Why Everyone’s Talking the ‘Green Banana’ Off Florida’s Coast

Sprinkled across the ocean floor, invisible from the surface, are hundreds — or maybe thousands — of sink holes. These “blue holes,” as scientists call them, do not swallow up everything incapable of fighting their gravitational force, like their black hole cousins. But to those who study them, they are still nearly as intriguing.

This week, one particular blue hole — the Green Banana — has captured the imagination of many a land dweller. Headline after headline has offered a variation on the same theme: Scientists are flocking to a mysterious blue hole. One publication asked:“What Could It Be?”

What it is is the Green Banana, one of the deepest blue holes ever discovered, according to Jim Culter, a senior scientist at Mote Marine Laboratory, and it’s on the verge of being studied in the most comprehensive way yet.

Scientists will venture into the Green Banana’s depths next month, where they hope to answer longstanding questions about whether the sink hole — which extends around 275 feet, like an inverted, hourglass-shaped 20-story building, anchored in the ocean floor — connects to other sink holes and whether freshwater flows within.