So we get there from Nellis Air Force Base at daybreak the media was out in full force. I also led a rescue there in 1965. [10] Norment, Relicts of a Beautiful Sea, I imagine that there would have been ceremonial prayers, perhaps a mythical nod toward the water babies said to lurk in Devils Hole. 124. For the various tribal groups historically centered here, water is largely considered the primary healing force; when it or the places it emanates from are under stress, contaminated or destroyed, it directly affects the well-being of all things equally humans, plants, animals, rocksbecause indigenous people see the nonhuman natural world through what author Valerie Kuletz refers to as an intersubjective relationship, in which the natural world is perceived as possessing a level of subjectivity that Euro-Americans usually grant only to other humans.[20] She goes on to state, Indian people clearly see themselves non-dualistically as both part of and distinct from the natural environment.[21] Indian elders have commented on how distressed they are when they are unable to fulfill their contracts with nature or collective responsibility to steward the land and receive its gifts in return throughout areas now off-limits to themincluding the NNSS or most of DVNP. [21] The litigation triggered further protections of the pupfish. The dissolved oxygen of the water is 2.53.0 ppm up to around 22m (72ft) in depth, though the shallow shelf can have dissolved oxygen levels as high as 6.07.0 ppm in June and July. Dan Cherry. The saline cavity itself presents a magical appearance. At the time, the pond was referred to as Miners Bathtub, and was renamed Devils Hole by Houtz himself in 1964. The author thanks Kevin Wilson, ecologist and manager of the National Park Service Devils Hole program for graciously providing feedback for this dispatch. Devils Hole: Explore the depths of Devils Hole, an underwater cave nestled in the vast desert of Death Valley National Park. The dive into Devils Hole is complex, with the team descending as deep as 120 feet with 70 pounds of gear for about an hour. However, since the late 1990s, the pupfish population has substantially decreased. [3] Riggs and Deacon, Connectivity in Desert Aquatic Ecosystems, 3. They were going skin-diving that fateful Sunday night, and were presumably simply eager to make memories among their friend group. Devil's Hole, on the other hand, is a flooded earthquake fault, formed by one of the earthquake or faulting actions of the Mesozoic period. [13] Flowstone occurring above the waterline of Browns Room built up over time in thin, layered sheets of carbonate material like a sensuous veil of hardened alabaster flesh. This paper incorrectly attributes this statement from Barbara Durham, a Timbisha Tribal Elder. Devils Hole, a disjunct portion of Death Valley National Park, is a water-filled, geothermal cave system and the only natural habitat for the highly endangered Devils Hole pupfish (Cyprinodon diabolis). [1] Leroy & Jean Johnson, Escape from Death Valley (Reno and Las Vegas: University of Nevada Press, 1987), 160. As concern for the future of biodiversity mounts, Devils Hole Pupfish asks how a tiny blue fishconfined to a single, narrow aquifer on the edge of Death Valley National Park . Two divers disappeared in Devil's Hole in 1965. Devil's Den Spring is a natural spring located in central Florida. I find it interesting that even with all of the follies present during their difficult crossing, Nusbaumer still found time to appreciate some of the regions more unusual geological offerings. The geothermal abyss is home to the endangered Devils Hole pupfish -- the rarest known pupfish in the world. Even in 1965, only those with diving permits were allowed to enter the hole, but the boys ignored the warning signs and lowered themselves down to the rock shelf. A few years after the 1965 deaths, Charles Manson convinced his followers to set in motion a bogus race war through the Tate-LaBianca murders in LA. The 2010 study, which took over more than ten years to develop was, in part, driven by the effort to site a high-level nuclear waste repository deep within Yucca Mountain, located directly north of Ash Meadows. Devils Hole sounds like a scary place, but it's really a sanctuary. Cookie Notice [8], On June 20, 1965, during the second dive of a rescue and then body recovery mission, Jim Houtz with his dive partner, dropped a weighted depth line to a depth of 932 feet (284m) from the start of this opening, without hitting the bottom of the chamber below. Waves come crashing through the blowhole, so if you time your visit right, it can be quite a spectacle. The Devil's Throat is considered a "must dive" experience by . A 2002 US Geological Survey report, Connectivity in Desert Aquatic Systems: The Devils Hole Story, alongside a deep dive into the fate of the divers from the Mojave Project by Kim Stringfellow, reveals the extraordinary story of Devils Hole. Alters brother remained stationed on the ledge in case anything went wrong. But down at 325 feet thats where I found the remainder of some of the gear right there, just as big as life. Extending into the earth from the base of an unnamed. Acree's Chasm is approximately 300 feet (91m) in length, 40 feet (12m) in width, and has a bottom approximately 260 feet (79m) below the surface.