With thousands of barrels of oil from the Deepwater Horizon disaster threatening America's previously idyllic gulf coast, we thought we'd take a look at super deep-sea oil-rig apparel. Humans can only descend to about two thousand feet--and even then we tend to go a bit mental--after that, despite breathing advanced mixes of exotic gases like hydreliox (composed of oxygen, helium and hydrogen), divers can experience tremors, nausea and mental impairment. Here are the latest trends in underwater exploration headwear.US NavyFor more traditional diving, the industry and navy have pretty much decided on a standard piece of headgear--the Kirby Morgan SuperLite®17B or militarized MK 21 diving helmet, pictured above. It's carbon-fiber reinforced and rated down to 330 feet, but unfortunately suffers from tacky, retro styling. Blame it on the ugly chrome faceplate, awkwardly-placed helmet weight on the forehead and excessive use of brass, which conspire to make you look like an underwater firefighter from the 1950s.Accessorising it with the chunky Hot Water Shroud helps a little, but overall we prefer some of Kirby Morgan's other models. These include the Darth Vader-esque KM77 (above) for deeper work, and the EXO BR® full face mask for more casual diving.Reminiscent of the waterproof 80s Walkmans, the EXO BR® encloses your eyes, nose and mouth in single space to make communication with the surface and other divers possible via a built-in comms module. You can use it for pretty serious stuff with a surface air connection, or with normal SCUBA gear, making it not bad for around £600. We also like the DESCO Air Hat (main image and below) for its simple lines, panoramic faceplate and bright Bauhaus colors. Extra nerd-cred comes courtesy of its use inside nuclear reactors by highly-specialized divers.You can order it in unfinished metal or customized to any color on the DuPont Imron color chart, but as DESCO's own "Common Sense Diving Hat Depth" points out you should only really take it down to 160ft, which really sucks.CHRIS HATHERILL is a co-director of Super-Collider
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