The deepest Mariana Trench is located in the ocean. The deepest places in the world

The relief of the earth's surface is very diverse. From space it looks like a smooth ball, but in fact on its surface there are both the highest mountains and the deepest depressions. Where is the deepest place on Earth? ocean or land?

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The world ocean is a huge expanse of water, occupying more than 71% of the Earth's surface. It includes all the seas and our planet. Relief of the ocean floor complex and varied, its waters are the habitat of millions of living organisms.

The deepest ocean in the world is the Pacific. The map shows that it occupies a huge area and borders Asia, North and South America, Australia, and Antarctica. More than 49.5% of the Earth's total water space contains the Pacific Ocean itself. Its bottom is a mixture of relict relief with transgressive plains. Most of the ocean floor elevations are tectonic in origin. There are hundreds of natural underwater canyons and ridges here. The deepest depression in the world is located in the Pacific Ocean - Mariana Trench.

Mariana Trench

The Mariana Trench (or Mariana Trench) is a deep ocean trench considered the deepest of all known on Earth. It received its name in honor of the Mariana Islands, next to which it is located. This is the deepest and most mysterious place in the Pacific Ocean.

Scientists have been studying the Mariana Trench since the late 19th century. This is the deepest trench recorded by researchers.

At that time they did not have good equipment at their disposal, so the data that was received did not correspond to reality. In 1875, a deep-sea lot established the depth. This lowest point on earth.

During the same period, the deepest place on Earth began to be called the “Challenger Deep” after the British ship on which the explorers sailed. Secondarily the Mariana Trench was measured in 1951.

In the middle of the last century, scientists were able to study the depression more and establish its depth at 10,863 m. Subsequently, the Challenger Deep was visited by many research ships. The most accurate results were obtained in 1957. Then the depth of the depression was 11,023 m.

Important! The Mariana Trench is now 10,994 m below sea level, the deepest place in the ocean known to date.

Inhabitants of the ocean floor

Even now, the bottom of the Pacific Ocean has not been fully studied, because it is the deepest ocean in the world. Many places in the Mariana Trench remain unexplored because at such great depths pressure too high. But, despite all the difficulties, people managed to descend to the depths of the depression. The first dive into the deepest trench happened in 1960. Scientist Jacques Piccard and US Navy serviceman Don Walsh descended to a record depth of 10,918 m. During the dive, people were inside the submersible. Scientists said that they saw flat 30-centimeter fish on the ocean floor that looked like flounder.

During further research, other living organisms were discovered:

1. In 1995, Japanese researchers discovered foraminifera - living organisms living at a depth of 10,911 m.
2. During a number of dives by American scientists, fish of the opisthoproctaceae family were found, football fish and frilled shark.
3. In the course of numerous studies, the bottom of the Mariana Trench was studied by special probes, which photographed monkfish, sea devil and other terrifying fish at a depth of 6000–8000 m.

There are legends that there are huge 25-meter sharks in the Mariana Trench. Scientists even found trophies - bones, shark teeth and other fossils. But this does not in any way indicate that sharks still live there now. Perhaps they were here long ago.

The deepest places in the world's oceans

Each of the four oceans has its own deep place. The lowest point is in the Pacific Ocean, but what about other trenches and depressions?

Puerto Rico Trench

The Puerto Rico Ocean Trench is located at the junction of the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. The absolute depth of the trench reaches 8385 m. Due to the structure of the relief, this area is often subject to tremors and high volcanic activity. Nearby islands suffer from constant tsunamis and earthquakes.

Java Basin

The Java Trench (or Sunda Trench) is the deepest place in the Indian Ocean. The gutter stretches by 4–5 thousand kilometers, and the lowest point reaches 7729 m. The depression received its name because of its proximity to the island of Java. The bottom of the trench is an alternation of plains and canyons with ridges and ledges.

Greenland Sea

The part of the Arctic Ocean that is located on Crossing Iceland with Greenland and the island of Jan Mayen is called the Greenland Sea.

