The strangely shaped stalactites 50 meters below the sinkhole in Mexico are known as the death bells.
Beneath El Zapote cenote , a 50-meter-deep water-filled sinkhole at Quintana Roo, on the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico, hides many unusually shaped stalactites.
Instead of the usual elongated, pointed shape attached to the roofs of caves as usual, the stalactites in El Zapote are conical and hollow shaped like bells.
The stalactites here are conical and hollow like bells.
Divers often refer to them as “death bells” , after a song by an Australian country rock band, and based on their strange shape and growing environment.
The bells appear about halfway down the path down the cave. They occur in a narrow band about 6 meters across, covering almost the entire area.
The opening of the cone is always towards the cave wall. The giant bells can grow to be extremely large, exceeding 2 meters in length and almost a meter in width. Their walls are about 3cm thick. Until now, scientists have not been able to explain the appearance of “death bells” in caves in Mexico.
The cave systems of the Yucatan are inundated by saltwater seeping from the bottom as well as the freshwater groundwater of precipitation accumulating at the top. These two layers do not mix and are separated by a mixed layer called a halocline. The death bells appear at the edge between the halocline and the fresh water above.
This cave system is flooded by salty sea water from below.
Professor Dr. Wolfgang Stinnesbeck, Institute of Geosciences, University of Heidelberg, who explored this amazing underground world, thinks that El Zapote Hells Bells represent a mysterious ecosystem, the death bells are very unique in terms of nature. morphological and may have been produced through a complex interweaving within the cave between the water source, the burrowing microorganisms, and the bell surface.
El Zapote cenote is also one of the strangest diving spots in the world. The underwater cave El Zapote cenote is much larger than what you can see from the surface. It is because of this rare strange shape that the flooded cave in the Yucatan peninsula, Mexico has become famous.