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 most deep point trench, Challenger Deep, located 11 km from the surface Pacific Ocean. Everest, if it were at the bottom of the depression, would be 2.1 km short of sea level.

Map Mariana Trench

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 nearly 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 hypothesize that similar faults exist in Alaska and Latin America, but so far man has not been able to discover 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 the only place on a 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.

Now anyone can watch the fantastic underwater world of the Mariana Trench captured on video, deep place on our planet, or even enjoy a live video broadcast from an 11-kilometer depth. But until relatively recently, the Mariana Trench was considered the most unexplored point on the map of the Earth.

Sensational discovery by the Challenger crew

We also know from the school curriculum that the most high point The top of the earth's surface is the top of Mount Everest (8848 m), but the lowest is hidden under the waters of the Pacific Ocean and is located at the bottom of the Mariana Trench (10994 m). We know quite a lot about Everest; climbers have conquered its peak more than once; there are enough photographs of this mountain taken both from the ground and from space. If Everest is all in plain sight and does not pose any mystery to scientists, then the depths of the Mariana Trench keep many secrets, because getting to its bottom requires this moment Only three daredevils succeeded.

The Mariana Trench is located in the western part of the Pacific Ocean, it got its name thanks to Mariana Islands, which are located next to it. This uniquely deep place on the seabed has received the status of a US national monument; fishing and mining are prohibited here; in fact, it is a huge marine reserve. The shape of the depression is similar to a huge crescent, reaching 2550 km in length and 69 km in width. The bottom of the depression has a width from 1 to 5 km. The deepest point of the depression (10,994 m below sea level) was named “Challenger Deep” in honor of the British ship of the same name.

The honor of discovering the Mariana Trench belongs to the team of the British research vessel Challenger, which in 1872 carried out depth measurements at a number of points in the Pacific Ocean. When the ship found itself in the area of ​​​​the Mariana Islands, during the next depth measurement a hitch arose: the kilometer-long rope all went overboard, but it was not possible to reach the bottom. At the captain’s direction, a couple more kilometer sections were added to the rope, but, to everyone’s surprise, they were not enough and had to be added again and again. Then it was possible to establish a depth of 8367 meters, which, as it became known later, was significantly different from the real one. However, the underestimated value was quite enough to understand: the deepest place has been discovered in the World Ocean.

It is amazing that already in the 20th century, in 1951, it was the British who, using a deep-sea echo sounder, clarified the data of their compatriots; this time the maximum depth of the depression was more significant - 10,863 meters. Six years later, Soviet scientists began studying the Mariana Trench, arriving in this area of ​​the Pacific Ocean on the research vessel Vityaz. Using special equipment, they recorded maximum depth depressions of 11,022 meters, and most importantly, they were able to establish the presence of life at a depth of about 7,000 meters. It is worth noting that in the scientific world at that time there was an opinion that due to the monstrous pressure and lack of light at such depths, there were no manifestations of life.

Dive into the world of silence and darkness

In 1960, people visited the bottom of the depression for the first time. How difficult and dangerous such a dive was can be judged by the colossal water pressure, which at the lowest point of the depression is 1072 times higher than the average atmospheric pressure. The dive to the bottom of the depression using the bathyscaphe Trieste was carried out by US Navy Lieutenant Don Walsh and researcher Jacques Picard. Bathyscaphe "Trieste" with walls 13 cm thick was created in the same name Italian city and was a rather massive structure.

They lowered the submersible to the bottom for five long hours; Despite such a long descent, the researchers spent only 20 minutes at the bottom at a depth of 10,911 meters; it took them about 3 hours to rise. Within minutes of being in the abyss, Walsh and Picard were able to make a very impressive discovery: they saw two 30-centimeter flat fish, similar to flounder, that swam past their porthole. Their presence at such a depth became a real scientific sensation!

In addition to the discovery of the presence of life at such a mind-boggling depth, Jacques Piccard was able to experimentally refute the then prevailing opinion that at depths of more than 6000 m there is no upward movement of water masses. From an environmental point of view it was the most important discovery, because some nuclear powers were planning to bury radioactive waste in the Mariana Trench. It turns out that Picard prevented large-scale radioactive contamination of the Pacific Ocean!

