What is the temperature in the Mariana Trench. Depth of the Mariana Trench

Many people know that the highest point is Everest (8848 m). If you are asked where the deepest point of the ocean is, what will you answer? Mariana Trench– this is the very place we want to tell you about.

But first I would like to note that they never cease to amaze us with their mysteries. The described place has also not yet been properly studied for completely objective reasons.

So, we offer you interesting facts about the Mariana Trench or, as it is also called, the Mariana Trench. Below are valuable photographs of the mysterious inhabitants of this abyss.

It is located in the western part of the Pacific Ocean. This is the deepest place in the world known to date.

Having a V-shape, the depression runs along the Mariana Islands for 1,500 km.

Mariana Trench on the map

An interesting fact is that the Mariana Trench is located at the junction of the Pacific and Philippine.

The pressure at the bottom of the trench reaches 108.6 MPa, which is almost 1072 times higher than normal pressure.

You probably now understand that due to such conditions, exploring the mysterious bottom of the world, as this place is also called, is extremely difficult. However, the scientific community, since the end of the 19th century, has not stopped studying this mystery of nature step by step.

Mariana Trench Research

In 1875, the first attempt was made to explore the Mariana Trench globally. The British expedition "Challenger" carried out measurements and analysis of the trench. It was this group of scientists who set the initial mark at 8184 meters.

Of course, this was not the full depth, since the capabilities of that time were significantly more modest than today's measuring systems.

Soviet scientists also made enormous contributions to research. An expedition led by the research vessel Vityaz began its own studies in 1957 and discovered that there was life at a depth of more than 7,000 meters.

Until this time, there was a strong belief that life at such depths was simply impossible.

We invite you to look at an interesting scale image of the Mariana Trench:

Diving to the bottom of the Mariana Trench

1960 was one of the most fruitful years in terms of research into the Mariana Trench. The research bathyscaphe Trieste made a record dive to a depth of 10,915 meters.

This is where something mysterious and inexplicable began. Special devices that record underwater sound began to transmit eerie noises to the surface, reminiscent of the grinding of a saw on metal.

The monitors registered mystical shadows that were shaped like fairy-tale dragons with several heads. For an hour, scientists tried to record as much data as possible, but then the situation began to get out of control.

It was decided to immediately raise the bathyscaphe to the surface, as there were reasonable fears that if we waited a little longer, the bathyscaphe would forever remain in the mysterious abyss of the Mariana Trench.

For more than 8 hours, specialists recovered from the bottom unique equipment made of heavy-duty materials.

Of course, all the instruments, and the bathyscaphe itself, were carefully placed on a special platform to study the surface.

Imagine the surprise of the scientists when it turned out that almost all the elements of the unique apparatus, made of the strongest metals at that time, were severely deformed and distorted.

The cable, 20 cm in diameter, lowering the bathyscaphe to the bottom of the Mariana Trench was half sawn through. Who tried to cut it and why remains a mystery to this day.

An interesting fact is that only in 1996 the American newspaper The New York Times published details of this unique study.

Lizard from the Mariana Trench

The German Haifish expedition also encountered the inexplicable mysteries of the Mariana Trench. While plunging the research apparatus to the bottom, the scientists faced unexpected difficulties.

Being at a depth of 7 kilometers under water, they decided to lift the equipment.

But the technology refused to obey. Then special infrared cameras were turned on to find out the cause of the failures. However, what they saw on the monitors plunged them into indescribable horror.

A fantastic giant-sized lizard was clearly visible on the screen, which was trying to chew the bathyscaphe like a squirrel nut.

Being in a state of shock, the hydronauts activated the so-called electric gun. Having received a powerful electric shock, the lizard disappeared into the abyss.

What it was, the fantasy of scientists obsessed with research, mass hypnosis, the delirium of people tired of colossal stress, or just someone’s joke is still unknown.

The deepest place in the Mariana Trench

On December 7, 2011, researchers at the University of New Hampshire sank a unique robot to the bottom of the trench under study.

Thanks to modern equipment, it was possible to record a depth of 10,994 m (+/- 40 m). This place was named after the first expedition (1875), about which we wrote above: “ Challenger Deep».

Inhabitants of the Mariana Trench

Of course, after these inexplicable and even mystical secrets, natural questions began to arise: what monsters live at the bottom of the Mariana Trench? After all, for a long time it was believed that below 6000 meters the existence of living beings is in principle impossible.

However, later studies of the Pacific Ocean in general, and the Mariana Trench in particular, confirmed the fact that at a much greater depth, in impenetrable darkness, under monstrous pressure and water temperature close to 0 degrees, a huge number of unprecedented creatures live.

Undoubtedly, without modern technology, made of the most durable materials and equipped with cameras unique in their properties, such research would simply be impossible.

