Talk:Saturation diving

Better intro
It would help the naive reader, if this solution-oriented article mentioned what problem that saturation is trying to solve. I'm guessing it has something to do with "the bends", i.e., decompression sickness. Could we say something about that in the intro, please? --Uncle Ed (talk) 13:04, 12 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Good point, Ed. I'm uncomfortable adding information to the lead that isn't covered in the main part of the article, so I've added an introductory section about decompression sickness. Hopefully this will go some way to making the article clearer. Please feel free to edit it mercilessly if you can improve it. --RexxS (talk) 14:19, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

External links modified
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Preparation for GAN
This is a top importance article for WPSCUBA. I would like to get it ready for Good Article Nomination. Any suggestions for improvements welcome, and similarly any edits which improve the article in any way, like citations. &bull; &bull; &bull; Peter (Southwood) (talk): 17:16, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
 * , I've slightly tweaked the File:NORSOK saturation decompression.svg to fix the duplicated 3 day marker (second one should have been 3 days 18 hours) and to try to get the rendered fonts not to overlap at some resolutions. I cut the minutes from the elapsed time (as they were always zero) to give a little more separation. See if you think it's an improvement - if not, just revert my upload on Commons. Cheers --RexxS (talk) 16:42, 26 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Looks fine, Thanks. &bull; &bull; &bull; Peter (Southwood) (talk): 17:13, 26 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Looks fine, Thanks. &bull; &bull; &bull; Peter (Southwood) (talk): 17:13, 26 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Looks fine, Thanks. &bull; &bull; &bull; Peter (Southwood) (talk): 17:13, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

Assessment for B-class
Looks good, will upgrade. &bull; &bull; &bull; Peter (Southwood) (talk): 09:53, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

History (End & Nohl)
The Article currently speaks of E.End and M.Nohl "spending 27 hours breathing air at 101 feet (31 m) in the County Emergency Hospital". Now the meaning of "at 101 feet" needs to be explained further to be understandable to a layman. My guess is, what is meant is: "air at a pressure equivalent to a depth of 101 feet under water". Probably in a pressure chamber, as I find it unlikely that a hospital should have a water tank over 100 ft deep. --BjKa (talk) 11:12, 14 February 2017 (UTC)
 * What it actually says is County Emergency Hospital recompression facility. However, the units should be fsw and msw as they refer to pressure, not depth. Do you consider this sufficiently clear, or should we specify that a hospital recompression facility is not underwater? I will add a link anyway. &bull; &bull; &bull; Peter (Southwood) (talk): 19:40, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Record depth

 * What is the record depth? In the History section it talks about 690 metres, but in the "Depth records" section it says the record is only 534 metres. I suspect the History section is worded wrongly, and that the divers didn't actually dive at all, since it was at the Duke University Medical Center! Eric Kvaalen (talk) 12:53, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

I decided to look at the reference, and it's clear that it was not a real dive. I will modify the article in accordance. Eric Kvaalen (talk) 14:56, 27 July 2017 (UTC)


 * , it was not an open water dive. Probably dry, certainly in a chamber, but there are a few chambers with wet sections. I don't know the installation, but if it was at Duke there may well be something at the Rubicon Research Repository or you could ping who used to work there. In the diving community a chamber compression is commonly referred to as a dive, and by some legislation is also legally a dive. So the reality is maybe a little arguable. I tend to use the terminology of the industry, and so do many other editors. I don't remember whether this is defined anywhere on Wikipedia, I will see if I can find anything. Cheers, &bull; &bull; &bull; Peter (Southwood) (talk): 19:51, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
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Come on!
...and all those sections of referenced text! - Snori (talk) 07:39, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
 * No mention of voice changes with heliox?
 * Linked to Diver communications. Will this do or should I expand the section in this article too?
 * And ""helium de-scrambler"s aka heliphones?
 * see above
 * Nothing about the North Sea?
 * Added a new section on "Applications" and linked to other articles, but need references for some local content. My feeling is that the North sea is a bit tangential to this article, maybe more relevant to Offshore commercial diving, but you are the reader, what do you think?
 * Pay? Hint: Why Do You Think People Do This...
 * I know why people do this. It is big money when you can get the work, but high risk and not what I would do for fun. What can be said that is encyclopaedic and is well-referenced?


 * , I am not getting your point here. Are you proposing some improvements? &middot; &middot; &middot; Peter (Southwood) (talk): 13:56, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
 * I was surprised to find such an interesting topic had a long article - but it seemed not to include many of the things that I find interesting about it. My preference is for readability for the average Wikipedia reader. My guess is that you're much more a Subject Matter Expert than I am, but yes, I will try to make some improvements at some point in the next week or so. I'll likely just Be Bold, so of course revert me if I do any actual harm to the article. - Snori (talk) 16:34, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Go ahead . I am going to amend your changes to the lead a bit as I think you have removed too much and it does not sufficiently summarise the article. Feel free to create new sections where you think encyclopaedic information is lacking, and if you have good references we can work from them. One thing that I will point out is that saturation diving may be best known currently for offshore diving, but originally was used in much shallower habitat applications, so the current lead is a bit misleading. I have no problem with providing things that will interest the average reader, but as you surmise, I am a bit non-average when it comes to diving, and though I have never been a sat diver, I am fairly familiar with the theory and history. Please take a look at the commercial offshore diving article, it may have some of the stuff you were looking for. You may also fid relevant material in diver communications. Maybe it is inadequately linked. Cheers, &middot; &middot; &middot; Peter (Southwood) (talk): 16:57, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
 * It was inadequately linked, so your comments have already helped improve the article. I would really appreciate if you would list any other things that should and could be improved. Customer feedback is useful to improve the service.&middot; &middot; &middot; Peter (Southwood) (talk): 17:56, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Good stuff, nice to see that we can work together - just a pity that I have limited time for editing. - Snori (talk) 18:24, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
 * If you are short of time, focus on suggestions, and if you can find accessible references, list them. Cheers, &middot; &middot; &middot; Peter (Southwood) (talk): 07:25, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Saturation diving
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Saturation diving's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "CoP Training": From List of legislation regulating underwater diving:  From Underwater diving:  

