The mystery of the blue holes off the coast of Florida.

As part of an ongoing three-year research project, a team of scientists from the Mote Marine Laboratory, Florida Atlantic University, the Georgia Institute of Technology, and the American Geological Society will begin next month to explore a blue hole, known as the Green Banana, located on the continental shelf off the coast of Florida.

The project, funded by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), will deploy divers and monitoring equipment to study the Green Banana, a 130-meter-high blue hole located 47 meters below the sea surface.

Scientists will test to determine if any particular type of bacteria lives in the blue hole, as well as measure nutrient levels in the water column and assess whether this mysterious sinkhole connects to Florida's groundwater system near the Gulf of Mexico.

Following their exploratory dive last August, scientists also planned to study another blue hole in Florida, known as Amberjack, which is significantly smaller than Green Banana, with a water column 72 meters high, located 32 meters below sea level.

While no definitive conclusions have been reached yet, the identification of a large amount of dissolved inorganic carbon in the water, along with isotopes of radium and radon, suggests that it may be a unique chemical environment resulting from interactions with groundwater, creating a nutrient source different from that of seawater for the growth of microbial communities.

Huong Thao