Sea area – 1.2 million square meters. km. The average depth of the body of water is 1444 m, and the deepest point is 5527 m below sea level. Most of the seabed topography is a huge basin with underwater ridges.

This the deepest trench in Europe. There are many commercial fish here, which are caught by fishermen from nearby islands.

Inland depressions of Russia

Deep depressions are located not only in the waters of the world's oceans. A striking example of this is the Baikal Rift, located in. The lake itself is considered the deepest on Earth, so it is not surprising that the lowest inland place is located here. Lake Baikal is surrounded by mountains, so the height differences between the ocean level and the rift exceeds 3615 m.

Important! The depression reaches 1637 m in depth and is the greatest depth of Lake Baikal.

Depression of Lake Ladoga. Lake Ladoga is located in the Republic of Karelia. It is considered the largest freshwater lake in Europe. The average depth of the lake ranges from 70-220 m, but it reaches its absolute maximum in one place - 223 m below sea level.

Caspian Sea. The Caspian Lake is located on the border of Europe and Asia. It is the largest enclosed body of water on earth, which is why it is often called the Caspian Sea.

On the Russian side, the reservoir borders on the Volga and Volga islands, but most of the Caspian Sea is located on the territory of Kazakhstan. Maximum depth lake is 1025 m below sea level.

Khantayskoye Lake. Occupies third place among the deepest places in Russia. The maximum depth here reaches 420 m. The reservoir is located in the Krasnoyarsk Territory. There is not a lot of data about this place, but it is enough to include Lake Khantaiskoe among the deepest places in Russia.

Inland depressions

Our Earth is rich in relief. You can see many high mountains, thousands of endless plains and hundreds of depressions. Below is a list of the deepest places recorded around the world:

• The Jordan Rift Valley (Ghor) is located at the intersection of Syria, Jordan and Israel. The deepest place is 804 m.
• The depression of Lake Tanganyika is located in Central Africa and is longest freshwater lake in the world. The deepest place is 696 m.
• The Great Slave Lake Depression is located in Canada. The lowest point is 614 m. This is the deepest trench in North America.
• The Great Bear Lake Depression is also located in Canada and is rich uranium deposit. The deepest place is 288 m.

Science's perspective on the deepest places

Diving to the bottom of the Earth with Cameron

Conclusion

In fact, there are dozens of deep places in the world. Many of them can be found at the bottom of reservoirs, others in the Earth itself. This topic is quite interesting, and scientists are studying such places. Now you know where the deepest place on Earth is, in which ocean the deepest depression is located and what interesting places in the world are being studied by specialists.

Excellent students at school firmly learned: the highest point on earth is Mount Everest (8848 m), the deepest depression is Mariana. However, if we know a lot of interesting facts about Everest, then most people know nothing about the trench in the Pacific Ocean, in addition to the fact that it is the deepest.

FIVE HOURS DOWN, THREE HOURS UP

Despite the fact that the oceans are closer to us than the mountain peaks and even more so the distant planets of the solar system, people have explored only five percent of the seabed, which still remains one of the greatest mysteries of our planet.

With an average width of 69 km, the Mariana Trench was formed several million years ago due to shifts of tectonic plates and stretches in the shape of a crescent for two and a half thousand kilometers along the Mariana Islands.

Its depth, according to recent research, is 10,994 meters ± 40 meters (for comparison: the equatorial diameter of the Earth is 12,756 km), the water pressure at the bottom reaches 108.6 MPa - this is more than 1100 times more than normal atmospheric pressure!

The Mariana Trench, also called the Earth's fourth pole, was discovered in 1872 by the crew of the British research vessel Challenger. The crew took measurements of the bottom at various points in the Pacific Ocean.

Another measurement was made in the area of ​​​​the Mariana Islands, but the kilometer-long rope was not enough, and then the captain ordered two more kilometer sections to be added to it. Then again and again...

