The monster of the Mariupol depression. Depth of the Mariana Trench. Inhabitants of the Mariana Trench. Mariana Trench Research

There is an underwater canyon off the east coast of the Philippine Islands. It's so deep that you could fit Mount Everest in it and still have about three kilometers to spare. There is impenetrable darkness and incredible pressure, so you can easily imagine the Mariana Trench as one of the most unfriendly places in the world. However, despite all this, life still somehow continues to exist there - and not just barely survive, but actually thrive, thanks to which a full-fledged ecosystem has appeared there.

How to survive at the bottom of the Mariana Trench?

Life at such a depth is extremely difficult - eternal cold, impenetrable darkness and enormous pressure will not allow you to exist in peace. Some creatures, such as the anglerfish, create their own light to attract prey or mates. Others, such as the hammerhead, have developed huge eyes to capture as much light as possible, reaching incredible depths. Other creatures are simply trying to hide from everyone, and to achieve this they turn translucent or red (the red color absorbs all the blue light that manages to make its way to the bottom of the cavity).

Cold protection

It is also worth noting that all creatures living at the bottom of the Mariana Trench need to cope with cold and pressure. Protection from cold is provided by fats that form the lining of the creature's body cells. If this process is not monitored, the membranes may crack and cease to protect the body. To combat this, these creatures have acquired an impressive supply of unsaturated fats in their membranes. With the help of these fats, the membranes always remain in a liquid state and do not crack. But is this enough to survive in one of the deepest places on the planet?

What is the Mariana Trench like?

The Mariana Trench is shaped like a horseshoe and its length is 2,550 kilometers. It is located in the eastern Pacific Ocean and is about 69 kilometers wide. The deepest point of the depression was discovered near the southern end of the canyon in 1875 - the depth there was 8184 meters. A lot of time has passed since then, and with the help of an echo sounder more accurate data was obtained: it turns out that the deepest point has an even greater depth, 10994 meters. It was named “Challenger Deep” in honor of the ship that made that very first measurement.

Human immersion

However, about 100 years have passed since that moment - and only then for the first time a person plunged to such a depth. In 1960, Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh set off in the bathyscaphe Trieste to conquer the depths of the Mariana Trench. Trieste used gasoline as fuel and iron structures as ballast. The bathyscaphe took 4 hours and 47 minutes to reach a depth of 10,916 meters. It was then that the fact that life still exists at such depths was first confirmed. Piccard reported that he then saw a “flat fish,” although in fact it turned out that he only noticed a sea cucumber.

Who lives at the bottom of the ocean?

However, not only sea cucumbers are found at the bottom of the depression. Along with them live large single-celled organisms known as foraminifera - they are giant amoebas that can grow up to 10 centimeters in length. Under normal conditions, these organisms create shells of calcium carbonate, but at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, where the pressure is a thousand times greater than on the surface, calcium carbonate dissolves. This means that these organisms have to use proteins, organic polymers and sand to create their shells. Also living at the bottom of the Mariana Trench are shrimp and other crustaceans known as amphipods. The largest of the amphipods look like giant albino woodlice - they can be found at the Challenger depth.

Food at the bottom

Considering that sunlight does not reach the bottom of the Mariana Trench, another question arises: what do these organisms eat? Bacteria manage to survive at such depths because they feed on methane and sulfur that emerge from the earth's crust, and some organisms feed on these bacteria. But many rely on what is called "sea snow" - tiny pieces of detritus that reach the bottom from the surface. One of the most striking examples and the richest sources of food are the carcasses of dead whales, which as a result end up on the ocean floor.

Fishes in the Trench

But what about fish? The deepest fish in the Mariana Trench was discovered only in 2014 at a depth of 8143 meters. An unknown ghostly white subspecies of Liparidae with wide wing-like fins and an eel-like tail was recorded several times by cameras that plunged into the depths of the depression. However, scientists believe this depth is likely the limit of where the fish can survive. This means that there cannot be fish at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, since the conditions there do not correspond to the body structure of vertebrate species.

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 there is still no detailed information about the exact map of the trench and its inhabitants.

Where is the Mariana Trench located?

In the southwestern vicinity of the Pacific Ocean, there is a group of 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 conflict with local tribes, the geographical discovery was 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 Marianne 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 mountain ranges with heights ranging from 1.8 to 2.51 km were discovered;
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. The depth is the extreme point of a blue whale's dive;
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 amoebae and.