[5][6]. With the population last. The ancient alkaline waters contained within this interrelated hydrological system are pushed upward into the desert along fault lines at select geographical points, engendering a series of beautifully fragile springs and seeps. ). The walls are limestone. On its surface, a gap in the rock the size of a living room drops down 30 feet to a limestone shelf and hot water pool. Similar studies had been done in Devils Hole but are no longer permitted due to the endangered status of the Devils Hole pupfish. All they know is that these are water-filled caves. [6], On March 20, 2012, a 7.4-magnitude earthquake in Oaxaca, Mexico, some 2,000 miles (3,200km) away and centered roughly 12 miles (19km) below the surface, caused an undulating 4 feet (1.2m) rise and fall of the cavern waters, as appreciated by researchers working at Devils Hole at the time. The captured video shows the pools water, pupfish and algae mats as they are sucked down into the chasm repeatedly until several minutes later the water levels returned to normal. It was first explored underwater to a depth of 70 feet (21m) by divers from the Southwestern Speleological Society in February 1961. This particular ojo de agua or as one scientific paper stated, skylight to the water table,[14] is a mysterious portal offering us a glimpse into deep time and the third largest carbonate aquifer system in the U.S. The Devils Hole pupfish. Even a big trailer that served food. Additionally, it provides a firm indication of when the roof of Devils Hole caved inward, as it is known that this formation abruptly stopped precipitating some 60,000 years ago here when it was exposed to dry air and other external forces. The Southern Paiute branch of the Shoshone, ancestors of contemporary Timbisha People, later took up seasonal residence here until they were displaced, for the most part, by Euro-American settlers after the mid-nineteenth century. To illustrate the interconnectivity of the Death Valley Regional Groundwater Flow System as well as its connectivity to the rest of the planet, one should consider the rare occurrences of remote seismic events that jolt the otherwise placid waters of Devils Hole. From incredible geysers to jaw-dropping mountain ranges, there's no protected area in our state that has both a creepy and fascinating history like this one: On the run, according to Atlas Obscura, he reportedly scoped out the cave as a shelter for his delusional and murderous Family. Manson would be caught a few months later hiding under a sink at his hideout at nearby Barker Ranch in October 1969. The military, state police. This article is co-published with KCET Artbound. [10] In March 2017, underwater cinematographer Jonathan Bird received permission to assist scientists in a four-day expedition to take water and calcite core samples. By rejecting non-essential cookies, Reddit may still use certain cookies to ensure the proper functionality of our platform. Although Id personally not associate the magical Devils Hole with Charles Manson, it is interesting to note that he spent several days here scheming a way to enter the chasm. It goes straight down 160 feet, like a pipe, then opens into a room that is about 300 feet long, and maybe forty feet wide. The 1-inch metallic blue fish with iridescent eyes lives only in the upper 80 feet of the cavern, and spawns on the rock ledge that forms a sun-dappled shallow pool at the caverns entrance. I'd love to hear about it.Contact: mojavemysteries (at) gmail.comCopyright 2017 Mojave Mysteries. Fish and Wildlife Service Explore Search. Quartz. A man's body has been found near a notorious Queensland swimming hole known as Devils Pool two days after a camper disappeared. The government won a lawsuit in 1976 to prevent further development of the land and extraction of water to preserve the unique habitat. Devils Hole "may be the smallest habitat in the world containing the entire population of a vertebrate species". At the time, a 10-foot fence protected Devils Hole. Rather, she said that this particular story was told to her by other tribal elders. Their publicized disappearance set into motion a series of revelations concerning deep time, interconnected hydrogeological sublimity, time-traveling Indigenous shamans, distant seismic events, genetic conundrums, capitalistic greed and consequent environmental exploitation. The search for a missing 18-year-old girl who vanished at a 'cursed' swimming hole has ended in tragedy as her body has been pulled from the water. "At 8.20am (AEDT) this morning police divers located the body of a scuba diver on the bottom of the sea floor off South Head