Hiking at too high a altitude can lead to altitude sickness, but what happens to those who decide to venture deep into the Earth?
In the past, miners and bridge engineers who often had to walk underground, their bodies were exposed to atmospheric pressure twice that of the surface, and damage occurred.
Even though it is the 21st century, there are still so many mysteries that people always dream of discovering.
The largest known deposit of rare earth metals in Europe has been discovered by a mining company in Sweden, near the Kiruna iron ore deposit, which is the largest of its kind.
`Your skin becomes noticeably drier, your ears ring and it’s hard to escape the feeling of isolation as you walk down a dark path, guided only by the reflectors on the gray stone walls
The symptoms should sound familiar to anyone who has ever flown, except that flying takes you very high in the sky, while this takes you straight down to the ground.
In a 2008 paper, scientists describe the deepest level below the Earth’s surface where humans can reach:
The deepest of these is the Mponeng gold mine, formerly known as the Western Deep gold mine, located in Johannesburg, South Africa.
At this depth, miners are battling temperatures that increase rapidly with depth.
Bridge builders had to work in high-pressure air to dig out the sediment without water flooding it.
However, temperature is only one part, one of the biggest challenges that humans face going deep underground is high pressure.
In fact, there were many deaths that occurred during the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge in New York, USA, many of whom suffered from caisson disease, also known by another name as decompression disease (CKD).
According to information from History, deaths from the disease initially occurred among urban miners and construction workers working underground on various excavation projects in New York City.
The debilitating symptoms were first called caisson disease because people who suffered from it were digging inside the chambers of the same name sunk deep beneath the East River.
Barotrauma is caused by moving from high pressure to low pressure in a short period of time.
Moving from an area of high pressure, such as the deepest part of a mine, to an area of low pressure, such as the surface, can create nitrogen gas bubbles in the body.
Common symptoms of decompression disease (CKD) include joint pain, bone destruction, marbled skin, stroke, paralysis, difficulty breathing and arterial air embolism… The good news is that if the condition