Almost a hundred years later, the echo sounder of another English, but under the same name, scientific vessel recorded a depth of 10,863 meters in the Mariana Trench area. After this, the deepest point of the ocean floor began to be called the “Challenger Deep”.

In 1957, Soviet researchers established the presence of life at depths of more than 7,000 meters, thereby refuting the prevailing opinion at that time about the impossibility of life at depths of more than 6,000-7,000 meters, and also clarified the British data, recording a depth of 11,023 meters in the Mariana Trench .

The first human dive to the bottom of the depression took place in 1960. It was carried out on the Trieste bathyscaphe by the American Don Walsh and the Swiss oceanographer Jacques Picard.

The descent into the abyss took them almost five hours, and the ascent took about three hours; the researchers spent only 20 minutes at the bottom. But even this time was enough for them to make a sensational discovery - in the bottom waters they discovered flat fish up to 30 cm in size, similar to flounder, unknown to science.

LIFE IN utter darkness

In the course of further research using unmanned deep-sea vehicles, it turned out that at the bottom of the depression, despite the terrifying water pressure, a wide variety of species of living organisms live. Giant 10-centimeter amoebas - xenophyophores, which under normal terrestrial conditions can only be seen with a microscope, amazing two-meter worms, no less huge starfish, mutant octopuses and, naturally, fish.

The latter amaze with their terrifying appearance. Their distinctive feature is a huge mouth and many teeth. Many spread their jaws so wide that even a small predator can swallow whole an animal larger than itself.

There are also quite unusual creatures, reaching two meters in size with a soft jelly-like body, which have no analogues in nature.

It would seem that at such a depth the temperature should be at Antarctic levels. However, Challenger Deep contains hydrothermal vents called “black smokers.” They constantly heat the water and thereby maintain the overall temperature in the depression at 1-4 degrees Celsius.

The inhabitants of the Mariana Trench live in pitch darkness, some of them are blind, others have huge telescopic eyes that catch the slightest glare of light. Some individuals have “lanterns” on their heads that emit different colors.

There are fish in whose bodies a luminous liquid accumulates. When they sense danger, they splash this liquid towards the enemy and hide behind this “curtain of light.” The appearance of such animals is very unusual for our perception and can cause disgust and even inspire a feeling of fear.

But it is obvious that not all the mysteries of the Mariana Trench have yet been solved. Some strange animals of truly incredible size live in the depths!

THE LIZARD TRIED TO CHEAT THE BATHYSCAPH LIKE A NUT

Sometimes on the shore, not far from the Mariana Trench, people find the bodies of dead 40-meter monsters. Giant teeth were also discovered in those places. Scientists have proven that they belong to a multi-ton prehistoric megalodon shark, the span of which reached two meters.

These sharks were thought to have gone extinct about three million years ago, but the teeth found are much younger. So have the ancient monsters really disappeared?

In 2003, another sensational results of research into the Mariana Trench were published in the United States. Scientists have submerged an unmanned platform equipped with searchlights, sensitive video systems and microphones in the deepest part of the world's oceans.

The platform was lowered on 6 inch-section steel cables. At first, the technology did not provide any unusual information. But a few hours after the dive, the silhouettes of strange large objects (at least 12-16 meters) began to flash on the monitor screens in the light of powerful spotlights, and at that time the microphones transmitted sharp sounds to the recording devices - the grinding of iron and dull, uniform blows on metal.

When the platform was raised (without being lowered to the bottom due to incomprehensible obstacles that prevented the descent), it was discovered that the powerful steel structures were bent, and the steel cables seemed to have been sawed off. A little more - and the platform would forever remain the Challenger Deep.

Previously, something similar happened to the German device “Hayfish”. Having descended to a depth of 7 kilometers, he suddenly refused to emerge. To find out what was wrong, the researchers turned on an infrared camera.

What they saw in the next few seconds seemed to them a collective hallucination: a huge prehistoric lizard, clinging to the bathyscaphe with its teeth, tried to chew it like a nut.