roughly in the same position as the diver went missing yesterday," said . These activities have produced prolific amounts of toxic radioactive and chemical contaminantssome of which are known to persist within the environment for tens of thousands of years. Normally, the nocturnal visitors would have been caught by a motion sensor that triggered a loud alarm. Photo: ABC. A 1987 LA Times feature on the hole concluded that at one time the area was lush, fertile land of lakes and rivers. He just kept going down. Bronze colors, every color in the rainbow, he said. It seems that Manson had an ongoing obsession to locate Death Valleys portal to the underworld, where he and his Family adherents could wait out the coming apocalypse set in motion by their race war. The problem was that hed need to figure out a way to drain it. I said, Im going to recover the rest of this equipment and Ill do one more thing to confirm. A resident of La Quinta, California, Jaskulski was a respected leader in the diving community. But before we move along too far lets get back to the plight of those boys. When the bottom of Devils Hole is one day found, the skeletons of two brothers-in-law may finally be recovered, fathoms below the frolicking pupfish. Behrman tells the story of a group of scuba divers who went missing in Death Valleys Devils Hole, a mysterious watering spot steeped in Native American legends and myths. Devil's hole is a very impressive place. The area hosts the former NTS and Death Valley National Park (DVNP)both federally funded institutions with contrasting, and often drastically conflicting, operational agendas. Sometime after midnight, Giancontieri failed to resurface, so Rose and Alter quickly re-dove in a vain attempt to locate their missing friend. [17] This was not the first or last time this type of seismic event would occur here, suggesting that complex interrelated geological machinations deep at work within the earths crust are connected to far distant geographical points and are more complicated than we can ever imagine. The cable was installed by the Devils Hole Dive Team in January 2009, and has been in place since that installation. using hot water and Steramine followed by at least 30 days of air-drying is required by the National Park Service to prevent contamination of the underwater ecosystem. A team of paleoclimatologists from the University of Innsbruck have been collecting and dating calcite mineral deposits here since 2010. Photographer. The sink is about 18 meters in diameter with the water level about 15 meters from the top of the sink. Snow melt or rain percolates through the ground, entering an aquifer, and 10,000 years later, 1 molecule of water arrives. The hole, later termed the ojo de agua, is 315 feet (96m) below the surface and just large enough for a diver with equipment to fit through. Next thing you know, were flying and the hatch isnt even closed. The Devil's Throat (Spanish: La Garganta del Diablo) is an underwater cave formation near the island of Cozumel, Mexico, at Punta Sur in the Arrecifes de Cozumel National Park; it starts at approximately 80 feet (24 m) of depth and opens up at approximately 135 ft (41 m) - right at the edge of recreational dive limits.. Overview. In early 2013, the population dwindled to a record low 35 pupfish. The 12,000-foot Spring Mountains range, located to the east and southeast of Ash Meadows, along with the Pahranagat, Sheep and other smaller eastern ranges, are the primary high-elevation source for groundwater discharged in the region. Park diver dies after swim test incident. I went to the surface and notified everybody about what we found. Its unclear if the boys knew about the pupfish that day, but they almost certainly endangered the entire species fragile existence as they lowered themselves into the water. I know it goes down to over 900 feet. A hidden lake below the desert; an ancient seismic event; a group of kids from Las Vegas making bad choices; and one of the rarest animals on Earth the Devils Hole pupfish. It also was reputedly a favorite spot for serial killer Charles Manson to visit, enthralled by the legend of an ancient underground city that supposedly could be reached by entering the holes dark waters. [6] In spite of this, no firm paleohydrogeological evidence so far supports an inflow or overflow connection here from a pluvial waterbody that would have provided a conduit for colonization.