As a general summary, we can confidently say that at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, between 6,000 and 11,000 meters under water, the following have been reliably discovered: worms (up to 1.5 meters in size), crayfish, a variety of bacteria, amphipods, gastropods, mutant octopuses, mysterious starfish, unidentified soft-bodied creatures of two meters in size, etc.

These inhabitants feed mainly on bacteria and the so-called “corpse rain,” that is, dead organisms that slowly sink to the bottom.

Hardly anyone doubts that the Mariana Trench stores many more. However, people do not give up trying to explore this unique place on the planet.

Thus, the only people who dared to dive to the “bottom of the earth” were the American marine specialist Don Walsh and the Swiss scientist Jacques Picard. On the same bathyscaphe "Trieste" they reached the bottom on January 23, 1960, descending to a depth of 10915 meters.

However, on March 26, 2012, James Cameron, an American director, made a solo dive to the bottom of the deepest point of the World Ocean. The bathyscaphe collected all the necessary samples and took valuable photos and videos. Thus, we now know that only three people visited the Challenger Deep.

Did they manage to answer at least half of the questions? Of course not, since the Mariana Trench still hides much more mysterious and inexplicable things.

By the way, James Cameron stated that after diving to the bottom he felt completely cut off from the human world. Moreover, he assured that no monsters simply exist at the bottom of the Mariana Trench.

But here we can recall the primitive Soviet statement, after a flight into space: “Gagarin flew into space - he did not see God.” From this the conclusion was drawn that there is no God.

Likewise here, we cannot say unequivocally that the giant lizard and other creatures that scientists saw during previous research were the result of someone’s sick imagination.

It is important to understand that the geographical object under study has a length of more than 1000 kilometers. Therefore, potential monsters, inhabitants of the Mariana Trench, could well be located many hundreds of kilometers from the research site.

However, these are just hypotheses.

Panorama of the Mariana Trench on Yandex Map

Another interesting fact may intrigue you. On April 1, 2012, the Yandex company published a comic panorama of the Mariana Trench. On it you can see a sunken ship, water drains and even the glowing eyes of a mysterious underwater monster.

Despite the humorous idea, this panorama is tied to a real place and is still available to users.

To view it, copy this code into the address bar of your browser:

https://yandex.ua/maps/-/CZX6401a

The Abyss knows how to keep its secrets, and our civilization has not yet reached such a development as to “hack” natural mysteries. However, who knows, maybe one of the readers of this article in the future will become the genius who will be able to solve this problem?

Subscribe to - with us, interesting facts will make your leisure time extremely exciting and useful for your intellect!

There are 5 oceans on Earth, which occupy a significant part of the land. Having conquered space and landed a man on the Moon, sending autonomous spacecraft to the most distant planets of the solar system, people know negligible little about what is hidden in the depths of the sea on their home planet.

What is the Mariana Trench?

This is the name of the deepest place in the Pacific Ocean known today. It is a trench formed by the convergence of tectonic plates. The maximum depth of the Mariana Trench is approximately 10,994 meters (2011 data). There are other trenches in all other oceans, but not so deep. Only the Java Trench (7729 meters) can be compared with the Mariana Trench.

Location

The deepest place on Earth is located in the western Pacific Ocean, near the Mariana Islands. The trench stretches along them for one and a half thousand kilometers. The bottom of the depression is flat, its width ranges from 1 to 5 kilometers. The trench got its name in honor of the islands next to which it is located.

"Challenger Deep"

This is the name given to the deepest place (10,994 meters) of the Mariana Trench. Here it is necessary to explain that it is not yet possible to obtain the exact dimensions of this gigantic trough of the ocean floor. The speed of sound at different depths varies greatly, and the Mariana Trench has a very complex structure, so the data obtained using an echo sounder is always slightly different.

History of discovery

People have long known that deep-sea places exist in the seas and oceans. In 1875, the English corvette Challenger opened one of these points. What depth of the Mariana Trench was recorded then? It was 8367 meters. The measuring instruments at that time were far from ideal, but even this result made a stunning impression - it became clear that the deepest point of the ocean floor on the planet had been found.

Gutter studies

In the 19th century, it was simply impossible to explore the bottom of the Mariana Trench. At that time, there was no technology that would allow one to descend to such a depth. Without modern diving equipment, this was tantamount to suicide.

The trench was re-examined many years later, in the next century. Measurements taken in 1951 showed a depth of 10,863 meters. Then, in 1957, members of the Soviet scientific vessel Vityaz studied the depression. According to their measurements, the depth of the Mariana Trench was 11,023 meters.

The last study of the trench was carried out in 2011.