Having recovered from the shock, the scientists activated the so-called electric gun, and the monster, struck by a powerful discharge, hastened to retreat.

Giant 10-centimeter amoeba - xenophyophora

WHO IS THE REAL “OWNER” OF PLANET EARTH

But it's not just fantastic monsters that are captured by deep-sea cameras. In the summer of 2012, the unmanned deep-sea vehicle Titan, launched from the research vessel Rick Mesenger, was in the Mariana Trench at a depth of 10,000 meters. His main goal was to film and photograph various underwater objects.

Suddenly the cameras recorded a strange multiple shine of a material very similar to metal. And then, several tens of meters from the device, several large objects appeared in the light of the spotlight.

Having approached these objects to the maximum allowable distance, the Titan displayed a very unusual picture on the monitors of the scientists on the Rick Mesenger. On an area of ​​approximately a square kilometer there were about 50 large cylindrical objects, very similar to... flying saucers!

A few minutes after the “UFO airfield” was recorded, the Titan stopped communicating and never surfaced.

There are a lot of well-known facts that, if they do not confirm the possibility of the existence of intelligent creatures in the depths of the sea, then, in any case, fully explain why modern science still knows nothing about them.

Firstly, man's native habitat - the earth's surface - occupies only a little more than a quarter of the land surface. So our planet could well be called the Ocean planet rather than the Earth.

Secondly, as everyone knows, life originated in water, so marine intelligence (if it exists) is about one and a half million years older than humans.

That is why, according to some experts, at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, thanks to the presence of active hydrothermal springs, not only entire colonies of prehistoric animals that have survived to this day can exist, but also an underwater civilization of intelligent creatures unknown to earthlings! The “fourth pole” of the Earth, in the opinion of scientists, is the most suitable place for them to live.

And once again the question arises: is man the only “master” of planet Earth?

FIELD RESEARCH IS PLANNED FOR SUMMER 2015

The third person in the entire history of exploration of the Mariana Trench to descend to its bottom was exactly three years ago. James Cameron.

“Almost everything on the earth’s land has been explored,” he explained his decision. — 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.”

On the DeepSes Challenge bathyscaphe, being in a half-bent state, since the internal diameter of the device did not exceed 109 cm, the famous film director observed everything that was happening in this place until mechanical problems forced him to rise from the surface.

Cameron managed to take samples of rocks and living organisms from the bottom, as well as film with 3D cameras. Subsequently, these shots formed the basis of a documentary film.

However, he never saw any of the terrible sea monsters. According to him, the very bottom of the ocean was “lunar... empty... lonely,” and he felt “complete isolation from all humanity.”

Meanwhile, in the telecommunications laboratory of Tomsk Polytechnic University, together with the Institute of Marine Technology Problems of the Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the development of a domestic device for deep-sea research, which can descend to a depth of 12 kilometers, is in full swing.

Specialists working on the bathyscaphe declare that there are no analogues to the equipment they are developing in the world, and “field” studies of the sample in the waters of the Pacific Ocean are planned for the summer of 2015.

The famous traveler Fyodor Konyukhov also began working on the project “Diving into the Mariana Trench in a Bathyscaphe.” According to him, his goal is not just to touch the bottom of the deepest depression of the World Ocean, but also to spend two whole days there, conducting unique research.

The bathyscaphe is designed to accommodate two people and will be designed and built by an Australian company.

The most mysterious and inaccessible point on our planet, the Mariana Trench, is called the “fourth pole of the Earth.” It is located in the western part of the Pacific Ocean and extends 2926 km in length and 80 km in width. At a distance of 320 km south of the island of Guam there is the deepest point of the Mariana Trench and the entire planet - 11022 meters. In these little-explored depths hide living creatures whose appearance is as monstrous as their living conditions.

