Devil's Hole (North Sea)

Devil's Hole is a group of deep trenches in the North Sea about 200 kilometers (125 mi) east of Dundee, Scotland.

The features, which were first charted by HMS Fitzroy, were officially recorded in the Royal Geographical Society's Geographical Journal in 1931. Soundings showed that the surrounding seabed is between 80 and 90 meters (260 - 300 ft) but the trenches are as deep as 230 m (750 ft). They run in a north-south direction and are on average between 1 and 2 km (.6 - 1.25 mi) in width and 20 to 30 km (12 - 18 mi) long.

Historically fishermen have known about the Devil's Hole for generations because they have lost trawl nets on the trenches' steep sides. It's for this reason that the area took its name.

The trench sides in the Devil's Hole are steep - up to 10° in places. In a comparison, the Continental Slope northwest of Great Britain only has an average gradient of 1°.

References

• Alan Fyfe (Autumn 1983). "The Devil's Hole in the North Sea". The Edinburgh Geologist (14). http://www.edinburghgeolsoc.org/edingeologist/z_14_04.html/. Retrieved 2008-11-02. 

Coordinates: 56°38′N 0°40′E / 56.633°N 0.667°E / 56.633; 0.667