The fauna 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 that held the device 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 a national natural monument protected by the United States.

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:

What every schoolchild knows from the subject of geography: the highest point on the planet is Mount Everest (8848 m), and the lowest is the Mariana Trench. The Trench is the deepest and most mysterious point of our planet - despite the fact that the oceans are closer than cosmic stars, humanity has only managed to explore 5 percent of the ocean depths.

The trench is located in the western Pacific Ocean and is a V-shaped depression that flows 1,500 km around the Mariana Islands - hence the name. The deepest point is the Challenger Deep, which received its name from the Challenger II echo sounder (Challenger), which managed to record 10,994 m below sea level. Measuring the bottom under conditions of pressure 1072 times higher than normal for a person is akin to suicide; in 1875, a corvette of an English expedition was first sent under the water column. The contribution of Soviet scientists is also invaluable - the Vityaz ship in 1957 obtained invaluable data: there is life in the Mariana Trench, despite the fact that even light does not penetrate to a depth of over 1000 m.

Ocean monsters

In 1960, US Navy Lieutenant Don Walsh and explorer Jacques Piccard descended into the dark abyss on the bathyscaphe Trieste, depth of the Mariana Trench. At a record 10,915 m, they found flathead fish that resembled flounder. There were some problems: the instruments recorded the shadows of creatures resembling mystical multi-headed dragons. Scientists heard the gnashing of teeth on metal - and the hull of the ship was 13 cm thick! As a result, it was decided to urgently raise the Trieste to the surface before tragedy occurred. On land they discovered that the thick cable was almost half broken - unknown creatures clearly did not tolerate strangers in their underwater kingdom... Details about this dangerous journey were published in the New York Times in 1996.

Later, researchers, using special equipment, confirmed that there really is life at the bottom of the depression - the latest developments in technology made it possible to take unique photographs of half-meter-long mutant octopuses, strange jellyfish and anglerfish. They feed primarily on each other – and sometimes on bacteria. Interestingly, crustaceans caught in the abyss have much more toxins in their puny bodies than the inhabitants of the coastal waters of the ocean. Most of all, scientists were surprised by mollusks - in theory, the monstrous pressure should have flattened their shells, but ocean inhabitants feel good in these conditions.

Champagne at the bottom of the ocean

Another mystery of the depression is the so-called “Champagne”, a hydrothermal source that releases countless bubbles of carbon dioxide into the waters. This is the world's only underwater source of a liquid chemical element. It was thanks to him that the first hypotheses about the emergence of life on Earth in water arose. By the way, the temperature in the Mariana Trench is not the coldest - from 1 to 4 degrees. It is provided by “black smokers” - the same thermal springs that release ore substances, which is why they acquire a dark color. They are very hot, but due to the high pressure, the water in the abyss does not boil, so the temperature is quite suitable for living organisms.

In 2012, famous film director James Cameron became the first person to reach the bottom of the Pacific Ocean alone. Traveling on the Dipsy Challenger spacecraft, he was able to take soil samples from the Challenger Deep and film it in 3D format. The resulting footage served science and became the basis for a documentary on the National Geographic Channel. Russia is not lagging behind - for an expedition to the bottom depths of the Mariana Trench Our famous traveler Fyodor Konyukhov is also preparing. Perhaps he will be able to shed light on the mysteries of the lowest point on the planet?

Pavilion “Around the World. Asia, Africa, Latin America, Australia and Oceania"

ETNOMIR, Kaluga region, Borovsky district, Petrovo village

The ethnographic park-museum “ETNOMIR” is an amazing place. The “city” street is built inside a spacious pavilion, so on Peace Street it is always warm, light and good weather - just right for an exciting walk, especially since within the framework of the latter you can make an entire trip around the world. Like any street popular with tourists, it has its own attractions, workshops, street artisans, cafes and shops located inside and outside the 19 houses.

The facades of the buildings are made in different ethnic styles. Each house is a “quote” from the life and traditions of a certain country. The very appearance of the houses begins the story of distant lands.

Step inside and you will be surrounded by new, unfamiliar objects, sounds and smells. The color scheme and decoration, furniture, interior and household items - all this helps to plunge into the atmosphere of distant countries, to understand and feel their uniqueness.

