cannot be seen since it plays at the bottom of the lake.
Lōihi Seamount (also known as Lōʻihi) is an active submarine volcano about off the southeast coast of the island of Hawaii. The top of the seamount is about below sea level. This seamount is on the flank of Mauna Loa, the largest shield volcano on Earth. Lōihi, meaning "long" in Hawaiian, is the newest volcano in the Hawaiian-Emperor seamount chain, a string of volcanoes that stretches over northwest of Lōʻihi. Unlike most active volcanoes in the Pacific Ocean that make up the active plate margins on the Pacific Ring of Fire, Lōʻihi and the other volcanoes of the Hawaiian-Emperor seamount chain are hotspot volcanoes and formed well away from the nearest plate boundary. Volcanoes in the Hawaiian Islands arise from the Hawaii hotspot, and as the youngest volcano in the chain, Lōihi is the only Hawaiian volcano in the deep submarine preshield stage of development.
The island of Hawaii (commonly called the "Big Island") is the currently active volcanic center of the Hawaiian Islands formed over the Hawaii hotspot. The two active volcanoes on the Big Island are Kīlauea and Mauna Loa with a newer submarine volcano forming the Loihi Seamount to the southeast of the island. Continued growth of the southeastern part of the island is accompanied by major slumping and southeastward movement of the flanks of the two volcanoes.
Information for offshore regions and warmer waters is more scarce, but widespread sightings indicate the killer whale can survive in most water temperatures. They have been sighted, though more infrequently, in the Mediterranean, the Arabian Sea, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean. Over 50 individual whales have been documented in the northern Indian Ocean, including two individuals that were sighted in the Persian Gulf in 2008 and off Sri Lanka in 2015. Those orcas may occasionally enter the Red Sea through the Gulf of Aden. The modern status of the species along coastal mainland China and its vicinity is unknown. Recorded sightings have been made from almost the entire shoreline. A wide-ranging population is likely to exist in the central Pacific, with some sightings off Hawaii. Distinct populations may also exist off the west coast of tropical Africa, and Papua New Guinea. In the Mediterranean, killer whales are considered "visitors", likely from the North Atlantic, and sightings become less frequent further east. However, a small year-round population is known to exist in the Strait of Gibraltar, mostly on the Atlantic side. Killer whales also appear to regularly occur off the Galápagos Islands.
The shark is seen by divers in many places, including the Bay Islands in Honduras, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, the Maldives close to Maamigili (South Ari Atoll), the Red Sea, Western Australia (Ningaloo Reef, Christmas Island), Taiwan, Panama (Coiba Island), Belize, Tofo Beach in Mozambique, Sodwana Bay (Greater St. Lucia Wetland Park) in South Africa, the Galapagos Islands, Saint Helena, Isla Mujeres (Caribbean Sea), La Paz, Baja California Sur and Bahía de los Ángeles in Mexico, the Seychelles, West Malaysia, islands off eastern peninsular Malaysia, India, Sri Lanka, Oman, Fujairah, Puerto Rico, and other parts of the Caribbean. Juveniles can be found near the shore in the Gulf of Tadjoura, near Djibouti, in the Horn of Africa.
There is currently no robust estimate of the global whale shark population. The species is considered endangered by the IUCN due to the impacts of fisheries, bycatch losses, and vessel strikes, combined with its long lifespan and late maturation. In June 2018 the New Zealand Department of Conservation classified the whale shark as "Migrant" with the qualifier "Secure Overseas" under the New Zealand Threat Classification System.
The Snow Hole is located in the Taconic Mountains, New York, USA along the ridge line between Bald Mountain and the White Rock (Taconic Mountains). It is a crevasse in which snow can be found well into the summer. The Snow Hole can be accessed by hiking the Taconic Crest Trail about 2.75 miles north from the Petersburgh Pass parking area just off of Route 2. The Snow Hole is located at . Finding the location of the Snow Hole can be confusing, as several maps (including Google maps and USGS Berlin quadrangle, 1:25,000 scale - 1988) mark the location of the Snow Hole "summit" at . However, that is a separate mountain summit and not the actual Snow Hole. The posted hiking map at the kiosk to the Taconic Crest Trail at Petersburgh Pass has the location correctly identified. Typically the crevasse has snow at the bottom of it year round.
St. Herman's Blue Hole National Park is a national park located just off the Hummingbird Highway in Cayo District of Belize, near Belmopan, the capital city. It is over 500 acres (2 km²) in area, and contains two cave systems (St. Hermans and Crystal), various natural trails, and the cool jungle pool from which the park gets its name. The park is managed by the Belize Audubon Society.
After people became afraid of it, the Blue Hole was largely abandoned. A possibility is that farmers and families in the area warned children against going to the Blue Hole because the Jersey Devil lived there and it would hurt or steal them. Locals still go to the area and use it as a party spot. There are many other 'blue holes' in the immediate vicinity, as well as quicksand and other seasonal ponds and lakes that form from springs seeping from high water table levels. The Blue Hole is not to be confused with the numerous former quarries in the area, which appear much larger and have a vibrant sky blue color.
To reach Blue Hole Falls requires a one-mile hike downhill via the High Shoals Trail. There are several easily identifiable primitive campsites with fire rings located between the latter half of the trail and High Shoals Creek that offer camping to large and small groups. A small observation deck overlooks the falls as they cascade into Blue Hole. Blue Hole reaches depths of more than ten feet, and is a common destination for swimmers, hikers, and campers during the summer months, when the creek temperature remains in the 40s Fahrenheit.