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 04:44, 7 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Effectively identical. No problem. Fixed. &middot; &middot; &middot; Peter (Southwood) (talk): 13:56, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

English grammar
I see that my checking for spelling and grammar is undesirable. No wonder the American Education system is the way it is. The very idea of knowing the English language is not required.Presario2200 (talk) 13:12, 11 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Your breaking of file links and changing from one perfectly acceptable variety of English to another is what resulted in your edit being reverted. Please have a read of WP:ENGVAR. --RexxS (talk) 21:16, 11 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Your breaking of file links and changing from one perfectly acceptable variety of English to another is what resulted in your edit being reverted. Please have a read of WP:ENGVAR. --RexxS (talk) 21:16, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

Lead images
Both of the lead images, taken 12 months apart, are of Navy divers working on USS Monitor, which is at a depth of 230 ft. There is no way that a working diver will not be doing saturation diving to do jobs at that depth. The earlier image specifically states "Staples and other U.S. Navy saturation divers are working around the clock ...". In both pictures you can clearly see the diver's umbilical which is supplying hot water, comms and their breathing gas, which is almost certainly heliox for a USN diver working at depth. In any case, saturation diving does not depend on the gas breathed. I'm satisfied that the later image is representative of a saturation diver, so I'll restore it. --RexxS (talk) 00:19, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Saturation diving
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Saturation diving's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "Scubadoc": From Thermodynamic model of decompression: – Bruce Wienke describes the differences between RGBM and VPM From Diving disorders:  

Reference named "Bennett1974": From Trimix (breathing gas): </li> <li>From Compression arthralgia: </li> </ul>

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 01:48, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

Editing intro paragraph for clarity
Hi all. Complete outsider to this subject but stumbled onto it while looking for information.

The introduction is kinda.....odd. It describes the practice (diving for periods long enough to allow complete equilibration of gases in the body) but the reason provided doesn't seem to match ("reduce the total time spent undergoing decompression").

My understanding, correct me if I'm wrong, is that the point of saturation diving (combined with underwater habitats) is to reduce the number of decompressions that divers would need to go through for time efficiency and safety. Essentially, why bother compressing/decompressing the divers after each dive when you could just have them rest in a compressed environment between work shifts and only compress/decompress them at the beginning and end of the job

If so, I'd like to rewrite the intro paragraph a bit to reflect that.

Saturation diving is diving for periods long enough to bring all tissues into equilibrium with the partial pressures of the inert components of the breathing gas used. It is a diving technique that reduces the number of decompressions divers working at great depths must undergo by only decompressing divers once at the end, having them remain under pressure for the extent of the diving operation (which may last days to weeks). A diver breathing pressurized gas accumulates dissolved inert gas (used in the mixture to dilute the oxygen to a non-toxic level in their tissues) which can cause decompression sickness ("the bends") if permitted to come out of solution within the body tissues; hence, returning to the surface safely requires lengthy decompression so that the inert gases can be eliminated via the lungs. Once the dissolved gases in a diver's tissues reach the saturation point, however, decompression time does not increase with further exposure, as no more inert gas is accumulated.

Saturation diving takes advantage of this by having divers remain in that saturated state. When not in the water, the divers live in a sealed environment which maintains their pressurised state; this can be an ambient pressure underwater habitat or a saturation system on the surface (with transfer to and from the pressurised living quarters to the equivalent depth underwater via a closed, pressurised diving bell). This may be maintained for up to several weeks, and divers are decompressed to surface pressure only once, at the end of their tour of duty. By limiting the number of decompressions in this way, the risk of decompression sickness is significantly reduced, and the total time spent decompressing is minimised. Saturation divers typically breathe a helium–oxygen mixture to prevent nitrogen narcosis, but at shallow depths saturation diving has been done on nitrox mixtures.

Saturation diving is a very specialized form of diving; of the 3,300 commercial divers employed in the United States in 2015, only 336 were saturation divers.

Thoughts on this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jasonkwe (talk • contribs) 18:21, 28 May 2022 (UTC)


 * , your comments are relevant and your suggestion looks appropriate. I will compare your suggested text to the existing text and probably make the edit, or something similar. Cheers, &middot; &middot; &middot; Peter Southwood (talk): 18:45, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
 * From what I can see it has been done already.&middot; &middot; &middot; Peter Southwood (talk): 12:37, 10 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I forgot about this and had to look back thru edits. Apparently I had posted this and then waited about a month.  Since there were no objections, I made the revisions.
 * Thanks for getting back to me though. I have absolutely zero experience in the field so I wanted to make sure I wasn't misunderstanding things! Jasonkwe (talk) (contribs) 17:05, 10 February 2024 (UTC)