[7]. The fish mainly live near the surface on the rocky shelf, at a depth of 1.14 feet, and feed on the Spirogyra and Plectonemaalgae that grow on the rocky sides of the pool, but scuba divers . The Devil's Sea, also known as the Dragon's Triangle, is one of such sailors' nightmares in the waters around the world. Shortly into the dive, at an unknown depth, Bill noticed his oxygen supply was already running low. [5] Christopher J. Norment, Relicts of a Beautiful Sea: Survival, Extinction, and Conservation in a Desert World (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014), 124. [20] Conflicts of the ownership and use of the groundwater around Devils Hole caused litigation in the 1980s. As this water ever so slowly filters down into the carbonate rock aquifer, it becomes increasingly alkaline over time. In the researcher's recordings from March 2012, results revealed water levels continuously rising and dropping. Although genetically similar to C. nevadensis mionectes, Devils Hole pupfish differ in that they are dwarfed and exhibit neotenous or juvenile characteristics with their large heads and eyes. In March 2012, the NPS reported that cameras set up at the hole captured a tiny tsunami in the pond, in which the water sucked into the cave before surging up 4 feet. It was a very sad, very solemn moment. The bodies of the brothers-in-law were never to be recovered. Jaskulski, 72, had been a key member of the Devils Hole Dive Team since 1992. The US Geological Survey writes that the first human inhabitants of Death Valley the Timbisha people told ancient myths warning children of water babies in the hole that would swallow children if they bathed for too long in the pond. We dont know what the next room is, or if its a room at all. To this day, no one knows how deep the cave goes. Their bodies have never been recovered. No One Knows For Sure How Deep It Is Photo: Stan Shebs / Wikimedia / CC BY SA 3.0 Maanvi Singh in San Francisco. In Death Valley National Park, Devil's Hole is a tiny spot of water in an otherwise desolate and inhospitable environment. P. Barrett. The Divers Alert Network named him diver of the year in 2004. Later I found another item from the other diver. [14] Riggs and Deacon, Connectivity in Desert Aquatic Ecosystems, 1. On March 20, 2012, several field biologists conducting research within the cavern witnessed one such event firsthand, catching an underground tsunami on video just after 11 a.m. At that point, the Devils Hole opens up wide, and I can tell you one thing. The depth of Devils Hole, a fossil water portal into an ancient aquifer in Nye County, Nevada is still not known. The cavern's ominous reputation was sealed when Charles Manson selected the Hole as his potential refuge during the end times. A hydrogeologic cross-section illustrating the vastness of the Death Valley Regional Groundwater Flow System (USGS). The Great Blue Hole off the coast of Belize is the world's biggest ocean sinkhole, measuring 1,000 feet across and over 400 feet in depth. Devil's Den Spring. [13], Located 650 feet (200m) north of Devils Hole is a separate cave system called Devils Hole Cave (#2). [18] Joe Hatfield, Oasis near Death Valley fed by ancient aquifer under Nevada Test Site, study shows, BYU News, June 1, 2010, https://news.byu.edu/news/oasis-near-death-valley-fed-ancient-aquifer-under-nevada-test-site-study-shows. DEATH VALLEY, CA - A long-term Death Valley National Park volunteer passed away on Saturday following complications while participating in a routine swim test to maintain his National Park Service dive certification. Rub your hands against it and itll take the skin right off. We dont know what the next room is, or if its a room at all. It is part of an extensive underground water system. Another crazy fact about Devils Hole is that it is capable of underground tsunamis. Flowing southwesterly and circuitously under the irrevocably damaged lands of the Nevada Test Site (NTS)now known as the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS)the water is forced up to the light of day when it encounters the Gravity Fault that blocks its path further west. So I made one dive to the last little ledge at 325 feet. All rights reserved. The reason why you may not have heard of this little fish is that it is only found in this geothermic pool in the middle of a desert. Visit Artbounds Mojave Project page here. During an oral interview conducted by the author at the Timbisha Village in Death Valley National Park on October 20, 2015, Ms. Durham said that she did not personally play or swim in Devils Hole as a child, as this paper incorrectly states. A wild Devils Hole pupfish forages along a mat of Spirogyra algae, the main food for the few hundred individuals living in Devils Hole. I dived to 315 feet, maybe its a record, I dont know, but at the end of the tube it opens again into something else. One was a Senators son. At the entrance to the valley to the right is a hole in the rocks which contains magnificent warm water in which I enjoyed an extremely refreshing bath, a prospector named Louis Nusbaumer once wrote, according to the 2002 US Geological Survey report. This side tube proceeds approximately 90 feet (27m) upward to a chamber with an air pocket, named Brown's Room. Click here to learn about Indigenous acknowledgment & the lands you occupy. The photograph of the diver was taken in April 2015 by Brett Seymour (NPS) and provided courtesy of the National Park Service. The Devils Hole detached unit of Death Valley National Park is habitat for the only naturally occurring