Speaking of quicksand, perhaps everyone will show the picture of a character in a movie being swallowed up by quicksand, constantly begging for help from others, the body will only sink deeper and deeper, until it drowns the whole person, and sometimes, it will leave a hat to render the atmosphere... The bridge section of quicksand "swallowing the living" frightened many viewers and even left a psychological shadow.
In the 1960s, quicksand-related movies emerged in an endless stream, and according to statistics, one in every 35 movies would add quicksand plots, and the "quicksand death method" was one of the favorite ways of death of directors of that era.
In the movie "Coco Xili", the patrol member Liu Dong fell into the clip of quicksand, the feeling of despair and helplessness is too real, there is no soundtrack and narration throughout the process, only the sound of struggle and sand, and finally the whole person is ruthlessly engulfed by the quicksand.
In the movie "New Dragon Gate Inn", there is also a plot of quicksand eating people, and the scene of Lin Qingxia being swallowed alive by the quicksand makes people feel extremely heart-wrenching.
In the movie scene, the quicksand seems to be a "bottomless pit", and the person who falls into the quicksand struggles deeper and deeper, until it is finally submerged without a trace. In fact, most people's impression of quicksand basically comes from various films, how did quicksand come about?
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="13" > the formation of quicksand</h1>
According to scientists, quicksand can occur anywhere as long as the conditions are right. The essence of quicksand is actually ordinary sand, but the friction between the sand particles is reduced, so that the sand has the characteristics of rapid "movement".
In nature, there are two main factors in the formation of quicksand:
earthquake
The powerful force of the earthquake will make the friction between the sand or dirt less, and under the gravity of the objects on the surface of the sand, the sand will loosen and sink or collapse.
It is recorded that in 1692, the port of Royal in Jamaica had a tragedy in which quicksand was formed due to the liquefaction of the soil caused by an earthquake, which eventually led to the engulfment of 1/3 of the city and the loss of 2,000 people.
Flowing groundwater
The force generated by the upward flow of groundwater overcomes gravity, making it easier for sand grains to float and form liquefied soil. Sand is easily moved after being soaked in water, resulting in quicksand.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" Data-track="74" > do quicksand swallowers really exist? </h1>
In fact, as early as 2005, the British science weekly "Nature" published a paper study, scientists from the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands through a number of experimental arguments, the film in the quicksand swallowed the exaggerated scene of living people has no scientific basis.
Scientists brought back quicksand samples from the Iranian desert, found that the quicksand is mainly composed of fine sand, clay and salt water, they built a new quicksand model in the laboratory, the study found that objects smaller than the average density of quicksand will float on the surface of the quicksand, and the density of quicksand is much larger than the human body, scientists infer that even in the worst case, the human body will not be completely submerged in the quicksand, at most it will only sink part of it.
However, it is not that the plot in the movie is completely fictional, quicksand is a solid, but it will also flow like a liquid, the quicksand that is infiltrated into the water has the properties of a non-Newtonian fluid, encountering violent motion interference, will increase the stickiness of the quicksand, falling into the quicksand and struggling vigorously will indeed make people sink deeper and deeper.
In the nature paper, scientists also concluded that if a person's lower body is completely trapped in quicksand, it is very difficult to pull it out at once. If pulled out at a speed of one centimeter per second, it would require about 100,000 newtons of force, which is equivalent to lifting a car weighing 10 tons.
But scientists from the Zurich Institute of Technology in Switzerland and the Federal University of Ceará in Brazil, after conducting fieldwork in a national park quicksand site in Brazil, refute the nature article, and they found that people and animals quickly sink to the bottom of the quicksand after falling into quicksand.
Fortunately, the observed quicksand depth is only 1 meter, and if there is a quicksand pool with a depth of more than 2 meters, it is not impossible for "quicksand to swallow people".
All in all, so far there are no examples of quicksand completely swallowing no one in reality, only half of the submerged at most (of course, children with a height of less than one meter are not necessarily), and the pictures we see are exaggerated performances of film and television works.
An American popular science TV show "Rumor Terminator", also did experiments to explore the power of "killing quicksand", they put 20,000 pounds of sand into a huge tin can, simulating the state of quicksand, one of the bearded hosts personally tested and found that quicksand is indeed buoyant, and people will not be completely submerged by quicksand.
However, quicksand has the characteristics of a non-Newtonian fluid, and if a person is trapped in quicksand, the situation is still very dangerous.
In real cases, the final cause of death of the trapped people trapped in the quicksand is not to be swallowed by the quicksand and die, but to die of drowning in the high tide unable to get out of the quicksand, or the human body is starved and dehydrated indirectly leads to death.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="79" > How to save yourself if you accidentally fall into quicksand? </h1>
Although falling into the quicksand will not be swallowed up, but if you continue to struggle and swing violently, it will only make the body sink deeper and deeper, accidentally fall into the quicksand, and you need to master the following skills when escaping:
First, stay calm
No matter what danger we encounter, the first thing we have to do is to stay calm and not panic! Unfortunately falling into quicksand and struggling wildly will only make the situation worse.
Second, lie flat on your body
Throw away the heavy objects on your body at the first time, keep lying on your back or lean forward, open your arms as much as possible, expand the area of contact between your body and quicksand, reduce the pressure on the quicksand, and try to grasp everything around you, such as branches, vines, etc., to avoid sinking deeper;
Then gently move your feet back and forth to allow the water in the quicksand to seep in to reduce the viscosity around you, try to pull one of your feet out of the quicksand and slowly crawl towards the non-quicksand area in a swimming position.
Third, be patient enough
In the process of self-rescue, it is very draining, and the movement must be "slow" when escaping from the quicksand, and it also requires enough patience. If the above operations can not help themselves out of trouble, it is recommended to save their physical strength, shout loudly for help, but do not give up, once you give up, it is really possible not to come out.
Adventurer Bell in a show "test the risk", personally demonstrated how to save themselves when caught in quicksand, and demonstrated the whole thrilling process to us step by step.
In the process of querying the data, it was found that the current human understanding of quicksand is still not comprehensive enough, there are still many unknown quicksand in nature, and different forms of quicksand may have different consequences.
Friends who are exploring in the wild must be in awe of nature and life, not to underestimate the power of quicksand, and not to put themselves in danger.