What's inside the Mariana Trench. Mariana Trench: monsters, facts, secrets, riddles and legends. Single-seat Deepsea Challenger

The Mariana Trench is considered the most mysterious and mysterious place on our planet. Located in the Pacific Ocean, this deep-sea trench has been unsuccessfully “attacked” by scientists from all over the world, but detailed information There is still no exact map of the depression and its inhabitants.

Where is the Mariana Trench located?

In the southwestern environs Pacific Ocean, the group is located Mariana Islands. Some of them were formed due to volcanic processes in the bowels of our earth, the second part represents the eastern edge of the Philippine lithospheric plate, which, having collided with the more massive Pacific plate, partially rose above the water. It is in this place that the Mariana Trench is located.

Initially, no one knew about the depth of the trench, and, as was common during the Middle Ages, less developed communal formations became colonies of Western European countries:

1521 - A Spanish expedition lands on the islands. Due to a conflict with local tribes, geographical discovery for a long time called the Ladron Islands (translated from Spanish - land of thieves);
1668 - the property of the Spanish crown received a new name - the Mariana Islands (in honor of Queen Marianna of Austria).

After the Spanish-American War, part of the wreck was transferred to the United States. In 1875, the British ship Challenger, whose crew included scientists from America and England, used a hydrographic survey to establish a record depth for the trench at that time - more than 8,000 meters. It was decided to name the depression Mariana.

Bottom of the Mariana Trench

The Mariana Trench has a V-shape, and the width of the base (bottom) of the trench does not exceed 3-5 km. This discrepancy in the data concerns not only the width, but also the depth of the depression itself, which is associated with the extreme pressure - at the extreme point it reaches 108 MPa, which gives the echo sounder measurements a certain error:

1875 - British corvette Defiant sets the depth to 8.3 km;
1951 - another British expedition, supplementing the information with new data - 10.86 km;
1957 - the Soviet research expedition updates the previously obtained results: length - 11.03 km, bottom width - 3.57 km;
1995 - length 10.92 km, base width - 4.12 km.

The most recent studies of the bottom of the Mariana Trench were carried out by oceanographers from the University of New Hampshire in 2016:

Width- 4.41 km;
Square- 403701 square meters;
Shelf- rocky, 4 found mountain range height from 1.8 to 2.51 km;
Flora and fauna- plants, oilfish, jellyfish and fish.

With the help of an underwater vehicle launched from the research vessel Okeanos Explorer, the whole world learned about previously unknown organisms whose habitat exceeds a depth of 6,000 meters.

Living in bottomless darkness

For an accurate picture of the pressure distribution, let’s walk along the vertical of the Mariana Trench from the surface of the ocean to the very bottom, and learn about its inhabitants:

100 - 120 meters: pressure exceeds 10 atmospheres. Depth is extreme point blue whale dives;
1000 meters: maximum daylight penetration point. Here you can find:
- Sperm whale;
- Glowing Octopus;
- A predator from the chordate family.
4000 meters: the abyssal zone is characterized by low water temperatures (about 2-3 C˚), and is a habitat for:
- Deep sea octopus;
- Known from the animated film "Finding Nemo" the terrible (monkfish).
5000 - 11000 meters: despite the complete darkness and high pressure, even at the bottom of the depression, scientists recorded previously unknown, giant amoebas and.

Animal world, inhabiting the Mariana Trench, is truly unique. For example, some types of fish accumulate luminous liquid, and when in danger, they “spit” it on the predator, thus temporarily blinding their offender.

Mariana lizards: true or fake?

An incident that occurred in the Mariana Abyss in 2003 introduced the world to a real rival to the Loch Ness monster known as “Nessie”:

2001 - a German expedition, using the Haifish deep-sea vehicle, explored the waters of the trench at a depth of more than 7,500 meters. Hearing sharp sounds, the crew turned on the infrared camera and were speechless for a few seconds - everyone saw a huge prehistoric lizard;
2003 - American scientists lowered an unmanned vehicle into the water. Powerful spotlights and a video system made it possible to record huge monsters with a body length of 14-16 meters. After the bathyscaphe was lifted aboard the ship, the researchers noticed an interesting fact - the steel cable on which the device was held was worn out or bitten off by more than half.

