Discoveries at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. Who lives in the Mariana Trench? What hides the Mariana Trench
Despite the fact that the oceans are closer to us than the outer planets of the solar system, people explored only five percent of the ocean floor, which remains one of the greatest mysteries of our planet. deepest part ocean - Mariana Trench or Mariana Trenchis one of the most famous places about which we don't know much.
With water pressure that is a thousand times greater than at sea level, diving into this place is akin to suicide.
But thanks to modern technology and a few brave souls who, risking their lives, went down there, we learned a lot of interesting things about this amazing place.
Mariana Trench on the map. Where is she?
The Mariana Trench or the Mariana Trench is located in the western part Pacific Ocean to the east (about 200 km) from 15 Mariana Islands near Guam. It is a crescent-shaped trench in the earth's crust, about 2550 km long and 69 km wide on average.
Mariana Trench coordinates: 11°22′ north latitude and 142°35′ east longitude.
Depth of the Mariana Trench
According to the latest research in 2011, the depth of the deepest point of the Mariana Trench is about 10,994 meters ± 40 meters. For comparison, the height of the highest peak in the world - Everest is 8,848 meters. This means that if Everest were in the Mariana Trench, it would be covered by another 2.1 km of water.
Here are others Interesting Facts about what you can meet along the way and at the very bottom of the Mariana Trench.
Temperature at the bottom of the Mariana Trench
1. Very hot water
Going down to such a depth, we expect that it will be very cold there. The temperature here reaches just above zero, varying 1 to 4 degrees Celsius.
However, at a depth of about 1.6 km from the surface of the Pacific Ocean, there are hydrothermal vents called "black smokers". They shoot water that heats up to 450 degrees Celsius.
This water is rich in minerals that help support life in the area. Despite the temperature of the water, which is hundreds of degrees above the boiling point, she does not boil here due to incredible pressure, 155 times higher than on the surface.
Inhabitants of the Mariana Trench
2. Giant toxic amoeba
A few years ago, at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, they discovered giant 10-centimeter amoebas, called xenophyophores.
These single-celled organisms probably got so big because of the environment they live in at a depth of 10.6 km. The cold temperature, high pressure, and lack of sunlight most likely contributed to these amoeba got huge.
In addition, xenophyophores have incredible abilities. They are resistant to many elements and chemicals, including uranium, mercury and lead,which would kill other animals and people.
3. Clams
The strong water pressure in the Mariana Trench does not give any animal with a shell or bones a chance to survive. However, in 2012, shellfish were discovered in a trough near serpentine hydrothermal vents. Serpentine contains hydrogen and methane, which allows living organisms to form.
TO How did mollusks keep their shells under such pressure?, remains unknown.
In addition, hydrothermal vents release another gas, hydrogen sulfide, which is deadly to shellfish. However, they learned to bind the sulfur compound into a safe protein, which allowed the population of these mollusks to survive.
At the bottom of the Mariana Trench
4. Pure liquid carbon dioxide
hydrothermal source Champagne The Mariana Trench, which lies outside the Okinawa Trench near Taiwan, is the only known underwater area where liquid carbon dioxide can be found. The spring, discovered in 2005, got its name from the bubbles that turned out to be carbon dioxide.
Many believe that these springs, called "white smokers" because of the lower temperature, may be the source of life. It was in the depths of the oceans with low temperatures and an abundance of chemicals and energy that life could originate.
5. Slime
If we had the opportunity to swim to the very depths of the Mariana Trench, then we would feel that it covered with a layer of viscous mucus. Sand, in its usual form, does not exist there.
The bottom of the depression mainly consists of crushed shells and plankton residues that have accumulated at the bottom of the depression for many years. Due to the incredible pressure of the water, almost everything there turns into fine greyish-yellow thick mud.
Mariana Trench
6. Liquid sulfur
Volcano Daikoku, which is located at a depth of about 414 meters on the way to the Mariana Trench, is the source of one of the most rare events on our planet. Here is lake of pure molten sulfur. The only place where liquid sulfur can be found is Jupiter's moon Io.
In this pit, called "cauldron", a seething black emulsion boils at 187 degrees Celsius. Although scientists have not been able to explore this place in detail, it is possible that even more liquid sulfur is contained deeper. It may reveal the secret of the origin of life on Earth.