Cameron's Great Journey

The Canadian director became the third person in the history of exploration of the Mariana Trench to descend to its bottom. He was the first in the world to do it alone. Before its sinking, the trench was explored by Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard in 1960 using the bathyscaphe Trieste. In addition, Japanese scientists tried to find out the depth of the Mariana Trench using the Kaiko probe. And in 2009, the Nereus apparatus descended to the bottom of the trench.

Descent to such incredible depths comes with a huge number of risks. First of all, a person is threatened by a monstrous pressure of 1100 atmospheres. It can damage the body of the device, which will lead to the death of the pilot. Another serious danger that lurks when descending to depth is the cold that reigns there. It can not only cause equipment failure, but also kill a person. The bathyscaphe may collide with rocks and be damaged.

For many years, James Cameron dreamed of visiting the deepest point of the Mariana Trench - the Challenger Deep. In order to carry out his plans, he equipped his own expedition. Especially for this, an underwater vehicle was developed and built in Sydney - a single-seat bathyscaphe Deepsea Challenger, equipped with scientific equipment, as well as photo and video cameras. In it, Cameron sank to the bottom of the Mariana Trench. This event occurred on March 26, 2012.

In addition to photographs and video footage, the Deepsea Challenger bathyscaphe had to take new measurements of the trench and try to provide accurate data on its dimensions. Everyone was worried about one question: “How much?” The depth of the Mariana Trench, according to the apparatus, was 10,908 meters.

The director was impressed by what he saw below. Most of all, the bottom of the depression reminded him of a lifeless lunar landscape. He did not meet the terrible inhabitants of the abyss. The only creature he saw through the submersible's porthole was a small shrimp.

After a successful voyage, James Cameron decided to donate his bathyscaphe to the Oceanographic Institute so that it could continue to be used to explore the depths of the sea.

Creepy denizens of the deep

The lower the ocean floor, the less sunlight penetrates through the water column. The depth of the Mariana Trench is the reason that impenetrable darkness always reigns in it. But even the absence of light cannot become an obstacle to the emergence of life. Darkness gives birth to creatures that have never seen the sun. And they, in turn, were only recently able to be seen by marine biologists.

This spectacle is not for the faint of heart. Almost all the inhabitants of the Mariana Trench seem to have been born from the imagination of an artist who creates monsters for horror films. Seeing them for the first time, you might think that they do not live next to humans on the same planet, but are alien creatures, they look so alien.

To some extent, this is true - negligible little is known about the oceans and their inhabitants. The bottom of the Mariana Trench has been explored less than the surface of Mars. Therefore, for a long time it was believed that at such a depth life is impossible without sunlight. It turned out that this was not the case. The depth of the Mariana Trench, gigantic pressure and cold are no obstacle to the birth of amazing creatures living in complete darkness.

Most of them have an ugly appearance due to terrible living conditions. The pitch darkness reigning in the depths made the marine inhabitants of these places completely blind. Many fish have huge teeth, such as howliods, which swallow their prey whole.

What can living creatures that are so far from the surface of the ocean eat? At the bottom of the depression, the remains of living organisms accumulate, forming a multi-meter layer of bottom silt. The inhabitants of the depths feed on these deposits. Predatory fish have luminous areas of the body with which they attract small fish.

The gutter is inhabited by bacteria that can only develop at high pressure, single-celled organisms, jellyfish, worms, mollusks, and sea cucumbers. The depth of the Mariana Trench allows them to reach very large sizes. For example, amphipods found at the bottom of the trench are 17 centimeters long.

Amoebas

Xenophyophores (amoebas) are single-celled organisms that can only be seen with a microscope. But at depth, these inhabitants of the Mariana Trench reach gigantic sizes - up to 10 centimeters. Previously, they were found at a depth of 7500 meters. An interesting feature of these organisms, in addition to their size, is the ability to accumulate uranium, lead and mercury. Externally, deep-sea amoebas look different. Some are disc or tetrahedron shaped. Xenophyophores feed on bottom sediments.

Hirondellea gigas

Large amphipods (amphipods) have been discovered in the Mariana Trench. These deep-sea crayfish feed on dead organic matter that accumulates at the bottom of the depression and have a keen sense of smell. The largest specimen found was 17 centimeters in length.

Holothurians

Sea cucumbers are another representative of organisms that live at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. This class of invertebrates feeds on plankton and bottom sediments.

Conclusion

The Mariana Trench has not yet been properly explored. No one knows what creatures inhabit it and how many secrets it holds.

The Mariana Trench, or Mariana Trench, is an oceanic trench in the western Pacific Ocean, which is the deepest geographical feature known on Earth.

Studies of the Mariana Trench were initiated by the expedition (December 1872 - May 1876) of the English ship 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.

Also, a significant contribution to the study of the Mariana deep-sea trench was 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.