Three years later, journalists from the New York Times conducted an investigation, which nevertheless cast doubt on the authenticity of the photographs.

Mariana Trench: 5 interesting facts

Do you know that:

The bottom of the trench is covered with ("black smokers"), which, under pressure, release liquid carbon dioxide into the ocean. This allows you to keep the water temperature within 2-4 C˚;
Most fish that live at a depth of 4000 meters and below lack vision or see very poorly;
Only three people in the world were present at the bottom of the Mariana Trench: American Don Walsh (1954), Frenchman Jacques Picard (1960) and famous Hollywood film director James Cameron (2012);
The bottom of the trench is covered with thick viscous silt, the layer reaches 1 km, according to scientists;
The depression is national natural monument, US defendant.

Everyone has probably heard about the Mother Trench, which is also called the “bottom of the Earth,” from the school curriculum. deep gutter, the depth of which, according to various sources, varies from 10950 to 11037 meters, is nothing more than a tectonic fault formed at the westernmost point of the Pacific Ocean. Despite the high pressure, which in some places exceeds 100 MPa, there is life in the dark abyss, the diversity of which we will certainly learn about in full in the very near future.

Video: incredible mysteries of the deep sea trench

In this video, Fyodor Miroshnikov will talk about the mysteries of the Mariana Trench, what is currently known to science:

The Mariana Trench (or Mariana Trench) is a crescent-shaped trench in the earth's crust, measuring 2550 by 69 km. This is the deepest place on Earth (about 11 thousand kilometers!). The depression is located in the western part of the Pacific Ocean near the Mariana Islands, which gave it its name.

Below, the Mariana Trench is described in detail and its distinctive features are given.

The uniqueness of the depression

Few people decide to dive to the bottom of the ocean in this place, since in the Mariana Trench the water pressure exceeds the pressure in other places in the ocean by about a thousand times.

The water temperature in the gutter varies from 1 to 4 degrees Celsius. Also here a large number of hydrothermal springs (otherwise known as “black smokers”), from which water comes at temperatures up to 450°C.

Due to strong water pressure, all living creatures in this part of the sea are doomed to extinction. But at the beginning of the 21st century, living organisms (mollusks) were discovered near accumulations of serpentine that were able to survive in such conditions.

In addition, liquid carbon dioxide was detected here. The Mariana Trench is the only such underwater area named Champagne (after the bubbles that burst out of the water).

Dirt or mucus is a common coating on the bottom of the depression. Due to the fact that the pressure does not allow the remains of animals and plankton to rise to the top, everything remains on the ocean floor, turning into gray-yellow mud. There is practically no sand in the gutter.

The deepest point of the Mariana Trench is the Challenger Deep.

You can learn about other interesting facts from the section.

The Mariana Trench is the deepest place on our planet. I think almost everyone has heard about it or studied it at school, but I myself, for example, have long forgotten both its depth and the facts about how it was measured and studied. So I decided to “refresh” my and your memory

This absolute depth got its name from the nearby Mariana Islands. The entire depression stretches along the islands for one and a half thousand kilometers and has a characteristic V-shaped profile. In fact, this is an ordinary tectonic fault, the place where the Pacific plate comes under the Philippine plate, just Mariana Trench- this is the deepest place of its kind) Its slopes are steep, on average about 7-9°, and the bottom is flat, 1 to 5 kilometers wide, and divided by rapids into several closed areas. The pressure at the bottom of the Mariana Trench reaches 108.6 MPa - this is more than 1100 times more than normal atmospheric pressure!

The first who dared to challenge the abyss were the British - the three-masted military corvette Challenger with sail equipment was rebuilt into an oceanographic vessel for hydrological, geological, chemical, biological and meteorological work back in 1872. But the first data on the depth of the Mariana Trench were obtained only in 1951 - according to measurements, the depth of the trench was declared equal to 10,863 m. After that, the deepest point of the Mariana Trench began to be called the “Challenger Deep”. It’s hard to imagine that the depths of the Mariana Trench could easily accommodate the most high mountain of our planet is Everest, and above it there will still be more than a kilometer of water left to the surface... Of course, it will fit not in area, but solely in height, but the numbers are still amazing...