population of the endangered Devils Hole Pupfish (Cyprinodon diabolis). Its like infinity: Inside the historic tragedy at Death Valley's Devils Hole, Image via Getty Images; Illustration by SFGATE, Stephen Osman/Los Angeles Times via Getty Imag, Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times via Getty Imag, Image via Getty & Newspapers.com; Illustration by SFGATE, Horoscope for Friday, 3/03/23 by Christopher Renstrom, No seriously, dont drive up to Tahoe this weekend, Snowboarder dies at Tahoe ski resort following historic blizzard, Horoscope for Saturday, 3/04/23 by Christopher Renstrom, Wife of Jeffrey Vandergrift issues somber update, The Warriors broke Russell Westbrook, just like old times, Oakland ransomware attackers leak 'confidential' data, Mochi muffin bakery closes SF cafe after just 4 months, Even Salesforces tower HQ isnt safe from office cuts, Scream publicity stunt floods Bay Area dispatch with 911 calls, The best fried chicken is at a San Francisco strip club, American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists, Officials warn Bay Area travelers to avoid Tahoe this weekend, expect delays, Amazon to shutter all Amazon Go stores in San Francisco, Snowboarder dies at Tahoe's Heavenly ski resort following recent blizzard, Wife of missing San Francisco DJ Jeffrey Vandergrift issues somber update, Russell Westbrook must have been seeing ghosts against the Warriors, Your Privacy Choices (Opt Out of Sale/Targeted Ads). You should plan on bringing vertical gear to get in and out of the sink (there is an old ladder but not really safe! Today, there are modest signs that the population is growing; the last population count was 136. Consider that one of the most common morphemes used in the Western Shoshone and Southern Paiute languages is paa (pa- water). A British man and his teenage son, who went missing while diving in Malaysia, surfaced before drifting away, the only known survivor of the group has said as the search for them enters the third day. An illustration printed in various newspapers alongside articles reporting the death of the two amateur divers in June, 1965. So I was at the Newport Harbor Yacht Club giving a presentation on diving I have sixty, seventy people and a call came in from the Federal Government. We had four guys. It goes straight down 160 feet, like a pipe, then opens into a room, the explorer told reporters in 1965. Its a drunken state, and you get lightheaded. Devils Hole pupfish (Cyprinodon diabolis) live in the upper 80 feet of a deep water-filled cavern and sun-lit shallow shelf at the cavern's entrance, making this the smallest range of any vertebrate species on the planet. [4] The pool has frequently experienced activity due to far away earthquakes in Japan, Indonesia, Mexico, and Chile, which have been likened to extremely small scale tsunamis. At almost an inch long, C. diabolis are the smallest known pupfish in the world. The cultural significance of Devils Hole for the Timbisha was apparent; tales arose warning children of water babies who would surface and swallow them if they dared to remain in the pool too long[2]. The bottom of Acree's Chamber lies around 260 feet (79m) below the surface, but is not flat. Continue reading this dispatch in Divining Devils Hole Part II. Giancontieri and Rose were gone. Any views, findings and conclusions expressed in this publication are those of their respective authors and do not necessarily represent the views of California Humanities, The National Endowment for the Humanities or any of our other project partners. As these Ice Age lakes and riverine systems retreated, drying out over extended periods of increasing aridity, isolated populations of various species were left to evolve in genetic isolationincluding the nine known Death Valley pupfish species and subspecies, of which eight currently remain. Devil's Den is privately owned, and is operated as a SCUBA diving and snorkeling site. Devils Hole is habitat for the only naturally occurring population of the endangered Devils Hole pupfish ( Cyprinodon diabolis ). The bottom of the room is about 260 feet down, then it narrows into another tube. Immediately after passing the funnel into Acree's Chamber, a narrow side tube can be found to a diver's left. The shelf is covered with less than two feet of, on average, 92.3 Fahrenheit water containing very little dissolved oxygen. The temperature of the water at the geothermal pool remains at about 92 degrees year round, not much cooler than the human body. Divers at Devils Hole By Ecosystems. [11] The IMAX footage was included in the 2020 film Ancient Caves and extra footage was used to create the video documentary Exploring Devils Hole on YouTube. He could have also been describing the shelves of protruding folia found in the air-filled chambercalled Browns Roomthat glow like opalescent bracket fungi when exposed to artificial light. 