The Mariana Trench is called the "fourth pole of the Earth"

The Mariana Trench, or Mariana Trench, is an oceanic trench in the western Pacific Ocean, which is the deepest geographical feature known on Earth. Research of the Mariana Trench was initiated by the expedition ( December 1872 - May 1876) English ship "Challenger" ( HMS Challenger), which carried out the first systematic measurements of the depths of the Pacific Ocean. This military three-masted corvette with sail rigging was rebuilt as an oceanographic vessel for hydrological, geological, chemical, biological and meteorological work in 1872.

In 1960, a great event took place in the history of the conquest of the world's oceans

The bathyscaphe Trieste, piloted by French explorer Jacques Piccard and US Navy Lieutenant Don Walsh, reached the deepest point of the ocean floor - the Challenger Deep, located in the Mariana Trench and named after the English ship Challenger, from which the first data were obtained in 1951 about her.

Bathyscaphe "Trieste" before diving, January 23, 1960

The dive lasted 4 hours 48 minutes and ended at 10911 m relative to sea level. At this terrible depth, where there is a monstrous pressure of 108.6 MPa ( which is more than 1100 times more than normal atmospheric) flattens all living things, the researchers made a major oceanological discovery: they saw two 30-centimeter flounder-like fish swimming past the porthole. Before this, it was believed that no life existed at depths exceeding 6000 m.

Thus, an absolute record for diving depth was set, which cannot be surpassed even theoretically. Picard and Walsh were the only people to reach the bottom of the Challenger Deep. All subsequent dives to the deepest point of the world's oceans, for research purposes, were made by unmanned robotic bathyscaphes. But there were not so many of them, since “visiting” the Challenger Abyss is both labor-intensive and expensive.

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.

In the 90s, three dives were made by the Japanese Kaiko device, controlled remotely from the “mother” ship via a fiber-optic cable. However, in 2003, while exploring another part of the ocean, the towing steel cable broke during a storm and the robot was lost. The underwater catamaran Nereus became the third deep-sea vehicle to reach the bottom of the Mariana Trench.

In 2009, humanity again reached the deepest point of the world's oceans.

On May 31, 2009, humanity again reached the deepest point of the Pacific, and indeed the entire world ocean - the American deep-sea vehicle Nereus sank into the Challenger failure at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. The device took soil samples and took underwater photos and videos at maximum depth, illuminated only by its LED spotlight. During the current dive, Nereus' instruments recorded a depth of 10,902 meters. The indicator was 10,911 meters, and Picard and Walsh measured a value of 10,912 meters. Many Russian maps still show the value of 11,022 meters obtained by the Soviet oceanographic vessel Vityaz during the 1957 expedition. All this indicates the inaccuracy of the measurements, and not a real change in depth: no one carried out cross-calibration of the measuring equipment that gave the given values.

The Mariana Trench is formed by the boundaries of two tectonic plates: the colossal Pacific plate goes under the not so large Philippine plate. This is a zone of extremely high seismic activity, part of the so-called Pacific volcanic ring of fire, stretching for 40 thousand km, an area with the most frequent eruptions and earthquakes in the world. The deepest point of the trench is the Challenger Deep, named after the English ship.

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

The inexplicable and incomprehensible have always attracted people

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, a type of marine invertebrate animals that live 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.

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?

Research has shown that there is life at depths of over 6,000 meters

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.

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? We will follow the news.

The Mariana Trench (or Mariana Trench) is the deepest place on the earth's surface. It is located on the western edge of the Pacific Ocean, 200 kilometers east of the Mariana Archipelago.

It’s paradoxical, but humanity knows much more about the secrets of space or mountain peaks than about the depths of the ocean. And one of the most mysterious and unexplored places on our planet is the Mariana Trench. So what do we know about him?