After the dive of Walsh and Picard, for a long period only unmanned automatic bathyscaphes descended into the Mariana Trench, and there were only a few of them, because they were very expensive. For example, on May 31, 2009, the American deep-sea vehicle Nereus reached the bottom of the Mariana Trench. He not only took underwater photography and video at incredible depths, but also took soil samples. The instruments of the deep-sea vehicle recorded the depth it reached at 10,902 meters.

On March 26, 2012, a man again found himself at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, it was the famous director, creator legendary film"Titanic" James Cameron.

Your decision to do this dangerous journey to the “bottom of the Earth” he explained this way: “Almost everything on the earth’s land has been explored. In space, bosses prefer to send people circling around the Earth, and send machine guns to other planets. For the joys of discovering the unknown, there is only one field of activity left - the ocean. Only about 3% of its water volume has been studied, and what’s next is unknown.”

Cameron made a dive on the DeepSea Challenge bathyscaphe, it was not very comfortable, researcher long time was in a half-bent state, since the diameter of the interior of the device was only about 109 cm. The bathyscaphe, equipped with powerful cameras and unique equipment, allowed the popular director to film fantastic landscapes of the deepest place on the planet. Later, together with The National Geographic, James Cameron created a spectacular documentary"Challenge the Abyss"

It is worth noting that during his stay at the bottom of the deepest depression in the world, Cameron did not see any monsters, or representatives of an underwater civilization, or an alien base. However, he literally looked into the eyes of the Challenger Abyss. According to him, during his short trip he experienced sensations indescribable in words. The ocean floor seemed to him not only deserted, but somehow “lunar... lonely.” He experienced a real shock from the feeling of “complete isolation from all humanity.” True, problems with the equipment of the bathyscaphe may have interrupted the “hypnotic” effect of the abyss on the famous director in time, and he rose to the surface among the people.

Inhabitants of the Mariana Trench

Behind last years During the exploration of the Mariana Trench, many discoveries were made. For example, in bottom soil samples taken by Cameron, scientists found more than 20 thousand of a wide variety of microorganisms. Among the inhabitants of the depression there are also giant 10-centimeter amoebas, called xenophyophores. According to scientists, single-celled amoebas most likely reached such incredible sizes due to the rather hostile environment at a depth of 10.6 km in which they are forced to live. For some reason, high pressure, cold water and lack of light clearly benefited them, contributing to their gigantism.

Mollusks were also discovered in the Mariana Trench. It is unclear how their shells withstand enormous water pressure, but they feel very comfortable at depth, and are located next to hydrothermal vents that emit hydrogen sulfide, which is lethal to ordinary mollusks. However, local mollusks, having demonstrated incredible abilities for chemistry, somehow adapted to process this destructive gas into protein, which allowed them to live where, at first
look, it’s impossible to live.

Many of the inhabitants of the Mariana Trench are quite unusual. For example, scientists discovered here a fish with a transparent head, in the center of which are its eyes. Thus, during the course of evolution, the fish’s eyes received reliable protection from possible injury. At great depths there are many bizarre and sometimes even scary fish; here we managed to capture on video a fantastically beautiful jellyfish. Of course, we don’t yet know all the inhabitants of the Mariana Trench; in this regard, scientists still have many discoveries to make.

There are a lot of interesting things in this mysterious place and for geologists. Thus, in a depression at a depth of 414 meters, the Daikoku volcano was discovered, in the crater of which there is a lake of seething molten sulfur right under the water. As scientists say, the only analogue of such a lake known to them is only on Jupiter’s satellite, Io. Also in the Mariana Trench, scientists found the only underwater source of liquid carbon dioxide on earth, called “Champagne” in honor of the famous French
alcoholic drink. There are also so-called black smokers in the depression; these are hydrothermal springs operating at a depth of about 2 kilometers, thanks to which the water temperature in the Mariana Trench is maintained within fairly favorable limits - from 1 to 4 degrees Celsius.

At the end of 2011, scientists discovered very mysterious structures in the Mariana Trench; these are four stone “bridges” stretching from one end of the trench to the other for 69 kilometers. Scientists are still at a loss to explain how these “bridges” arose; they believe that they were formed at the junction of the Pacific and Philippine tectonic plates.

The study of the Mariana Trench continues. This year, from April to July, scientists from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration worked here on the Okeanos Explorer vessel. Their ship was equipped with a remotely controlled vehicle, which was used to film video underwater world the deepest place in the world's oceans. The video broadcast from the bottom of the depression could be seen not only by scientists, but also by Internet users.