According to the Gaia hypothesis, our planet is one self-governing organism in which all living and non-living things are connected to support its life. If this hypothesis is correct, then a number of signals can be observed in the natural cycles and systems of the Earth. So the sulfur compounds created by organisms in the ocean must be stable enough in the water to allow them to pass into the air and back to land again.
7. Bridges
At the end of 2011, in the Mariana Trench, it was discovered four stone bridges, which stretched from one end to the other for 69 km. They appear to have formed at the junction of the Pacific and Philippine tectonic plates.
One of the bridges Dutton Ridge, which was discovered back in the 1980s, turned out to be incredibly high, like a small mountain. At the highest point the ridge reaches 2.5 km over the Challenger Deep.
Like many aspects of the Mariana Trench, the purpose of these bridges remains unclear. However, the very fact that these formations were discovered in one of the most mysterious and unexplored places is amazing.
8James Cameron's dive into the Mariana Trench
Since opening the deepest place in the Mariana Trench - "Challenger Deep" in 1875, only three people were here. The first was an American lieutenant Don Walsh and researcher Jacques Picard who dived on January 23, 1960 on the Trieste.
After 52 years, another person dared to dive here - a famous film director James Cameron. So March 26, 2012 Cameron went down to the bottom and took some photos.
All of us in childhood read many legends about incredible sea monsters that inhabit the ocean floor, always knowing that these are just fairy tales. But we were wrong! These incredible creatures can be found even today if you dive to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the deepest place on Earth. What hides the Mariana Trench and who are its mysterious inhabitants - read in our article.
The deepest place on the planet is the Mariana Trench or Mariana Trench- is located in the western part of the Pacific Ocean near Guam, east of the Mariana Islands, from which its name came. In its shape, the trench resembles a crescent moon, about 2550 km long and 69 km wide on average.
According to the latest data, the depth Mariana Trench is 10,994 meters ± 40 meters, which even exceeds the most high point on the planet - Everest (8,848 meters). So this mountain could well be placed at the bottom of the depression, moreover, about 2,000 meters of water would still remain above the top of the mountain. The pressure at the bottom of the Mariana Trench reaches 108.6 MPa - more than 1,100 times the normal atmospheric pressure.
A man only twice sank to the bottom Mariana Trench. The first dive was made on January 23, 1960 by US Navy Lieutenant Don Walsh and explorer Jacques Picard in the Trieste submersible. They stayed at the bottom for only 12 minutes, but even during this time they managed to meet flat fish, although according to all possible assumptions, life at such a depth should have been absent.
The second human dive was made on March 26, 2012. The third person who touched the mysteries Mariana Trench, became a film director James Cameron. He dived on the single-seat Deepsea Challenger and spent enough time there to take samples, take pictures and film in 3D. Later, the footage he shot formed the basis documentary film for the National Geographic Channel.
Due to the strong pressure, the bottom of the depression is covered not with ordinary sand, but with viscous mucus. For many years, the remains of plankton and crushed shells accumulated there, which formed the bottom. And again, due to pressure, almost everything is at the bottom Mariana Trench turns into fine greyish-yellow thick mud.
Sunlight has never reached the bottom of the depression, and we expect the water there to be icy. But its temperature varies from 1 to 4 degrees Celsius. V Mariana Trench at a depth of about 1.6 km are the so-called "black smokers", hydrothermal vents that shoot water up to 450 degrees Celsius.
Thanks to this water Mariana Trench life is sustained as it is rich in minerals. By the way, despite the fact that the temperature is much higher than the boiling point, water does not boil due to very strong pressure.
Approximately at a depth of 414 meters is the Daikoku volcano, which is the source of one of the rarest phenomena on the planet - a lake of pure molten sulfur. In the solar system, this phenomenon can only be found on Io, a moon of Jupiter. So, in this "cauldron" the seething black emulsion boils at 187 degrees Celsius. So far, scientists have not been able to study it in detail, but if in the future they can advance in their research, they may be able to explain how life appeared on Earth.
But the most interesting thing in Mariana Trench are its inhabitants. After it was determined that there was life in the basin, many expected to find incredible sea monsters there. For the first time, the expedition of the research vessel "Glomar Challenger" encountered something unidentified. They lowered into the cavity a device, the so-called "hedgehog" with a diameter of about 9 m, made in the NASA laboratory from beams of ultra-strong titanium-cobalt steel.