Mariana Trench - the bottom of the world

In 1875, the crew of the British corvette Challenger discovered a place in the Pacific Ocean where there was no bottom. Kilometer after kilometer the line of the lot went overboard, but there was no bottom! And only at a depth of 8184 meters the descent of the rope stopped. This is how the deepest underwater crack on Earth was discovered. It was called the Mariana Trench, named after the nearby islands. Its shape (in the form of a crescent) and the location of the deepest section, called the “Challenger Deep,” were determined. It is located 340 km south of the island of Guam and has coordinates 11°22′ N. latitude, 142°35′ e. d.

Since then this deep-sea depression has been called the “fourth pole”, “the womb of Gaia”, “the bottom of the world”. Oceanographers have long tried to find out its true depth. Studies over the years have given different values. The fact is that at such a colossal depth, the density of water increases as it approaches the bottom, therefore the properties of the sound from the echo sounder in it also change. Using barometers and thermometers at different levels along with echo sounders, in 2011 the depth in the Challenger Deep was determined to be 10994 ± 40 meters. This is the height of Mount Everest plus another two kilometers above.

The pressure at the bottom of the underwater chasm is almost 1100 atmospheres, or 108.6 MPa. Most deep-sea vehicles are designed for a maximum depth of 6-7 thousand meters. During the time that has passed since the discovery of the deepest canyon, it was possible to successfully reach its bottom only four times.

In 1960, the deep-sea bathyscaphe Trieste, for the first time in the world, descended to the very bottom of the Mariana Trench in the Challenger Deep area with two passengers on board: US Navy Lieutenant Don Walsh and Swiss oceanographer Jacques Piccard.

Their observations led to an important conclusion about the presence of life at the bottom of the canyon. The discovery of an upward flow of water also had important environmental significance: based on it, nuclear powers refused to dump radioactive waste at the bottom of the Mariana Trench.

In the 90s, the trench was explored by the Japanese unmanned probe "Kaiko", which brought samples of silt from the bottom in which bacteria, worms, shrimp were found, as well as pictures of a hitherto unknown world.

In 2009, the American robot Nereus conquered the abyss, picking up from the bottom samples of silt, minerals, samples of deep-sea fauna and photos of the inhabitants of unknown depths.

In 2012, James Cameron, the author of Titanic, Terminator and Avatar, dived alone into the abyss. He spent 6 hours at the bottom, collecting samples of soil, minerals, fauna, as well as taking photographs and 3D video filming. Based on this material, the film “Challenge the Abyss” was created.

Amazing discoveries

In the trench, at a depth of about 4 kilometers, there is an active Daikoku volcano, spewing liquid sulfur that boils at 187 ° C in a small depression. The only lake of liquid sulfur was discovered only on Jupiter’s moon, Io.

“Black smokers” swirl 2 kilometers from the surface - sources of geothermal water with hydrogen sulfide and other substances that, upon contact with cold water, turn into black sulfides. The movement of sulfide water resembles clouds of black smoke. The water temperature at the point of release reaches 450° C. The surrounding sea does not boil only because of the density of the water (150 times greater than at the surface).

In the north of the canyon there are “white smokers” - geysers spewing liquid carbon dioxide at a temperature of 70-80 ° C. Scientists suggest that it is in such geothermal “cauldrons” that one should look for the origins of life on Earth. Hot springs “heat” the icy waters, supporting life in the abyss - the temperature at the bottom of the Mariana Trench is between 1-3° C.

Life beyond life

It would seem that in an environment of complete darkness, silence, icy cold and unbearable pressure, life in the depression is simply unthinkable. But studies of the depression prove the opposite: there are living creatures almost 11 kilometers under water!

The bottom of the hole is covered with a thick layer of slime from organic sediments that have been sinking from the upper layers of the ocean for hundreds of thousands of years. Mucus is an excellent breeding ground for barrophilic bacteria, which form the basis of nutrition for protozoa and multicellular organisms. The bacteria, in turn, become food for more complex organisms.

The ecosystem of the underwater canyon is truly unique. Living beings have managed to adapt to an aggressive, destructive environment under normal conditions, with high pressure, lack of light, low amounts of oxygen and high concentrations of toxic substances. Life in such unbearable conditions gave many of the inhabitants of the abyss a frightening and unattractive appearance.

