A NOTE ABOUT SATURATION DIVING
A NOTE ABOUT SATURATION DIVINGThe air you breathe is about twenty-one percent oxygen and seventy-nine percent nitrogen. When you dive on SCUBA, your equipment supplies you with compressed air that matches the pressure of the water around you, which increases by about one atmosphere every thirty-three feet. So, at a thousand feet, air enters your lungs at about thirty atmospheres or 450 pounds per square inch (psi).
Normal air becomes toxic under too much pressure. When you inhale more oxygen than about twice the amount you would when breathing pure oxygen at the surface, the oxygen becomes toxic. This happens at about two-hundred feet when breathing compressed air. Furthermore, nitrogen becomes narcotic at about the same depth. This is a lethal combination:
