saturation diving

noun

1. a method of prolonged diving, using an underwater habitat to allow divers to remain in the high-pressure environment of the ocean depths long enough for their body tissues to become saturated with the inert components of the pressurized gas mixture that they breathe: when this condition is reached, the amount of time required for decompression remains the same, whether the dive lasts a day, a week, or a month.

noun

1. a method of diving in which divers live in a complex of decompression chambers for up to 28 days, going to work via a diving bell, and only decompressing at the end of the period. Helium is substituted for nitrogen in the air supply to avoid the narcotic effects of nitrogen