Deep-sea fish have incredibly large mouths lined with sharp, long teeth. High pressure made their bodies small (from 2 to 30 cm). However, there are also large specimens, such as the xenophyophora amoeba, reaching 10 cm in diameter. The frilled shark and goblin shark, which live at a depth of 2000 meters, generally reach 5-6 meters in length.

Representatives of different species of living organisms live at different depths. The deeper the inhabitants of the abyss, the better developed their organs of vision are, allowing them to catch the slightest reflection of light on the body of prey in complete darkness. Some individuals themselves are capable of producing directional light. Other creatures are completely devoid of organs of vision; they are replaced by organs of touch and radar. With increasing depth, underwater inhabitants increasingly lose their color; the bodies of many of them are almost transparent.

On the slopes where the “black smokers” are located, mollusks live that have learned to neutralize sulfides and hydrogen sulfide that are lethal to them. And, which still remains a mystery to scientists, under conditions of enormous pressure at the bottom, they somehow miraculously manage to keep their mineral shell intact. Other inhabitants of the Mariana Trench show similar abilities. The study of fauna samples showed many times higher levels of radiation and toxic substances.

Unfortunately, deep-sea creatures die due to changes in pressure when any attempt is made to bring them to the surface. Only thanks to modern deep-sea vehicles has it become possible to study the inhabitants of the depression in their natural environment. Representatives of fauna unknown to science have already been identified.

Secrets and riddles of the “womb of Gaia”

The mysterious abyss, like any unknown phenomenon, is shrouded in a mass of secrets and mysteries. What does she hide in her depths? Japanese scientists claimed that while feeding goblin sharks, they saw a shark 25 meters long devouring goblins. A monster of this size could only be a megalodon shark, which became extinct almost 2 million years ago! This is confirmed by the findings of megalodon teeth in the vicinity of the Mariana Trench, whose age dates back to only 11 thousand years. It can be assumed that specimens of these monsters still exist in the depths of the hole.

There are many stories about the corpses of giant monsters washed up on the shore. When descending into the abyss of the German bathyscaphe "Haifish", the dive stopped 7 km from the surface. To understand the reason, the passengers of the capsule turned on the lights and were horrified: their bathyscaphe, like a nut, was trying to chew some kind of prehistoric lizard! Only a pulse of electric current through the outer skin managed to scare away the monster.

Another time, when an American submersible was diving, the grinding of metal began to be heard from under the water. The descent was stopped. Upon inspection of the raised equipment, it turned out that the titanium alloy metal cable was half sawed (or chewed), and the beams of the underwater vehicle were bent.

In 2012, the video camera of the Titan unmanned aerial vehicle from a depth of 10 kilometers transmitted a picture of metal objects, presumably a UFO. Soon the connection with the device was interrupted.

Unfortunately, there is no documentary evidence of these interesting facts; they are all based only on eyewitness accounts. Each story has its fans and skeptics, its arguments for and against.

Before the risky dive into the trench, James Cameron said that he wanted to see with his own eyes at least part of the secrets of the Mariana Trench, about which there are so many rumors and legends. But he did not see anything that went beyond the knowable.

So what do we know about her?

To understand how the Mariana underwater gap was formed, it should be remembered that such gaps (trenches) are usually formed along the edges of the oceans under the influence of moving lithospheric plates. Oceanic plates, being older and heavier, “crawl” under continental plates, forming deep gaps at the junctions. The deepest is the junction of the Pacific and Philippine tectonic plates near the Mariana Islands (Mariana Trench). The Pacific plate is moving at a rate of 3-4 centimeters per year, resulting in increased volcanic activity along both its edges.

Along the entire length of this deepest failure, four so-called bridges—transverse mountain ridges—were discovered. The ridges were presumably formed due to the movement of the lithosphere and volcanic activity.