Some time after the start of the descent of the apparatus, the sound-recording device began to transmit some kind of metallic rattle to the surface, reminiscent of the gnashing of saw teeth on metal. And vague shadows appeared on the monitors, resembling dragons with several heads and tails. Soon, scientists became worried that the valuable device could forever remain in the depths of the Mariana Trench and decided to take it aboard the ship. But when they pulled the hedgehog out of the water, their surprise only intensified: the strongest steel beams of the structure were deformed, and the 20-centimeter steel cable on which it was lowered into the water was half sawn.
However, perhaps this story was too embellished by the newspapermen, since later researchers discovered very unusual creatures there, but not dragons.
Xenophyophores - giant, 10-centimeter amoeba that live at the very bottom Mariana Trench. Most likely, due to strong pressure, lack of light and relatively low temperatures, these amoeba acquired huge sizes for their species. But in addition to their impressive size, these creatures are also resistant to many chemical elements and substances, including uranium, mercury and lead, which are deadly to other living organisms.
Pressure in M Arian Trench turns glass and wood into powder, so only creatures without bones or shells can live here. But in 2012, scientists discovered a mollusk. How he retained his shell is still not known. In addition, hydrothermal springs emit hydrogen sulfide, which is deadly to shellfish. However, they learned to bind the sulfur compound into a safe protein, which allowed the population of these mollusks to survive.
And that's not all. Below you can see some of the inhabitants Mariana Trench, which scientists have been able to capture.
Mariana Trench and its inhabitants
While our eyes are directed to the sky to the unsolved mysteries of space, an unsolved mystery remains on our planet - the ocean. To date, only 5% of the world's oceans and secrets have been studied Mariana Trench this is only a small part of the secrets that are hidden under the water column.
The Mariana Islands are located near the Philippine Islands. It is here that the deepest place on earth is located. The Mariana Trench (Marian Trench) was formed a long time ago, as a result of the movement of tectonic plates. With a depth of 11 kilometers, this is the deepest deep-sea depression, fraught with many secrets. For many years this place attracted scientists. In 1957, the Soviet crew of the Vityaz attempted to dive to the bottom of the depression. The bathyscaphe, on which the scientists descended, reached a depth of 11022 meters. They proved that life is possible at such depths. Various bacteria, primitive fish, jellyfish and other scary creatures live there. Many doubted that someone was able to live at great depths under high pressure, but subsequent descents of crews from different countries refuted this theory. From the bottom of the Mariana Trench, soil samples were raised, in which 13 previously unknown bacteria were subsequently found. Their age goes into the distant past.
In 2009, the American deep-sea robot Nereus, which managed to descend to the deepest point of the oceans, transmitted pictures and videos from the Mariana Trench. The robot was able to photograph glowing fish, shellfish, creatures with sharp fins and large telescopic eyes. Unusual monsters live here. It is said that the teeth of a giant shark that was thought to be extinct were found.
The terrible conditions in which these animals live gave rise to their incredibly terrible appearance. They also include scary-looking worms, reaching a length of 1.5 meters without a mouth and anus, never-before-seen starfish, mutant octopuses and strange soft-bodied creatures of two meters in length, about which little is known so far.
In 1960, to study the bottom of the depression, the bathyscaphe "Trieste" was immersed to a depth of about 10915 meters. After a certain period of time, after the descent of the bathyscaphe, strange noises began to be transmitted by the sound recording device, as if something was being sawed. The submersible, spherical in design and approximately 9 meters in diameter, was immediately recovered from the bottom. A team of American scientists who worked on the research ship Glomar Challenger were horrified at the sight of the raised apparatus. When the apparatus was raised, it was accompanied by some shadows of unknown creatures. The body of the apparatus was covered with dents, and the cables that connected it to the ship were sawn. Who did it is still unknown. The details of this mysterious experiment, conducted by American oceanologists, were published in 1966 in the American newspaper The New York Times.