The Mariana Trench is not a vertical abyss. This is a crescent-shaped trench stretching for 2.5 thousand km east of the Philippines and west of Guam, USA. The deepest point of the trench, the Challenger Deep, is located 11 km from the surface of the Pacific Ocean. Everest, if it were at the bottom of the depression, would be 2.1 km short of sea level.

Mariana Trench Map

The Mariana Trench (as the trench is also commonly called) is part of a global network of troughs that cross the seabed and were formed as a result of ancient geological events. They arise when two tectonic plates collide, when one layer sinks under the other and goes into the Earth's mantle.

The underwater trench was discovered by the British research ship Challenger during the first global oceanographic expedition. In 1875, scientists tried to measure the depth with a diplot - a rope with a weight tied to it and meter markings. The rope was only enough for 4,475 fathoms (8,367 m). Almost a hundred years later, the Challenger II returned to the Mariana Trench with an echo sounder and established the current depth of 10,994 m.

The bottom of the Mariana Trench is hidden in eternal darkness - the sun's rays do not penetrate to such a depth. Temperatures are just a few degrees above zero - and close to freezing. The pressure in the Challenger Deep is 108.6 MPa, which is approximately 1,072 times the normal atmospheric pressure at ocean level. This is five times the pressure that is created when a bullet hits a bulletproof object and is approximately equal to the pressure inside the reactor for the synthesis of polyethylene. But people found a way to get to the bottom.

Man in the Deep

The first people to visit the Challenger Abyss were American soldiers Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh. In 1960, on the Trieste bathyscaphe, they descended to 10,918 m in five hours. The researchers spent 20 minutes at this mark and saw almost nothing because of the clouds of silt raised by the device. Except for the fish of the flounder species, which was hit by the spotlight. The presence of life under such high pressure was the main discovery of the mission.

Before Piccard and Walsh, scientists believed that fish could not live in the Mariana Trench. The pressure in it is so great that calcium can only exist in liquid form. This means that vertebrate bones must literally dissolve. No bones, no fish. But nature showed scientists that they were wrong: living organisms are capable of adapting even to such unbearable conditions.

Many living organisms in the Challenger Abyss were discovered by the Deepsea Challenger bathyscaphe, on which director James Cameron descended alone to the bottom of the Mariana Trench in 2012. In soil samples taken by the apparatus, scientists found 200 species of invertebrates, and at the bottom of the depression - strange translucent shrimp and crabs.

At a depth of 8 thousand m, the submersible discovered the deepest-sea fish - a new representative of the species of lipariformes or sea slugs. The head of the fish resembles that of a dog, and its body is very thin and elastic - when moving, it resembles a translucent napkin that is carried by the current.

A few hundred meters below live giant ten-centimeter amoebas called xenophyophores. These organisms show amazing resistance to several elements and chemicals such as mercury, uranium and lead that would kill other animals or humans within minutes.

Scientists believe there are many more species in the depths waiting to be discovered. In addition, it is still not clear how such microorganisms - extremophiles - can survive in such extreme conditions.

The answer to this question will lead to breakthroughs in biomedicine and biotechnology and will help understand how life began on Earth. For example, researchers from the University of Hawaii believe that thermal mud volcanoes near the depression may have provided conditions for the survival of the first organisms on the planet.

Volcanoes at the bottom of the Mariana Trench

What kind of rift?

The depression owes its depth to the fault of two tectonic plates - the Pacific layer goes under the Philippine one, forming a deep trench. The regions where such geological events occurred are called subduction zones.

Each plate is almost 100 km thick and the fault is at least 700 km deep from the lowest point of the Challenger Deep. “It's an iceberg. The man wasn't even at the top - 11 are nothing compared to the 700 hiding in the depths. The Mariana Trench is the boundary between the limits of human knowledge and a reality that is inaccessible to humans,” says geophysicist Robert Stern from the University of Texas.

Plates at the bottom of the Mariana Trench Photo: NOAA

Scientists suggest that through the subduction zone into the Earth's mantle there is water in large volumes - rocks at the boundaries of faults act like sponges, absorbing water and transporting it into the bowels of the planet. As a result, the substance ends up at a depth of 20 to 100 km below the seabed.

Geologists from the University of Washington found that over the last million years, more than 79 million tons of water entered the bowels of the earth through the joint - this is 4.3 times more than previous estimates.