A black and white photograph from half a century ago shows the legendary bathyscaphe Trieste as it prepares to dive. The crew of two was in a spherical steel gondola. It was attached to a float filled with gasoline to provide positive buoyancy.

Deepest depression

The Mariana Trench (Mariana Trench) is an oceanic trench, the deepest in the World Ocean. According to measurements from 2011, the bottom of the trench drops to a maximum depth of 10,920 m. These are data from organizations associated with UNESCO, and they roughly correspond to measurements made by landers, which showed a maximum depth of 10,916 m. This place is called the Challenger Deep - after the English ship, who discovered the depression in the 19th century.

The depression is a tectonic fault.

In 2012, an American oceanographic expedition discovered four ridges up to 2.5 km high at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. According to the University of New Hampshire, they were formed about 180 million years ago in the process of constant movement of lithospheric plates. The marginal part of the Pacific Plate is gradually “sinking” under the Philippine Plate. And then folding in the form of mountains is formed near the border of lithospheric plates.

In cross-section, the Mariana Trench has a characteristic V-shaped profile with very steep slopes. The bottom is flat, several tens of kilometers wide, divided by ridges into several almost closed areas. The pressure at the bottom of the Mariana Trench is more than 1100 times higher than normal atmospheric pressure, reaching 3150 kg/cm2.

Temperatures at the bottom of the Mariana Trench (Mariana Trench) are surprisingly high thanks to hydrothermal vents nicknamed “black smokers.” They constantly heat the water and maintain the overall temperature in the depression at about 3°C.

The first attempt to measure the depth of the Mariana Trench (Mariana Trench) was made in 1875 by the crew of the English oceanographic vessel Challenger during a scientific expedition across the World Ocean. The British discovered the Mariana Trench quite by accident, during an on-duty sounding of the bottom using a lot (Italian hemp rope and lead weight). Despite the inaccuracy of such a measurement, the result was amazing: 8367 m. In 1877, a map was published in Germany on which this place was marked as the Challenger Deep.

Measurements made in 1899 from the American coal miner Nero already showed greater depth: 9636 m.

In 1951, the bottom of the depression was measured by the British hydrographic vessel Challenger, named after its predecessor, unofficially called Challenger II. Now, using an echo sounder, a depth of 10899 m was recorded.

The maximum depth indicator was obtained in 1957 by the Soviet research vessel “Vityaz”: 11,034 ± 50 m. However, when taking readings, the change in environmental conditions at different depths was not taken into account. This erroneous figure is still present on many physical-geographical maps published in the USSR and Russia.

In 1959, the American research vessel Stranger measured the depth of the trench in a rather unusual way for science - using depth charges. Result: 10915 m.

The last known measurements were made in 2010 by the American vessel Sumner; they showed a depth of 10994 ± 40 m.

It is not yet possible to obtain absolutely accurate readings even with the most modern equipment. The work of an echo sounder is hampered by the fact that the speed of sound in water depends on its properties, which manifest themselves differently depending on the depth.

Diving into the Mariana Trench

The existence of the Mariana Trench has been known for quite some time, and there are technical possibilities for going down to the bottom, but over the past 60 years only three people have had the opportunity to do this: a scientist, a military man and a film director.

During the entire study of the Mariana Trench (Mariana Trench), vehicles with people on board were lowered to its bottom twice and automatic vehicles were dropped four times (as of April 2017).

On January 23, 1960, the bathyscaphe Trieste sank to the bottom of the Mariana Trench (Mariana Trench) abyss. On board were Swiss oceanographer Jacques Piccard (1922-2008) and US Navy lieutenant, explorer Don Walsh (born 1931). The bathyscaphe was designed by Jacques Piccard's father - physicist, inventor of the stratospheric balloon and bathyscaphe Auguste Piccard (1884-1962).

The descent of the Trieste lasted 4 hours 48 minutes, with the crew periodically interrupting it. At a depth of 9 km, the plexiglass glass cracked, but the descent continued until the Trieste sank to the bottom, where the crew saw a 30-centimeter flat fish and some kind of crustacean creature. After staying at a depth of 10912 m for about 20 minutes, the crew began the ascent, which took 3 hours 15 minutes.

