Diving Depth
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BillP
Senior Member
Hi Hanky00:
There are many potential problems with diving deep, but becoming concave or exploding at depth are not the major concerns.
Your body is mostly made of water. Water doesn't compress appreciably under pressure. The parts of your body that are made of water will be about the same size at the bottom of the ocean (35,800' deep) as at the surface. Other parts of your body (lungs, airways, ears, etc.) are filled with air (or whatever gas you're breathing). Air does compress and gets smaller as you descend in the ocean. A diver named Pippin Ferreras holds the "freediving" record where he holds a breath taken at the surface and dives as deep as he can. He has dived to 535' (162m) on one breath. Probably at about 250-300' (75-90 meters) the air in his lungs is so compressed that his lungs are virtually collapsed on themselves (concaved?). Having your lungs collapse on themselves at 250' would not be a significant problem for the vast majority of freedivers as they would have likely already drowned by then.
Scuba divers breathe compressed gases like air (sometimes other mixes of gas) when they dive through devices called "regulators" that, well regulate, the pressure of the gases they breath and keep them at the same pressure as the surrounding water. So long as the gases that you breathe are at the same pressure as the surrounding water and you equalize all of your gas spaces (by "popping" your ears, etc.), those spaces will not collapse at all. When you get to very deep depths the gas can get too dense to breathe and when you get to extreme depths, the shape of the enzymes and other chemicals in your body will change and cease to function, but I can't give you the exact depths where that will happen. At those depths the diver likely will quickly run out of breathing gas, die of the cold, have another reaction to the breathing gases as some become toxic, or have another problem before he "concaves".
When the scuba diver ascends from depth, those same breathing gases in his lungs and other spaces will re-expand. As they expand they exert pressure on the walls of the air spaces if the diver does not exhale. If the diver takes a deep breath of compressed gas at depth and then ascends, the air can expand to the point that an airspace will rupture. That can happen from an ascent from as shallow as 3' (1m).
HTH,
Bill
There are many potential problems with diving deep, but becoming concave or exploding at depth are not the major concerns.
Your body is mostly made of water. Water doesn't compress appreciably under pressure. The parts of your body that are made of water will be about the same size at the bottom of the ocean (35,800' deep) as at the surface. Other parts of your body (lungs, airways, ears, etc.) are filled with air (or whatever gas you're breathing). Air does compress and gets smaller as you descend in the ocean. A diver named Pippin Ferreras holds the "freediving" record where he holds a breath taken at the surface and dives as deep as he can. He has dived to 535' (162m) on one breath. Probably at about 250-300' (75-90 meters) the air in his lungs is so compressed that his lungs are virtually collapsed on themselves (concaved?). Having your lungs collapse on themselves at 250' would not be a significant problem for the vast majority of freedivers as they would have likely already drowned by then.
Scuba divers breathe compressed gases like air (sometimes other mixes of gas) when they dive through devices called "regulators" that, well regulate, the pressure of the gases they breath and keep them at the same pressure as the surrounding water. So long as the gases that you breathe are at the same pressure as the surrounding water and you equalize all of your gas spaces (by "popping" your ears, etc.), those spaces will not collapse at all. When you get to very deep depths the gas can get too dense to breathe and when you get to extreme depths, the shape of the enzymes and other chemicals in your body will change and cease to function, but I can't give you the exact depths where that will happen. At those depths the diver likely will quickly run out of breathing gas, die of the cold, have another reaction to the breathing gases as some become toxic, or have another problem before he "concaves".
When the scuba diver ascends from depth, those same breathing gases in his lungs and other spaces will re-expand. As they expand they exert pressure on the walls of the air spaces if the diver does not exhale. If the diver takes a deep breath of compressed gas at depth and then ascends, the air can expand to the point that an airspace will rupture. That can happen from an ascent from as shallow as 3' (1m).
HTH,
Bill
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Hanky00:
BillP commented that very deep dives could cause a change in the shape of molecules in your body. The record dive in a chamber for humans is about 2,000 feet with a successful decompression.
Some French scientists dived a pig in a chamber to 5,000 feet and returned in safely.
What is the ultimate depth were safe return is not possible is not known. The deep dive in the film The Abyss was only fictional.
BillP commented that very deep dives could cause a change in the shape of molecules in your body. The record dive in a chamber for humans is about 2,000 feet with a successful decompression.
Some French scientists dived a pig in a chamber to 5,000 feet and returned in safely.
What is the ultimate depth were safe return is not possible is not known. The deep dive in the film The Abyss was only fictional.
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