The main question is what happens to the water in the depths. It is believed that volcanoes close the water cycle, returning water to the atmosphere in the form of water vapor during eruptions. This theory was supported by previous measurements of the volume of water penetrating the mantle. Volcanoes ejected into the atmosphere approximately equal to the absorbed volume.

A new study disproves this theory - estimates suggest that the Earth absorbs more water than it returns. And this is really strange - given that the level of the World Ocean over the past few hundred years not only has not decreased, but has even increased by several centimeters.

A possible solution is to abandon the theory of equal carrying capacity of all subduction zones on Earth. Conditions in the Mariana Trench are likely more extreme than in other parts of the planet, and more water penetrates into the subsurface through the Challenger Deep rift.

“Does the amount of water depend on the structural features of the subduction zone, for example, on the angle of bending of the plates? We suspect that similar faults exist in Alaska and Latin America, but so far man has not been able to detect a deeper structure than the Mariana Trench,” added lead author of the study Doug Vines.

Water hiding in the bowels of the Earth is not the only mystery of the Mariana Trench. The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) calls the region an amusement park for geologists.

This is the only place on the planet where carbon dioxide exists in liquid form. It is ejected from several submarine volcanoes located outside the Okinawa Trough near Taiwan.

At a depth of 414 m in the Mariana Trench is the Daikoku volcano, which is a lake of pure sulfur in liquid form, which constantly boils at a temperature of 187 ° C. 6 km below are geothermal springs that release water at a temperature of 450 °C. But this water does not boil - the process is hampered by the pressure exerted by the 6.5-kilometer water column.

The ocean floor is currently less studied by humans than the Moon. Scientists will probably be able to discover faults deeper than the Mariana Trench, or at least study its structure and features.

Unknown Earth: Mariana Trench

Despite the fact that humanity has stepped far forward, a large amount of technology has appeared that allows us to accomplish the seemingly impossible, there are corners of the Earth where it is almost impossible to reach. Thanks to this, pristine nature, untouched by man, has been preserved in such corners

The Mariana Trench (or Mariana Trench) is an oceanic deep-sea trench in the western Pacific Ocean, the deepest known on Earth. Named after the nearby Mariana Islands.

The deepest point of the Mariana Trench is the Challenger Deep. It is located in the southwestern part of the depression, 340 km southwest of the island of Guam (point coordinates: 11°22′N 142°35′E (G) (O)). According to measurements in 2011, its depth is 10,994 ± 40 m below sea level.

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

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, it’s just that the Mariana Trench is the deepest place of its kind) Its slopes are steep, on average about 7-9 °, and the bottom is flat, from 1 to 5 kilometers wide , and divided by thresholds into several closed sections. The pressure at the bottom of the Mariana Trench reaches 108.6 MPa - this is more than 1100 times higher than normal atmospheric pressure!

Photo from space

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 in the depths of the Mariana Trench the highest mountain of our planet, Everest, can easily fit, 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 device recording sounds began to transmit to the surface noises reminiscent of the grinding of saw teeth on metal. At the same time, unclear shadows appeared on the TV monitor, similar to giant fairy-tale dragons. These creatures had several heads and tails.

An hour later, scientists on the American research vessel Glomar Challenger became worried that the unique equipment, made from beams of ultra-strong titanium-cobalt steel in a NASA laboratory, having a spherical structure, the so-called “hedgehog” with a diameter of about 9 m, could remain in the abyss forever.

The decision was made to raise it immediately. It took more than eight hours for the “hedgehog” to be recovered from the depths. As soon as he appeared on the surface, he was immediately placed on a special raft. The television camera and echo sounder were lifted onto the deck of the Glomar Challenger. It turned out that the strongest steel beams of the structure were deformed, and the 20-centimeter steel cable on which it was lowered was half sawn through. Who tried to leave the “hedgehog” at depth and why is an absolute mystery. Details of this interesting experiment conducted by American oceanologists in the Mariana Trench were published in 1996 in the New York Times (USA)

Research vessel "Vityaz"

Soviet scientists were also researchers of the Mariana Trench - 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

According to the results of measurements carried out in 1957 during the 25th voyage of the Soviet research vessel Vityaz (headed by Alexey Dmitrievich Dobrovolsky), the maximum depth of the trench is 11023 m (updated data, the depth was initially reported as 11034 m) The difficulty of measurement is is that the speed of sound in water depends on its properties, which are different at different depths, therefore these properties must also be determined at several horizons with special instruments (such as a bathometer and thermometer), and a correction must be made to the depth value shown by the echo sounder Research in 1995 showed that it is about 10920 m, and research in 2009 showed that it was 10971 m. The latest research in 2011 gives a value of 10994 m with an accuracy of ±40 m

Single-seat Deepsea Challenger

It should be noted that recent research conducted by an American oceanographic expedition from the University of New Hampshire (USA) discovered real mountains on the surface of the Mariana Trench bottom.