Man made another attempt to descend to the bottom of the Mariana Trench (Mariana Trench) in 2012, when American film director James Cameron (born 1954) became the third to reach the bottom of the Challenger Deep. Previously, he repeatedly dived on the Russian Mir submersibles into Atlantic Ocean to a depth of over 4 km during the filming of the movie Titanic. Now, on the Dipsy Challenger bathyscaphe, he sank into the abyss in 2 hours 37 minutes - almost a widow faster than the Trieste - and spent 2 hours 36 minutes at a depth of 10898 m. After which he rose to the surface in just an hour and a half. At the bottom, Cameron saw only creatures that looked like shrimp.

The fauna and flora of the Mariana Trench have been poorly studied.

In the 1950s Soviet scientists during the expedition of the Vityaz vessel discovered life at depths of more than 7 thousand m. Before this, it was believed that there was nothing living there. Pogonophorans were discovered - a new family of marine invertebrates that live in chitinous tubes. Disputes about their scientific classification are still ongoing.

The main inhabitants of the Mariana Trench (Mariana Trench), living at the very bottom, are barophilic (developing only at high pressure) bacteria, protozoan creatures - foraminifera - single-celled in shells and xenophyophores - amoebas, reaching 20 cm in diameter and living by shoveling silt.

Foraminifera were obtained by the Japanese automatic deep-sea probe "Kaiko" in 1995, which dived to 10,911.4 m and took soil samples.

The larger inhabitants of the trench live throughout its thickness. Life at depth made them either blind or with very developed eyes, often telescopic. Many have photophores - luminous organs, a kind of bait for prey: some have long processes, like an angler fish, while others have them right in the mouth. Some accumulate luminous liquid and, in case of danger, shower the enemy with it in the manner of a “light curtain”.

Since 2009, the territory of the depression has been part of the American protected area Mariana Trench Marine National Monument with an area of ​​246,608 km 2. The zone includes only the underwater part of the trench and the water area. The basis for this action was the fact that the Northern Mariana Islands and the island of Guam - in fact American territory - are the island boundaries of the water area. The Challenger Deep is not included in this zone, as it is located on the ocean territory of the Federated States of Micronesia.

general information

Location: West Pacific.
Origin: tectonic.
Administrative affiliation :

Numbers

Length: 2550 km.
Width: 69 km.
Challenger Deep : depth - about 11 km, width - 1.6 km.
Deepest point : 10,920±10 m (Challenger Deep, 340 km southwest of Guam (USA), 2011).
Average slope : 7-9°.
Bottom pressure: 106.6 megapascals (MPa).
Nearest islands : 287 km southwest of Fais Island (Yap Islands, Federated States Micronesia); 304 km. northeast of the island of Guam (an unincorporated organized territory of the United States).
Average water temperature at the bottom : +3.3°C.

Curious facts

• To emphasize the size of the depression, its depth is often compared to the high mountain Earth - Everest (8848 m). It is suggested to imagine that if Everest were at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, there would still be more than two kilometers left from the top of the mountain to the surface of the Pacific Ocean.
• The research vessel “Vityaz” is a 109-meter, single-screw, double-deck motor ship with a displacement of 5,710 tons. It was launched in 1939 at the German shipyard “Schihau” in Bremerhaven (Germany). Initially it was a cargo-passenger ship called “Mars”. During World War II, it was a military transport and transported more than 20 thousand refugees from East Prussia. After the war, due to reparations, he first ended up in England, then in the USSR. Since 1949 - a research vessel of the Institute of Oceanology of the USSR Academy of Sciences, named “Vityaz” in memory of the famous Russian corvettes of the 19th century. Depicted on USSR postage stamps. Since 1994, permanently moored at the pier of the Museum of the World Ocean in the very center of Kaliningrad. Design feature: winches for anchoring, trawling the bottom and taking soil samples at a depth of 11 thousand m.
• To date, only 5% of the bottom of the World Ocean has been studied in relatively detail.
• In 1951, after members of the Challenger expedition measured the depth of the trench with an echo sounder (10,899 m), it was decided - just in case - to also measure it with the good old rope lot. The measurement showed a slight deviation: 10,863 m.
• British writer Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), describing a dive to the bottom of a deep-sea trench in his novel “The Deep of Maracot,” predicted future exploration of the Mariana Trench using controlled vehicles. His predictions turned out to be much more realistic than the description given earlier by the French science fiction writer Jules Verne (1828-1905) in the novel “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,” where the Nautilus submarine descends to a depth of 16 thousand meters and rises to the surface, “ emerging from the water like a flying fish” in just 4 minutes.
• ■ After its descent into the Mariana Trench, the bathyscaphe Trieste was used more than once for deep-sea diving. In 1963, with his help, the US Navy found the wreckage of the sunken nuclear submarine Thresher, lying at a depth of 2560 m with a crew of 129 people. As a result of numerous modifications, almost nothing from the original device was preserved. The bathyscaphe is currently on display in the hall National Museum US Navy in Washington, DC.
• Pogonophora underwater creatures are very difficult to study. These are the thinnest thread-like worms, often only one tenth of a millimeter thick and up to two to three tens of centimeters long, and are also enclosed in fairly strong tubes.