It is also said that this is not the only case when some creatures similar to ancient lizards tried to swallow some of the robots descending into the depths. The German research apparatus "Heyfish" at a depth of 7 km suddenly refused to emerge. The hydronauts rushed to find out the cause of the malfunction of the device, but when they turned on the infrared camera, they saw a huge lizard trying to crack open a bathyscaphe like a nut. A terrible monster, struck by a strong discharge from a special device called an "electric gun", unclenched its terrible jaws and disappeared into the depths of the sea.
At depths, there is no sunlight, no algae, constant salinity, low temperatures, an abundance of carbon dioxide and high hydrostatic pressure, which increases by 1 atmosphere for every 10 meters. Where, then, do the inhabitants of the deep get their food? It is believed that the food sources of these inhabitants of the abyss are bacteria, the corpses of the smallest planktonic organisms and organic detritus (dead organic matter) that come from above.
There are still many unsolved mysteries in the Mariana Trench. We have just begun to discover the inhabitants of such great depths. People will always flock to this point on the world map, discovering more and more new facts. Perhaps someday all the secrets of the Mariana Trench will be revealed, because the rapidly developing technological progress allows humanity to penetrate deeper and deeper into the secrets of such an unfriendly World Ocean.
There are 5 oceans on Earth, which occupy a significant part of the land. Having conquered space and made a landing of a man on the Moon, having sent autonomous spacecraft to the most distant planets of the solar system, people know negligibly little about what is hidden in the depths of the sea on their native planet.
What is the Mariana Trench?
This is the name of the deepest known place in the Pacific Ocean today. It is a trough formed by the convergence of tectonic plates. The maximum depth of the Mariana Trench is approximately 10,994 meters (2011 data). There are other trenches in all the other oceans, but not as deep. Only the Java Trench (7729 meters) can be compared with the Mariana Trench.
Location
The deepest place on Earth is located in the western Pacific Ocean, off the Mariana Islands. The gutter stretches along them for one and a half thousand kilometers. The bottom of the depression is flat, its width is from 1 to 5 kilometers. The gutter got its name in honor of the islands next to which it is located.
"Challenger Abyss"
This name has the deepest place (10,994 meters) of the Mariana Trench. Here it must be clarified that it is not yet possible to obtain the exact dimensions of this gigantic trough of the ocean floor. The speed of sound at different depths is very different, and the Mariana Trench has a very complex structure, so the data obtained using the echo sounder is always slightly different.
Discovery history
People have long known that deep seas exist in the seas and oceans. In 1875, the English corvette Challenger opened one of these points. What depth of the Mariana Trench was recorded then? It was 8367 meters. The measurement instruments at that time were far from ideal, but even this result made a stunning impression - it became clear that the deepest point of the ocean floor on the planet had been found.
Gutter studies
In the 19th century, it was simply impossible to explore the bottom of the Mariana Trench. At that time, there was no technology to descend to such a depth. Without modern means of immersion, this was tantamount to suicide.
A re-examination of the trench took place many years later, in the next century. Measurements made in 1951 showed a depth of 10,863 meters. Then, in 1957, members of the Soviet scientific vessel "Vityaz" were engaged in the study of the depression. According to their measurements, the depth of the Mariana Trench was 11,023 meters.
The last study of the gutter was carried out in 2011.
Cameron's Great Journey
The Canadian director became the third person in the history of research into the Mariana Trench to descend to its bottom. He was the first in the world to do it alone. Prior to its sinking, the trough was explored by Don Walsh and Jacques Picard in 1960 using the Trieste submersible. In addition, Japanese scientists tried to find out what the depth of the Mariana Trench is using the Kaiko probe for this. And in 2009, the Nereus apparatus descended to the bottom of the gutter.
Descent to such an incredible depth is associated with a huge number of risks. First of all, a man is threatened by a monstrous pressure of 1100 atmospheres. It can damage the body of the device, which will lead to the death of the pilot. Another serious danger that awaits when descending to a depth is the cold that reigns there. It can not only lead to equipment failure, but also kill a person. The bathyscaphe can collide with rocks and get damaged.
For many years, James Cameron dreamed of visiting the deepest point of the Mariana Trench - the "Challenger Abyss". In order to carry out his plan, he equipped his own expedition. Especially for this, an underwater vehicle was designed and built in Sydney - a single-seat bathyscaphe Deepsea Challenger, equipped with scientific equipment, as well as photo and video cameras. In it, Cameron sank to the bottom of the Mariana Trench. This event took place on March 26, 2012.