The research took place from August to October 2010, when a bottom area of 400,000 square kilometers was studied in detail using a multibeam echo sounder. As a result, at least 4 oceanic mountain ridges 2.5 kilometers high were discovered, crossing the surface of the Mariana Trench at the point of contact between the Pacific and Philippine lithospheric plates.

One of the researchers commented: “In this place, the geological structure of the oceanic crust is very complex... These ridges were formed about 180 million years ago in the process of constant movement of lithospheric plates. Over the course of millions of years, the marginal part of the Pacific plate gradually “creeps” under the Philippine plate, as it is older and “heavier”... During this process, folding is formed.”

Dives

So, man has never been able to resist the desire to explore the unknown, and the rapidly developing world of technological progress allows us to penetrate ever deeper into the secret world of the most inhospitable and rebellious environment in the world - the World Ocean. There will be enough items for research in the Mariana Trench for many years to come, given that the most inaccessible and mysterious point of our planet, unlike Everest (altitude 8848 m above sea level), was conquered only once.

So, on January 23, 1960, US Navy officer Don Walsh and Swiss explorer Jacques Piccard, protected by the armored, 12-centimeter thick walls of the bathyscaphe called Trieste, managed to descend to a depth of 10,915 meters. Despite the fact that scientists have made a huge step in researching the Mariana Trench, the questions have not decreased, and new mysteries have appeared that have yet to be solved. And the ocean abyss knows how to keep its secrets. Will people be able to reveal them in the near future?

The first human dive to the bottom of the Mariana Trench was made on January 23, 1960, by US Navy Lieutenant Don Walsh and explorer Jacques Piccard in the bathyscaphe Trieste, designed by Jacques' father Auguste Piccard. The instruments recorded a record depth of 11,521 meters (corrected value - 10,918 m). At the bottom, the researchers unexpectedly met flat fish up to 30 cm in size, similar to flounder. During the dive, they were protected by the armored, 127 mm thick, walls of the bathyscaphe called “Trieste.”

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!

The Japanese Kaiko probe, which was lowered into the area of the maximum depth of the depression on March 24, 1995, recorded a depth of 10911.4 meters. Living organisms - foraminifera - were found in the silt samples taken by the probe.

On May 31, 2009, the automatic underwater vehicle Nereus (see Nereus, ancient Greek mythology) sank to the bottom of the Mariana Trench. The device descended to a depth of 10,902 meters, where it filmed video, took several photographs, and also collected sediment samples at the bottom

to the Mariana Trench

While he was at the deepest point of the world's oceans, he came to the shocking conclusion that he was completely alone. There were no scary sea monsters or any miracles in the Mariana Trench. According to Cameron, the very bottom of the ocean was "lunar...empty...lonely" and he felt "complete isolation from all humanity"

On March 26, 2012, director James Cameron became the third person in history to reach the deepest point in the world's oceans and the first to do it alone. Cameron dived on the single-seat Deepsea Challenger, equipped with everything necessary for photo and video shooting. The filming was carried out in 3D format; for this, the bathyscaphe was equipped with special lighting equipment. Cameron reached the Challenger Deep, a section of the depression at a depth of 10,898 meters (precise calculations show that the bathyscaphe reached a depth of 10,908 meters, and not 10,898, the depth recorded by the instrument during the dive). He took samples of rocks, living organisms and filmed them using 3D cameras. The footage shot by the director formed the basis of the scientific documentary film of the same name (2013) on the National Geographic Channel.

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...

Can living organisms live at such great depths, and what should they look like, given the fact that they are pressed by huge masses of ocean waters, the pressure of which exceeds 1100 atmospheres? The challenges associated with exploring and understanding the creatures that live at these unimaginable depths are numerous, but human ingenuity knows no bounds. For a long time, oceanographers considered the hypothesis that life could exist at depths of more than 6,000 m in impenetrable darkness, under enormous pressure and at temperatures close to zero, to be crazy.

