What happens to the volume of a trapped gas as depth increases if no adjustments are made?

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Multiple Choice

What happens to the volume of a trapped gas as depth increases if no adjustments are made?

Explanation:
Gas volume changes with ambient pressure. When you descend, pressure increases, and a fixed amount of trapped gas is compressed if you don’t vent or adjust it. According to Boyle’s law (P1V1 = P2V2 at roughly constant temperature), increasing pressure means decreasing volume: at about 10 meters of seawater depth the pressure is roughly 2 atm, so the gas volume is about half; at 20 meters it’s about a third, and so on. So, without any adjustments, the volume of the trapped gas decreases as depth increases.

Gas volume changes with ambient pressure. When you descend, pressure increases, and a fixed amount of trapped gas is compressed if you don’t vent or adjust it. According to Boyle’s law (P1V1 = P2V2 at roughly constant temperature), increasing pressure means decreasing volume: at about 10 meters of seawater depth the pressure is roughly 2 atm, so the gas volume is about half; at 20 meters it’s about a third, and so on. So, without any adjustments, the volume of the trapped gas decreases as depth increases.

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