In addition to photographs and video filming, the Deepsea Challenger bathyscaphe had to take new measurements of the chute and try to give accurate data on its dimensions. Everyone was worried about one question: "How much?" The depth of the Mariana Trench, according to the readings of the apparatus, was 10,908 meters.
The director was impressed by what he saw below. Most of all, the bottom of the depression reminded him of a lifeless lunar landscape. He did not meet the terrible inhabitants of the abyss. The only creature he saw through the porthole of the bathyscaphe was a small shrimp.
After a successful voyage, James Cameron decided to donate his bathyscaphe to the Oceanographic Institute so that it could continue to be used to explore the depths of the sea.
Creepy Dwellers of the Deep
The lower the bottom of the ocean, the less sunlight penetrates through the water column. The depth of the Mariana Trench is the reason that impenetrable darkness always reigns in it. But even the absence of light cannot become an obstacle to the origin of life. Darkness gives birth to beings who have never seen the sun. And they, in turn, have only recently been able to see marine biologists.
The sight is not for the faint of heart. Almost all the inhabitants of the Mariana Trench seem to be born from the imagination of an artist who creates monsters for horror films. Seeing them for the first time, you might think that they do not live next to a person on the same planet, but are alien creatures, they look so alien.
To some extent, this is true - very little is known about the oceans and their inhabitants. The bottom of the Mariana Trench has been explored to date less than the surface of Mars. Therefore, for a long time it was believed that at such a depth, without sunlight, life is impossible. It turned out that this was not the case. The depth of the Mariana Trench, gigantic pressure and cold are not an obstacle to the birth of amazing creatures living in complete darkness.
Most of them have an ugly appearance due to terrible living conditions. The pitch darkness reigning in the depths made the marine inhabitants of these places completely blind. Many fish have huge teeth, such as howliods, which swallow their prey whole.
What can living beings eat so far from the surface of the ocean? At the bottom of the depression, the remains of living organisms accumulate, forming a multi-meter layer of bottom silt. The inhabitants of the depths feed on these deposits. Predatory fish have luminous parts of the body with which they attract small fish.
The gutter is inhabited by bacteria that can develop only at high pressure, unicellular organisms, jellyfish, worms, mollusks, sea cucumbers. The depth of the Mariana Trench gives them the opportunity to reach very large sizes. For example, the amphipods found at the bottom of the gutter are 17 centimeters long.
Amoeba
Xenophyophores (amoebae) are single-celled organisms that can only be seen with a microscope. But at a depth, these inhabitants of the Mariana Trench reach gigantic sizes - up to 10 centimeters. Previously, they were found at a depth of 7500 meters. An interesting feature of these organisms, in addition to their size, is the ability to accumulate uranium, lead and mercury. Outwardly, deep-sea amoebas look different. Some are disk or tetrahedral shaped. Xenophyophores feed on bottom sediments.
Hirondellea gigas
Large amphipods (amphipods) have been found in the Mariana Trench. These deep-sea crayfish feed on dead organic matter that accumulates at the bottom of the depression and have a keen sense of smell. The largest specimen found was 17 centimeters long.
Holothurians
Sea cucumbers are another representatives of organisms that live at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. This class of invertebrates feeds on plankton and bottom sediments.
Conclusion
The Mariana Trench has not yet been properly explored. No one knows what creatures inhabit it and how many secrets it keeps.
It would seem that by the twenty-first century, humanity knows everything about our planet and there are no white spots left on the maps. But do not forget that about 90% of the ocean floor is still covered not only by the water column, but also by mystery. So far, there are more questions than answers in this area. This is because only a few daredevils dared to dive in these places. It is considered to be akin to suicide.
Harsh conditions
The Mariana Trench is a tectonic underwater fault and has a V-shaped silhouette, with steep slopes and a flat bottom about 5 km wide. At a depth there are also peculiar seamounts about two kilometers high. The deepest point on the planet, reaching 11 thousand meters, is located here and is called the Challenger Abyss. Even the highest peak of our planet - Mount Everest, would be drowned under the water column in the Mariana Trench.