February 16th, 2010

The Mariana Trench, or Mariana Trench, is an oceanic trench in the western Pacific Ocean, which is the deepest geographical feature known on Earth.
The depression stretches along the Mariana Islands for 1500 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 more than 1100 times the 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.

Research into the Mariana Trench began with the British expedition of the Challenger, which carried out the first systematic measurements of the depths of the Pacific Ocean. This military three-masted corvette with sail equipment was rebuilt into an oceanographic vessel for hydrological, geological, chemical, biological and meteorological work in 1872. Also, significant contributions to the study of the Marianas deep-sea trench were made by Soviet researchers. In 1958, an expedition on the Vityaz established the presence of life at depths of more than 7000 m, thereby refuting the prevailing idea at that time about the impossibility of life at depths of more than 6000-7000 m. In 1960, the bathyscaphe Trieste was immersed to the bottom Mariana Trench to a depth of 10915 m.

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).

Is not the only case encounters with the inexplicable in the depths of the Mariana Trench. Something similar happened to the German research vehicle Haifish with a crew on board. Once at a depth of 7 km, the device suddenly refused to float. Finding 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 come to their senses, the crew activated a device called an “electric gun”. The monster, struck by a powerful discharge, disappeared into the abyss.

The inexplicable and incomprehensible have always attracted people, which is why scientists all over the world want to answer the question: “What does the Mariana Trench hide in its depths?”

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, made from heavy-duty materials, underwater vehicles equipped with video cameras. The result was the discovery of a rich animal community, consisting of both familiar and less familiar marine groups.

Thus, at depths of 6000 - 11000 km, the following were discovered:

Barophilic bacteria (developing only at high pressure),

Of the 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);

Multicellular organisms include 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.

So, man could never resist the desire to explore the unknown, and the rapidly developing world technical progress allows you to penetrate 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?

On January 23, 1960, Jacques Piccard and US Navy Lieutenant Donald Walsh in the bathyscaphe Trieste at a depth of 10919 m reached the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the deepest place in the World Ocean. The water temperature at this depth was 2.4 ° C (minimum temperature equal to 1.4 ° C, observed at a depth of 3600 m). The bathyscaphe "Trieste" was designed and developed by Jacques' father, the famous Swiss stratosphere explorer Auguste Piccard.

The dimensions of the capsule in which the researchers were housed inside the bathyscaphe are small in relation to the size of the submarine as a whole. In particular, it is noticeably superior to tanks with metal ballast, one of which is visible at the top left.

The Trieste, like other bathyscaphes, featured a pressurized, spherical steel gondola for the crew, attached to a large float filled with gasoline to provide buoyancy. A model of the Deep Sea wristwatch was attached to the outer wall of the Trieste bathyscaphe. A high degree of water protection was ensured not only by the sealed case, but also by a special liquid that filled the inner chamber of the watch instead of air.

The bathyscaphe floats on the principle of an iron. When on the surface, it is held by a huge float filled with gasoline located above the gondola with the crew. The float also has another important function: when submerged, it stabilizes the bathyscaphe vertically, preventing rocking and capsizing. When gasoline begins to slowly release from the float, which is replaced by water, the bathyscaphe begins to dive. From this moment on, the device has only one way - down to the bottom. In this case, of course, movement in the horizontal direction is also possible using propellers driven by the engine.

In order to rise to the surface, the submersible is provided with metal ballast, which can be shot, plates or blanks. Gradually freeing itself from “excess weight”, the apparatus rises. The metal ballast is held by electromagnets, so if something happens to the power supply system, the bathyscaphe immediately “soars” upward, like a balloon taking off into the sky.