However, the results of research by scientists in the Pacific Ocean have shown that even in these depths, much below the 6000-meter mark, there are huge colonies of living organisms pogonophora ((pogonophora; from the Greek pogon - beard and phoros - bearing), a type of marine invertebrate animals living in long chitinous tubes open at both ends). Recently, the veil of secrecy has been lifted by manned and automatic underwater vehicles made of heavy-duty materials, equipped with video cameras. The result was the discovery of a rich animal community consisting of both familiar and less familiar marine groups.

Diagram of the formation of the Mariana Trench.
The trench stretches along the Mariana Islands for 1,500 km. It has a V-shaped profile: steep (7-9°) slopes, a flat bottom 1-5 km wide, which is divided by rapids into several closed depressions. At the bottom, the water pressure reaches 108.6 MPa, which is approximately 1072 times greater than normal atmospheric pressure at the level of the World Ocean. The depression is located at the junction of two tectonic plates, in the zone of movement along faults, where the Pacific plate goes under the Philippine plate.

Thus, at depths of 6000 - 11000 km, the following were discovered: - barophilic bacteria (developing only at high pressure), - from protozoa - foraminifera (an order of protozoa of the subclass of rhizomes with a cytoplasmic body covered with a shell) and xenophyophores (barophilic bacteria from protozoa); - from multicellular organisms - polychaete worms, isopods, amphipods, sea cucumbers, bivalves and gastropods.

At the depths there is no sunlight, no algae, constant salinity, low temperatures, an abundance of carbon dioxide, enormous hydrostatic pressure (increases by 1 atmosphere for every 10 meters). What do the inhabitants of the abyss eat? The food sources of deep animals are bacteria, as well as the rain of “corpses” and organic detritus coming from above; deep animals are either blind, or with very developed eyes, often telescopic; many fish and cephalopods with photofluoride; in other forms the surface of the body or parts of it glow. Therefore, the appearance of these animals is as terrible and incredible as the conditions in which they live. Among them are frightening-looking worms 1.5 meters long, without a mouth or anus, mutant octopuses, unusual starfish and some soft-bodied creatures two meters long, which have not yet been identified at all.

Going down to such depths, we expect it to be very cold. Temperatures here reach just above zero, varying from 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, it does not boil here due to incredible pressure, 155 times higher than on the surface.

Giant toxic amoebas

A few years ago, at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, giant 10-centimeter amoebas called xenophyophores.

These single-celled organisms likely became so large because of the environment they live in at a depth of 10.6 km. Cold temperatures, high pressure and lack of sunlight likely contributed to these amoebas have acquired enormous dimensions.

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.

Shellfish

The intense water pressure in the Mariana Trench does not give any animal with a shell or bones a chance of survival. However, in 2012, shellfish were discovered in a trench near serpentine hydrothermal vents. Serpentine contains hydrogen and methane, which allows living organisms to form.

TO How did mollusks preserve their shells under such pressure?, remains unknown.

In addition, hydrothermal vents emit another gas, hydrogen sulfide, which is lethal to shellfish. However, they learned to bind the sulfur compound into a safe protein, which allowed the population of these mollusks to survive.

Pure liquid carbon dioxide

Hydrothermal source of 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, was named after the bubbles that turned out to be carbon dioxide.

Many believe these springs, called "white smokers" due to their lower temperatures, 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 begin.

Slime

If we had the opportunity to swim to the very depths of the Mariana Trench, we would feel that it covered with a layer of viscous mucus. Sand, in its familiar form, does not exist there.

The bottom of the depression mainly consists of crushed shells and plankton remains that have accumulated at the bottom of the depression for many years. Due to the incredible water pressure, almost everything there turns into fine grayish-yellow thick mud.

Liquid sulfur

Daikoku Volcano, which lies at a depth of about 414 meters on the way to the Mariana Trench, is the source of one of the rarest phenomena 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 the "cauldron", there is a bubbling black emulsion boils at 187 degrees Celsius. Although scientists have not been able to explore this site 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 everything living and nonliving is 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 move into the air and return to land.

Bridges

At the end of 2011, it was discovered in the Mariana Trench four stone bridges, which extended 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 surprising.