3.41. Heres how Houtz himself described the holes underground topography to the AP: Its beautiful in there. Named "Devil's Hole", this anomaly has played host to everything from Native American creature tales to being . Divers prepare to descend into Devils Hole to conduct research on the endangered Devils Hole pupfish. Missing Divers, Charles Manson, & the Rarest Fish in the World - YouTube 0:00 / 23:24 Missing Divers, Charles Manson, & the Rarest Fish in the World Ask a Mortician 1.95M subscribers 1.1M. Two never came back out, although divers attempted to rescue them in the event they were stuck in an air pocket called Brown's Room. In an intoxicated, mischief-filled adventure, reported by the NPS,(one the men barely remembered when arrested days later), they shot out the surveillance camera, scaled the fence, stripped naked and punched each other in the balls. Devils Hole is an oasis within Death Valley unlike any other in the world. Closer to home, but far more disturbing, are the results of a recent study conducted by researchers at Brigham Young University, published in the Journal of Hydrology in 2010, confirming earlier suspicions that water arriving at Ash Meadows is completing a 15,000-year journey, flowing slowly underground from what is now the Nevada Test Site.[18] Although scientists presume that it will take an additional 15,000 years for the NTS radionuclide-laden waters to reach Devils Hole and other interconnected spring complexes, it is extremely disconcerting from a mindful perspective that our past actions will wreak havoc for our descendants and the rest of the living creatures and plant life well into the future. Rangers and a sheriffs search and rescue posse got to the hole in the early hours, telling reporters there was a slim chance the missing boys may be sustained by air pockets in the hole. A search team of five divers, led by Houtz, worked in 105 degree heat through the day to no avail. [15] Unnamed Western Shoshone consultant quoted in Catherine S. Fowler, Native Americans and Yucca Mountain, Volume I, Cultural Resource Consultants, Ltd., Reno, NV, October 1991. Andrew has written for The Atlantic, Vice, SF Weekly, the San Francisco Chronicle, McSweeney's, The Bold Italic, Drowned in Sound and many other places. Around that time Houtz suggested that the source of water there may be limitless, and in an astute prediction of the coming times of drought, that it could one day save Southern California. [12] The folia, another carbonate morphology created by subtle waxing and waning of semidiurnal tidal movements and water-level changes, serve as a record of water-table fluctuations formed over the last 120,000 years. One test well drilled in the area (for irrigation of the land, of all things) caused the water level to drop. Blues, so blue, they are nearly white. Other legends suggested that Tsoapittse, a legendary malevolent giant who dwelled at mountain springs and caves, would snatch and devour unwary victims. Jim Houtz reconnoitered to a depth of 315 feet, then a record, but found no bodies. Police say about 20 people have died after . Special thanks for Jim Houtz for sharing his diving stories and scrapbook for this dispatch. The ancestors of todays desert pupfish are thought to have colonized the American Southwest more than two million years ago via the Colorado River and other tributaries, when a system of interconnected pluvial lakes and marshes spread across the landscape. Hundreds of extremely rare fish were recently discovered in Nevada after an earthquake revealed their location. When Bill Alter came up for the second time, he realized he was now the only diver to surface. A newspaper illustration of Devils Hole based on Houtzs original map rendering published in 1965. A three-man team, led by Walter S. Chamberlin of the The Devils Hole pupfish first was identified in 1930. Bill Branon. Haunted 'Devil's Pool' in Cairns rainforest has claimed at least 19 lives Aboriginal lore says spirit of a heartbroken woman lures men to their deaths Of the 19 deaths, 17 have reportedly been men . Warning! But love can take root in even the most barren soil, and it . There's something magical in knowing corners of the planet remain unmapped. Paiute directly translates as people of the water. Indeed, both tribes, through ancient oral traditions and songs, share a mythographic or memory map of the landscape that positioned key springs and other water resources throughout the area included within the Death Valley Regional Groundwater Flow Systemnow largely forbidden and inaccessible to them in areas now controlled by federal government agencies such as the NTS, Nellis Air Force Range and DVNP.[19]. Large earthquakes as far away as Japan, Indonesia and Chile have caused the water to 'slosh' in Devils Hole like water in a bathtub. In 1962, after the death of two divers, the entire area was fenced off. In the high transmissivity zone of Frenchman Flat alone, it is estimated that 90,000 acre-feet of water lies beneath this traumatized and pitted landscape used for nuclear weaponry testing between 1951-1992.