Cave diver explores a Mexican sinkhole in atmospheric {photograph}

Cave diver exploring Chan Aktun Ha

Martin Broen

The Yucatán peninsula in south-east Mexico is riddled with holes. When an enormous asteroid struck Earth 66 million years in the past close to what’s now the city of Chicxulub, the impression created an enormous melancholy and prompted fracturing of the porous limestone bedrock. Over thousands and thousands of years, rainwater has dissolved the stone, creating underground rivers, caves and cenotes (sinkholes).

Photographer Martin Broen has explored 280 of the Yucatán’s cenotes, atmospheric pictures of that are collected in his e book Mild within the Underworld, out now within the US and on 17 September within the UK. This picture, taken in 2020, reveals the cave space of a cenote known as Chan Aktun Ha (a Mayan title which means “little water cave”) within the state of Quintana Roo. Right here, a cave diver is exploring amongst pristine stalactites and stalagmites.

“Throughout rain showers within the Mexican jungle, water washes tannin from the vegetation into the cenotes, making a tannic acid resolution,” says Broen. “These pure filters present a surreal inexperienced, yellow or crimson ambiance to the caverns.”

The shallow caves of the Yucatán Peninsula have been flooded for the previous 8000 years. “The extra I dive, the extra I uncover the wonder and secrets and techniques of those caves, uncovering distinctive fossils of extinct megafauna, indications of the primary Palaeo-People, and Mayan artefacts,” says Broen.

However, he provides, cenotes aren’t only a window into the previous however “the veins that carry all recent water within the area”. With air pollution, deforestation and growth all a risk, Broen hopes his pictures might help folks care about what lies beneath their ft.