The next researchers of the Mariana Trench were already Soviet scientists - in 1957, during the 25th voyage of the Soviet research vessel Vityaz, they not only declared the maximum depth of the trench equal to 11,022 meters, but also established the presence of life at depths of more than 7,000 meters , thereby refuting the prevailing idea at that time about the impossibility of life at depths of more than 6000-7000 meters. In 1992, “Vityaz” was transferred to the newly formed Museum of the World Ocean. The ship was repaired at the plant for two years, and on July 12, 1994, it was permanently moored at the museum pier in the very center of Kaliningrad

On January 23, 1960, the first and only human dive to the bottom of the Mariana Trench took place. Thus, the only people who visited “the bottom of the Earth” were US Navy Lieutenant Don Walsh and explorer Jacques Piccard

During the dive, they were protected by the armored, 127 millimeter thick, walls of the bathyscaphe called “Trieste.”

Bathyscaphe was named after Italian city Trieste, where the main work on its creation was carried out. According to the instruments on board the Trieste, Walsh and Picard dived to a depth of 11,521 meters, but later this figure was slightly adjusted - 10,918 meters

The dive took about five hours, and the ascent took about three hours; the researchers spent only 12 minutes at the bottom. But this time was enough for them to make a sensational discovery - at the bottom they found flat fish up to 30 cm in size, similar to flounder !

Research in 1995 showed that the depth of the Mariana Trench is about 10,920 m, and the Japanese Kaik? probe, lowered into the Challenger Deep on March 24, 1997, recorded a depth of 10,911.4 meters. Below is a diagram of the depression - when clicked, it will open in a new window in normal size

The Mariana Trench has repeatedly frightened researchers with the monsters lurking in its depths. For the first time, the expedition of the American research vessel Glomar Challenger encountered the unknown. Some time after the descent of the apparatus began, the device recording sounds began to transmit to the surface some kind of metallic grinding sound, reminiscent of the sound of sawing metal. At this time, some unclear shadows appeared on the monitor, similar to giant fairy-tale dragons with several heads and tails. An hour later, scientists became worried that the unique equipment, made in a NASA laboratory from beams of ultra-strong titanium-cobalt steel, having a spherical design, the so-called “hedgehog” with a diameter of about 9 m, could remain in the abyss of the Mariana Trench forever - so it was decided to immediately raise apparatus on board the ship. The “hedgehog” was extracted from the depths for more than eight hours, and as soon as it appeared on the surface, it was immediately placed on a special raft. The television camera and echo sounder were lifted onto the deck of the Glomar Challenger. The researchers were horrified when they saw how deformed the strongest steel beams of the structure were; as for the 20-centimeter steel cable on which the “hedgehog” was lowered, the scientists were not mistaken in the nature of the sounds transmitted from the watery abyss - the cable was half sawn through. Who tried to leave the device at depth and why will forever remain a mystery. Details of this incident were published in 1996 by the New York Times.

Another collision with the inexplicable in the depths of the Mariana Trench happened with the German research vehicle Haifish with a crew on board. At a depth of 7 km, the device suddenly stopped moving. To find out the cause of the problem, the hydronauts turned on the infrared camera... What they saw in the next few seconds seemed to them a collective hallucination: a huge prehistoric lizard, sinking its teeth into the bathyscaphe, tried to chew it like a nut. Having recovered from the shock, the crew activated a device called an “electric gun”, and the monster, struck by a powerful discharge, disappeared into the abyss...

On May 31, 2009, an automatic underwater vehicle Nereus. According to measurements, it fell 10,902 meters below sea level

At the bottom, Nereus filmed a video, took some photographs, and even collected sediment samples at the bottom.

Thanks to modern technologies, researchers were able to capture few representatives Mariana Trench, I suggest you get to know them too :)

So now we know that in Mariana depths different octopuses live

Scary and not so scary fish)

And various other strange creatures :)

Perhaps there is not much time left until technology makes it possible to get acquainted with the inhabitants in all their diversity Mariana Trench and others ocean depths, but for now we have what we have

The deepest place on Earth is an oceanic trench located near the Mariana Islands.