One of the achievements of this dive, which had a beneficial effect on the environmental future of the planet, was the refusal of nuclear powers to bury radioactive waste at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. The fact is that Jacques Picard experimentally refuted the prevailing opinion at that time that at depths above 6000 m there is no upward movement of water masses.

Comparison with Everest

Now anyone can watch the fantastic underwater world of the Mariana Trench, the deepest place on our planet, captured on video, or even enjoy a live video broadcast from an 11-kilometer depth. But until relatively recently, the Mariana Trench was considered the most unexplored point on the map of the Earth.

Sensational discovery by the Challenger team

We also know from the school curriculum that the highest point on the earth’s surface is the top of Mount Everest (8848 m), but the lowest is hidden under the waters of the Pacific Ocean and is located at the bottom of the Mariana Trench (10,994 m). We know quite a lot about Everest; climbers have conquered its peak more than once; there are enough photographs of this mountain taken both from the ground and from space. If Everest is all in plain sight and does not pose any mystery to scientists, then the depths of the Mariana Trench keep many secrets, because so far only three daredevils have managed to reach its bottom.

The Mariana Trench is located in the western part of the Pacific Ocean; it got its name from the Mariana Islands, which are located next to it. A place on the seabed that is unique in depth has received the status of a national monument; fishing and mining are prohibited here; in fact, it is a huge marine reserve. The shape of the depression is similar to a huge crescent, reaching 2550 km in length and 69 km in width. The bottom of the depression has a width from 1 to 5 km. The deepest point of the depression (10,994 m below sea level) was named “Challenger Deep” in honor of the British ship of the same name.

The honor of discovering the Mariana Trench belongs to the team of the British research vessel Challenger, which in 1872 carried out depth measurements at a number of points in the Pacific Ocean. When the ship was in the area, during the next depth measurement a hitch arose: the kilometer-long rope all went overboard, but it was not possible to reach the bottom. At the captain’s direction, a couple more kilometer sections were added to the rope, but, to everyone’s surprise, they were not enough and had to be added again and again. Then it was possible to establish a depth of 8367 meters, which, as it became known later, was significantly different from the real one. However, the underestimated value was quite enough to understand: the deepest place has been discovered in the World Ocean.

It is amazing that already in the 20th century, in 1951, it was the British who, using a deep-sea echo sounder, clarified the data of their compatriots; this time the maximum depth of the depression was more significant - 10,863 meters.

Six years later, Soviet scientists began studying the Mariana Trench, arriving in this area of ​​the Pacific Ocean on the research vessel Vityaz. Using special equipment, they recorded the maximum depth of the depression at 11,022 meters, and most importantly, they were able to establish the presence of life at a depth of about 7,000 meters. It is worth noting that in the scientific world at that time there was an opinion that due to the monstrous pressure and lack of light at such depths, there were no manifestations of life.

Dive into the world of silence and darkness

In 1960, people visited the bottom of the depression for the first time. How difficult and dangerous such a dive was can be judged by the colossal water pressure, which at the lowest point of the depression is 1072 times higher than the average atmospheric pressure. The dive to the bottom of the depression using the bathyscaphe Trieste was carried out by US Navy Lieutenant Don Walsh and researcher Jacques Picard. Bathyscaphe "Trieste" with walls 13 cm thick was created in the Italian city of the same name and was a rather massive structure.

They lowered the submersible to the bottom for five long hours; Despite such a long descent, the researchers spent only 20 minutes at the bottom at a depth of 10,911 meters; it took them about 3 hours to rise. Within minutes of being in the abyss, Walsh and Picard were able to make a very impressive discovery: they saw two 30-centimeter flat fish, similar to flounder, that swam past their porthole. Their presence at such a depth became a real scientific sensation!

In addition to discovering the presence of life at such a mind-boggling depth, Jacques Piccard was able to experimentally refute the then prevailing opinion that at depths of more than 6,000 m there is no upward movement of water masses. In terms of ecology, this was a major discovery, because some nuclear powers were planning to bury radioactive waste in the Mariana Trench. It turns out that Picard prevented large-scale radioactive contamination of the Pacific Ocean!

After the dive of Walsh and Picard, for a long period only unmanned automatic bathyscaphes descended into the Mariana Trench, and there were only a few of them, because they were very expensive. For example, on May 31, 2009, the American deep-sea vehicle Nereus reached the bottom of the Mariana Trench. He not only took underwater photography and video at incredible depths, but also took soil samples. The instruments of the deep-sea vehicle recorded the depth it reached at 10,902 meters.