The gutter is V-shaped in cross-section, greatly expanding at the top and narrowing downwards. The average width of the canyon in the upper part is 69 kilometers, in the widest part - up to 80 kilometers. The average width of the bottom between the walls is 5 kilometers. The slope of the walls is almost vertical and is only 7-8°. The depression stretches from north to south for 2,500 kilometers. The trench has an average depth of about 10,000 meters.

Only three people to date have visited the very bottom of the Mariana Trench. In 2018, another manned dive to the “bottom of the world” in its deepest section is planned. This time, the famous Russian traveler Fyodor Konyukhov and polar explorer Artur Chilingarov will try to conquer the depression and find out what it hides in its depths. Currently, a deep-sea bathyscaphe is being manufactured and a research program is being drawn up.

Incredible facts

The earth is still full of secrets even though many of them have been revealed scientists and researchersfor many years.

You can learn about several unusual places created by people, but mostly by nature, here.

Plunge into the depths of our planet and imagine how many undiscovered secrets our planet holds.

The world's deepest well (the deepest well in the USSR)

In the Murmansk region, in 1970, 10 kilometers west of the city of Zapolyarny, the Kola superdeep well SG-Z was located, the depth of which is 12,262 meters, which makes it the deepest well in the world. The cost of drilling work is equal to the cost of the project to fly to the Moon. In 1989, the Guinness Book of Records registered the well as the deepest on Earth. It was drilled to study the boundaries of the lithosphere of our planet.

The deepest metro

The Kyiv metro station "Arsenalnaya" ("Arsenalna") is the deepest in the world. It is located on the Svyatoshinsko-Brovarskaya line and was opened on November 6, 1960. The "English type" station has a short middle hall and its depth is 105.5 meters.

The deepest ocean

The Pacific Ocean is not only the largest ocean on our planet by area, but also the deepest.

The deepest trench (the deepest place in the ocean, the deepest depression)

The Mariana Trench (or Mariana Trench) is an oceanic deep-sea trench. Its name comes from the nearby Mariana Islands. The deepest part of the depression is called “Challenger Deep” and it goes down to 11,035 meters.

The deepest lake in the world

Lake Baikal, which many Russians call the sea, is a lake of tectonic origin and is located in the southern part of Eastern Siberia. In addition to being the world's deepest lake at 1,642 meters, Baikal is also the largest natural reservoir of fresh water. There is a unique diversity of flora and fauna here - more than 1,700 species of plants and animals, 2/3 of which cannot be found anywhere else on the planet. In addition, the lake is considered the oldest on Earth - its age is about 25 million years.

The deepest sea

The Philippine Sea, located near the Philippine archipelago, has an average depth of 4,108 meters, and is considered the deepest thanks to the Philippine Trench, the deepest point of which is 10,540 meters.

The deepest river

The length of the Congo River is 4344-4700 kilometers, the basin area is 3,680,000 square kilometers, and the maximum depth is more than 230 meters, making it the deepest in the world. It is also worth noting that this is the second most water-rich river on Earth after the Amazon and the only large river that crosses the equator 2 times. As the lower Congo begins to break through the South Guinean Highlands in a deep gorge, it forms the Livingston Falls, and it is here that the river reaches its greatest depths.

Deepest mine

At the moment, the deepest mine in the world can be called the Tau-Tona mine, which is located 70 kilometers from Johannesburg (South Africa). The name of the mine can be translated from one African language as “great lion”. Gold is mined here, and so far this deposit has a depth of about 4 km, but mining is carried out at a depth of 2.3 to 3.595 kilometers.

Deepest cave

The Krubera-Voronya cave, located in Abkhazia, can be called the deepest in the world (at least among the caves studied). The entrance to the cave is located at an altitude of approximately 2,256 meters in the Orto-Balagan tract. It is worth noting that the Krubera-Voronya cave was discovered by Georgian speleologists in 1960. At the moment it has been explored to a depth of 95 meters.