The Mariana Trench is located in the Pacific Ocean, east of the 14 Mariana Islands near Japan. As you probably already know, this is the deepest ocean trench and also the deepest place on Earth. It was created as a result of the opposition of two tectonic plates.

The deepest point in the Mariana Trench is considered to be the Challenger Deep point (which means “Challenging”), it is also the deepest point of the world’s oceans. According to various deep-sea research vehicles, the maximum recorded depth is 11,521 m.

The Mariana Trench was first explored in 1951 by the British naval vessel Challenger II, hence its name. deep point on the ground.

The first people to personally dive to the bottom of the Mariana Trench were Swiss oceanographer Jacques Piccard and US soldier Don Walsh. This happened in January 1960 on a special round submersible called Trieste. The scientists were greatly surprised when, at such a great depth, they encountered flat fish and other living organisms. Later in 1995, a Japanese deep-sea vehicle dived to the point of maximum depth and recorded a distance from the bottom to the surface of 10,911.4 meters. According to the most recent studies in 2011, using the newest locators, the depth was named 10,994 meters. website - Interesting Facts about everything, read on and learn something new.

The dimensions of the Mariana Trench are enormous; it extends along 1500 km. The width at the very bottom is only 1-5 km, the bottom is flat and surrounded by steep cliffs. The water pressure at the very bottom of the depression is 108.6 MPa, which in turn is 11,074 tons/m2, or 1,107 kg/cm2.
For comparison, here are some facts.

123 meters. Record maximum depth the dive of a person without scuba gear and breathing apparatus is 123 m. This record was achieved by a diver from Monaco and officially registered.

100 m. The blue whale is the largest animal on earth and has a diving depth of no more than 100 meters.

1000 m. Below this mark no sunlight penetrates.

2000 m. The sperm whale is the only mammal that is capable of diving to a depth of two kilometers.

4000 m. Water pressure reaches 402 kg per cm2. The ambient temperature is not higher than +2 degrees. Fish are blind or have underdeveloped eyes.

6000 m. The pressure is 584 times greater than the pressure on the surface of the Earth. Despite this, life exists here.

10994 m. Bottom of the Mariana Trench. There is a complete absence of light, water pressure is 1072 times higher than the surface pressure, 1 ton 74 kilograms presses per 1 square centimeter. Hellish conditions. But there is life here. Small fish similar to flounder up to 30 centimeters long.

Below we provide photographs of deep-sea fish. Most of these creatures live at depths between 500 and 6,500 meters.

Do you think this monkfish fish has legs? I hasten to disappoint you. These are not legs at all, but two males that are stuck to the female. The fact is that at great depths and in the complete absence of light it is very difficult to find a partner. Therefore, as soon as a male monkfish finds a female, he immediately bites into her side. This hug will never be broken. Later, it fuses with the female’s body, loses all unnecessary organs, merges with her circulatory system and becomes only a source of sperm. Below is another photo of this fish.

This is a deep-sea octopus measuring only 20 cm. Its habitat depth is from 500 to 5000 meters.

This is a fish with a transparent head. For what? At depth, as we know, there is very little light. The fish has developed a defense mechanism; its eyes are located in the center of the head so that they cannot be injured. In order to see, evolution has awarded this fish with a transparent head. The two green spheres are the eyes.

We hope you liked the photos of fish living in the depths of the Mariana Trench.

Even though the oceans are closer to us than distant planets solar system, humans have explored only five percent of the ocean floor, which remains one of greatest mysteries of our planet.

The most deep part ocean - the Mariana Trench or Mariana Trench is one of the most famous places, about which we still don’t know very 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 risked their lives and went down there, we learned a lot of interesting things about this amazing place.

Mariana Trench on the map. Where is it?

The Mariana Trench or Mariana Trench is located in the western Pacific Ocean east (about 200 km) of the 15 Mariana Islands near Guam. It is a crescent-shaped trench in the earth's crust about 2,550 km long and an average width of 69 km.

The coordinates of the Mariana Trench are 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 high peak 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.