why is this diver burrowing into the
bottom of this mini lake she’s literally
disappearing into the sand and gravel of
the waters floor only debris and the
occasional bubbles from her breathing
tank are visible she’s part of a project
largely funded by National Geographic to
dive into the sacred pools of the
ancient Maya our exploration team
discovered this upwelling it’s an
underwater spring upwelling and it
provides us magical experience because
it’s located in the bottom of a very
large crater when you come down down
down down down into this large crater
and the bottom is this boiling mass of
sediment that’s actually being royal
rolled and boiled it’s almost like a
natural lava lamp went in over the lip
of the crater to send it down into the
bottom and I didn’t want to have any
interference with the water that was
already in the pool and so it required a
little bit of digging and frankly it was
extremely low visibility down there but
below the actual base of the sediment
there’s about 1 and 1/2 meters more
space the water coming out of the bottom
of this spring coming into the pool is
chemically actually quite distinct from
the water in the pool but this is just
the beginning the dives also revealed
Clues to pass life here and a first for
the country of Belize scientists
discovered several fossil beds around 60
to 90 feet below the surface including
femur bones the size of a bowling ball
they also found tusks and pelvic bones
these are the first recorded fossils
ever found in Belize and we left those
in place we only removed a few small
fossils so we can actually determine are
they fossilized or bone and they’re
definitely fossilized so we know they
have to be of a certain age but
were they here were they for these mega
fauna present during occupation by
humans or about 20,000 years ago 50,000
years ago or they much older the dives
were made in several pools in central
believes earlier this year in an area
known as carob Lanka the researchers
found evidence that the eight pools of
the 25 they studied are likely connected
through underground passages principal
investigator Lisa Lucero says the major
goal is to look for archeological
remains underwater because the Maya
considered openings in the earth caves
water bodies as portals to the
underworld or Sebulba and because the
thousands of caves that have been found
have offerings ancient Maya offerings we
just knew that there’d be offerings at
the bottom of the pool so we came with
with the goal of trying to dive to look
for these offerings though they didn’t
find offerings on the first dives they
did find ceramic shards in a pool near
remains of Maya buildings constructed
around 1100 to 1300 years ago Lucero
says there is no indication this area
had many residences but rather was
likely a pilgrimage site with Maya
traveling here from hundreds of miles
away because at least one of the pools
was found to be around 200 feet deep and
littered with trees and silt more
sophisticated diving equipment is needed
for future dives and Lucero believes
there are more significant Maya
offerings at these depths
the research is being conducted under
the auspices of the Belize Institute of
Archaeology and the scientists plan to
return for more exploration
bottom of this mini lake she’s literally
disappearing into the sand and gravel of
the waters floor only debris and the
occasional bubbles from her breathing
tank are visible she’s part of a project
largely funded by National Geographic to
dive into the sacred pools of the
ancient Maya our exploration team
discovered this upwelling it’s an
underwater spring upwelling and it
provides us magical experience because
it’s located in the bottom of a very
large crater when you come down down
down down down into this large crater
and the bottom is this boiling mass of
sediment that’s actually being royal
rolled and boiled it’s almost like a
natural lava lamp went in over the lip
of the crater to send it down into the
bottom and I didn’t want to have any
interference with the water that was
already in the pool and so it required a
little bit of digging and frankly it was
extremely low visibility down there but
below the actual base of the sediment
there’s about 1 and 1/2 meters more
space the water coming out of the bottom
of this spring coming into the pool is
chemically actually quite distinct from
the water in the pool but this is just
the beginning the dives also revealed
Clues to pass life here and a first for
the country of Belize scientists
discovered several fossil beds around 60
to 90 feet below the surface including
femur bones the size of a bowling ball
they also found tusks and pelvic bones
these are the first recorded fossils
ever found in Belize and we left those
in place we only removed a few small
fossils so we can actually determine are
they fossilized or bone and they’re
definitely fossilized so we know they
have to be of a certain age but
were they here were they for these mega
fauna present during occupation by
humans or about 20,000 years ago 50,000
years ago or they much older the dives
were made in several pools in central
believes earlier this year in an area
known as carob Lanka the researchers
found evidence that the eight pools of
the 25 they studied are likely connected
through underground passages principal
investigator Lisa Lucero says the major
goal is to look for archeological
remains underwater because the Maya
considered openings in the earth caves
water bodies as portals to the
underworld or Sebulba and because the
thousands of caves that have been found
have offerings ancient Maya offerings we
just knew that there’d be offerings at
the bottom of the pool so we came with
with the goal of trying to dive to look
for these offerings though they didn’t
find offerings on the first dives they
did find ceramic shards in a pool near
remains of Maya buildings constructed
around 1100 to 1300 years ago Lucero
says there is no indication this area
had many residences but rather was
likely a pilgrimage site with Maya
traveling here from hundreds of miles
away because at least one of the pools
was found to be around 200 feet deep and
littered with trees and silt more
sophisticated diving equipment is needed
for future dives and Lucero believes
there are more significant Maya
offerings at these depths
the research is being conducted under
the auspices of the Belize Institute of
Archaeology and the scientists plan to
return for more exploration
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