“Vityaz” in Kaliningrad on eternal parking

Half a century ago, on January 23, 1960, a significant event took place in the history of the conquest of the world's oceans.

Bathyscaphe Trieste, piloted by French explorer Jacques Piccard (1922–2008) 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 the Challenger ship, from which the first data about it were obtained in 1951. The dive lasted 4 hours 48 minutes and ended at 10911 m relative to sea level. At this terrible depth, where a monstrous pressure of 108.6 MPa (which is more than 1,100 times greater than normal atmospheric pressure) flattens all living things, the researchers made a major oceanological discovery: they saw two 30-centimeter fish similar to flounder swim 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.

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.

In the hands of student Eleanor Bors is a sea cucumber that lives in the very abyss and was picked up by the Nereus apparatus.

During the current dive, Nereus' instruments recorded a depth of 10,902 meters. The indicator of “Kayko”, which first landed here in 1995, 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. Of course, 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 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.

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?”

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.

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.

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?

—> Satellite view of the depression <—

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.

The Mariana Trench is a fracture in the earth's crust located in the ocean. It is one of the famous objects in the world. Let's find out where the Mariana Trench is located on the map and what it is known for.

What it is?

The Mariana Trench is an oceanic trench, or a break in the earth's crust, located under water. It got its name from the nearby Mariana Islands. In the world, this object is known as the deepest place. The depth of the Mariana Trench in meters is 10994. This is 2000 meters more than the highest mountain on the planet - Everest.

The British first learned about this depression in 1875 on the Challenger ship. At the same time, the first measurement of its depth was made, which was 8367 meters.

How was the Mariana Trench formed?

It represents the boundary between two lithospheric plates. Here there is a fault in the earth's crust, formed as a result of the movements of these plates. The depression is shaped like a V and its length in kilometers is 1,500.

Location

How to find the Mariana Trench on a world map? It is located in the Pacific Ocean, in its eastern part, between the Philippine and Mariana Islands. The coordinates of the deepest point of the depression are 11 degrees north latitude and 142 degrees east longitude.

Rice. 1. The Mariana Trench is located in the Pacific Ocean

Research

The enormous depth of the Mariana Trench determines the pressure at the bottom, which is 108.6 MPa. This is a thousand times more pressure on the Earth's surface. Naturally, conducting research in such conditions is extremely difficult. However, the secrets and mysteries of the deepest place in the world attract many scientists.

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As already mentioned, the first studies were carried out in 1875. But the equipment of that time did not allow not only to descend to the bottom of the depression, but even to accurately measure its depth. The first dive was carried out in 1960 - then the bathyscaphe “Trieste” sank to a depth of 10915 meters. There are many interesting facts in this study, which, unfortunately, still have no explanation.

The devices recorded sounds reminiscent of the grinding of a saw on metal. With the help of monitors, unclear shadows were visible, with outlines reminiscent of dragons or dinosaurs. The recording was carried out for an hour, then the scientists decided to urgently raise the submersible to the surface. When the device was lifted, many damages were discovered on the metal, which at that time was considered super-strong. The cable was enormously long and 20 cm wide and was half sawn through. Who could have done this is still considered unknown.

Rice. 2. The bathyscaphe Trieste dived into the Mariana Trench

The German Haifish expedition also sank its bathyscaphe into the Mariana Trench. However, they only reached a depth of 7 km and then encountered some difficulties. Attempts to remove the device were unsuccessful. Turning on the infrared cameras, scientists saw a huge lizard holding the submersible. Whether this was true - today no one can say.

The deepest part of the depression was recorded in 2011 using a special robot diving to the bottom. It reached 10994 meters. This area was called the Challenger Deep.

Is there anyone who went down to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, other than robots and bathyscaphes? Such dives were carried out by several people:

• Don Walsh and Jacques Picard, research scientists, descended on the bathyscaphe Trieste in 1960 to a depth of 10,915 meters;
• James Cameron, an American director, made a solo dive to the very bottom of the Challenger Deep, collecting many samples, photographs and video materials.

In January 2017, the famous traveler Fyodor Konyukhov announced his desire to dive into the Mariana Trench.

Who lives at the bottom of the depression

Despite the enormous depth and high pressure of the water column, the Mariana Trench is not uninhabited. Until recently, it was believed that life ceases at a depth of 6000 m and no animals are able to withstand the enormous pressure. In addition, at the level of 2000 m the passage of light stops and below there is only darkness.

Recent research has discovered that even below 6000 m there is life. So, who lives at the bottom of the Mariana Trench:

• worms up to one and a half meters long;
• crustaceans;
• shellfish;
• octopuses;
• sea ​​stars;
• many bacteria.

All these inhabitants have adapted to withstand pressure and darkness, and therefore have specific shapes and colors.

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