The pressure at this depth is more than a thousand times higher than Earth's normal atmospheric pressure. Just imagine, a whole ton of weight falls on one square centimeter of surface. Such loads can hardly withstand titanium alloys. If a person were here, he would be torn to pieces in the same second. It is curious that the water temperature at such a depth is about 4 degrees with a plus sign. All thanks to oceanic hydrothermal sources "black smokers", which are closer to the surface of the ocean overthrow 450 degree jets.
The colossal pressure does not allow water to boil and the environment is only slightly warmed up. And the one-of-a-kind deep-sea “White Smokers” produce liquid carbon dioxide in the Mariana Trench, plunging everything around into a white fog. Such hydrothermal springs enrich the aquatic environment with chemical trace elements and, according to scientists, create good conditions for the emergence of new life forms.
Inhabitants of the Mariana Trench
The big discovery was the fact that at a depth of more than 6000 m, with incredible pressure, no sunlight and zero temperatures, life is in full swing. Various types of bacteria and protozoa, sea cucumbers and amphipods, mollusk shells and luminous octopuses, bizarre starfish, blind giant worms and flat fish with periscopic eyes live on the bottom.
New species of scorpions and anglers have been discovered. A feature of these frightening outwardly fish is the presence of bioluminescent luminous processes that hang down like a fishing rod. Seeing a light in pitch darkness, the prey swims into the light and find themselves in the toothy mouth of a predator. The attention of physicians was especially attracted by one of the types of isopod crayfish, because. the substance it secretes could help develop a cure for Alzheimer's disease.
Most of all, the public was shocked by the huge xenophyophore amoeba. Their size in the Mariana Trench reaches 10 cm, while all previously known types of protozoa can hardly be seen through a microscope. A unique feature of xenophyophores is that they are resistant to such potent and destructive substances for all living things as mercury, uranium, and lead.
inexplicable
In the mid-nineties, newspapers were full of headlines about a certain monster hiding at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. The story said that the research vessel Glomar Challenger, plunging a device into the abyss to study ocean depths, encountered difficulties. At some point, the sensors recorded a terrible noise and rattle. I had to urgently remove the device from the water. It turned out to be badly damaged, the iron case of the device was badly mangled, and the reliable metal cable almost broke off, as if someone wanted to bite it.
A similar incident happened to a group of German scientists when, according to the team, a huge lizard attacked the Highfish probe lowered into the water. It was possible to get rid of which only by intimidating with an electric charge.
There is no convincing evidence that giant prehistoric animals are found in the Mariana Trench today. However, the opposite has not been proven either.
In the 20s of the last century, fishermen from Australia said that they saw a huge white shark about 30 m long in these parts. While individuals of this species known to science do not exceed five meters. The description of the Australians fully converged only with the external characteristics of Megalodon (scientific name Carcharodon megalodon). This animal weighed 100 tons and its mouth could swallow prey the size of a car. According to conventional wisdom, Megalodons became extinct about 2 million years ago. But just recently, a tooth of this monster was discovered in the bottom of the Pacific Ocean in the Mariana Trench. The examination determined that this find is no more than 11 thousand years old. What else hides the seabed?
Journey to the center of the earth
Everything that we now know about the Mariana Trench was obtained thanks to brave explorers who were not afraid of unknown depths. Since 1872, more than a dozen expeditions have been sent to the waters of the Pacific Ocean. In most cases, research was carried out with the help of technologies that are improving every year. Various equipment with sensors and probes with video and cameras were immersed to the bottom of the Mariana Trench.
The researchers from the Challenger ship were the first to study the ocean abyss. In honor of this vessel, the deepest point of the planet in the Mariana Trench, the Challenger Abyss, was named.
The first who personally visited at a depth of eleven thousand meters were the Swiss oceanologist Jacques Piccard and the American military Don Walsh. In 1960, they plunged into the Mariana Trench in a deep-sea vessel. Only 127 mm separated them from kilometers of frightening uncertainty. armored steel.
Only our contemporary, the famous director James Cameron, the creator of the films “Titanic” and “Avatar”, decided to repeat their feat. In 2012, he made this dive alone in the DeepSea Challenge submersible. Taking soil and water samples from the bottom of the Mariana Trench, Cameron helped scientists make many important discoveries. However, he saw a silent silence. He did not encounter any monsters or strange phenomena in the abyss. James compares his adventure to flying into space - "complete isolation from all mankind."