On March 26, 2012, a man again found himself at the bottom of the Mariana Trench; it was the famous director, creator of the legendary film “Titanic,” James Cameron.

He explained his decision to make such a dangerous journey to the “bottom of the Earth” as follows: “Almost everything on the earth’s land has been explored. In space, bosses prefer to send people circling around the Earth, and send machine guns to other planets. For the joys of discovering the unknown, there is only one field of activity left - the ocean. Only about 3% of its water volume has been studied, and what’s next is unknown,” Cameron made a dive on the DeepSea Challenge bathyscaphe, it was not very comfortable, the researcher was in a bent state for a long time, since the diameter of the interior of the device was only about 109 cm The bathyscaphe, equipped with powerful cameras and unique equipment, allowed the popular director to film fantastic landscapes of the deepest place on the planet. Later, together with The National Geographic, James Cameron created the exciting documentary “Challenging the Abyss.”

It is worth noting that during his stay at the bottom of the deepest depression in the world, Cameron did not see any monsters, or representatives of an underwater civilization, or an alien base. However, he literally looked into the eyes of the Challenger Abyss. According to him, during his short journey he experienced sensations indescribable in words. The ocean floor seemed to him not only deserted, but somehow “lunar... lonely.” He experienced a real shock from the feeling of “complete isolation from all humanity.” True, problems with the equipment of the bathyscaphe may have interrupted the “hypnotic” effect of the abyss on the famous director in time, and he rose to the surface among the people.

From giant amoebas to underwater bridges

In recent years, many discoveries have been made during the study of the Mariana Trench. For example, in bottom soil samples taken by Cameron, scientists found more than 20 thousand of a wide variety of microorganisms. Among the inhabitants of the depression there are also giant 10-centimeter amoebas, called xenophyophores. According to scientists, single-celled amoebas most likely reached such incredible sizes due to the rather hostile environment at a depth of 10.6 km in which they are forced to live. For some reason, high pressure, cold water and lack of light clearly benefited them, contributing to their gigantism.

Mollusks were also discovered in the Mariana Trench. It is unclear how their shells withstand enormous water pressure, but they feel very comfortable at depth, and are located next to hydrothermal vents that emit hydrogen sulfide, which is lethal to ordinary mollusks. However, local mollusks, having demonstrated incredible abilities for chemistry, somehow adapted to process this destructive gas into protein, which allowed them to live where, at first glance, it was impossible to live.

Many of the inhabitants of the Mariana Trench are quite unusual. For example, scientists discovered here a fish with a transparent head, in the center of which are its eyes. Thus, during the course of evolution, the fish’s eyes received reliable protection from possible injury. At great depths there are many bizarre and sometimes even scary fish; here we managed to capture on video a fantastically beautiful jellyfish. Of course, we don’t yet know all the inhabitants of the Mariana Trench; in this regard, scientists still have many discoveries to make.

There is a lot of interesting things in this mysterious place for geologists. Thus, in a depression at a depth of 414 meters, the Dai-koku volcano was discovered, in the crater of which there is a lake of seething molten sulfur right under the water. As scientists say, the only analogue of such a lake known to them is only on Jupiter’s satellite, Io. Also in the Mariana Trench, scientists found the only underwater source of liquid carbon dioxide on earth, called “Champagne” in honor of the famous French alcoholic drink. There are also so-called black smokers in the depression; these are hydrothermal springs operating at a depth of about 2 kilometers, thanks to which the water temperature in the Mariana Trench is maintained within fairly favorable limits - from 1 to 4 degrees Celsius.

At the end of 2011, scientists discovered very mysterious structures in the Mariana Trench; these are four stone “bridges” stretching from one end of the trench to the other for 69 kilometers. Scientists are still at a loss to explain how these “bridges” arose; they believe that they were formed at the junction of the Pacific and Philippine tectonic plates.

The study of the Mariana Trench continues. This year, from April to July, scientists from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration worked here on the Okeanos Explorer vessel. Their ship was equipped with a remotely controlled vehicle, which was used to film the underwater world of the deepest place in the World Ocean. The video broadcast from the bottom of the depression could be seen not only by scientists, but also by Internet users.