Mariana Trench

Mariana Trench, or as it is also called, the Mariana Trench is rightly considered the most mysterious and inaccessible point of our planet. This is the deepest of the known geographers objects in the Pacific Ocean. Its depth is about eleven kilometers, to be precise, it is equal to 10,994 ± 40 m. The Marian Trench lies to the southeast of the Mariana Islands (11 ° 21'0 "N and 142 ° 12'0" E. ), The length of this depression is 2926 km, and the width of the bottom is from 1 to 5 km. South of the island of Guam Mariana Archipelago, at a distance of 320 km, recorded the deepest point of this trough - the Challenger Abyss. The depression is located in the area of joining the Pacific and Philippine tectonic plates, near the fault line.

Dipping to the bottom of the Mariana Trench

A man is inherent in defying nature and the Mariana Trench is no exception. January 23, 1960. People first ventured to descend to the bottom of this giant hollow. A pair of brave men became the US Navy lieutenant Don Walsh and the scientist Jacques Picard. With the help of the bathyscaphe "Trieste" they managed to descend to a depth of 10,918 meters. As it turned out, even at such depth there is life - the researchers to their surprise found flat fish, up to 30 cm long, resembling flounder in appearance.

At the end of March 1995, a Kaiko-Japanese probe was launched into the Marian Trench. He reached a new depth of 10911.4 meters and took samples in which scientists found foraminifera - the simplest living organisms.

Four years later, the submarine "Nereus" (Nereus) sank to the bottom of the trough, to a depth of 10,902 meters. This time, in addition to collecting samples of bottom sediments, it was possible to shoot a video and make several photographs.

James Cameron, the Canadian producer who made such masterpieces as Titanic, Avatar, Terminator, Aliens, on March 26, 2012 on a bathyscaphe with the proud name Deepsea Challenger, reached the Challenger's Abyss, becoming the third person , Who ventured to descend to such a monstrous depth. There, from filming in 3D format, which served as the basis for a scientific documentary film, shown on the channel "National Geographic".

There, too, there is life

Scientists believe that the Mariana Trench can become the key to unraveling the origin of life on our planet, and possibly beyond. Thanks to the deep-water mission of James Cameron, it became known about the new bizarre forms of life.

It turned out that in addition to bacteria and microorganisms, on the bottom of the trough there are crayfish, kornozhenki, gastropod mollusks, invertebrates with shells based on chitin, and even fish that can hit with huge teeth, eyes that rotate in different directions and sharp spines instead of fins. At the bottom also found the teeth of megalodone - a giant prehistoric shark. It is believed that the mouth of this monster in width reached 2 meters, its length was 24 meters, and weight - about a hundred tons ...

The bottom of the depression, the force of pressure at which is 1100 times more than the usual atmospheric, literally teems with a variety of species of living organisms. According to the researchers, it is here that the roots of metabolism are hidden - those that could trigger the chemical processes that resulted in the emergence of terrestrial, and, quite possibly, extraterrestrial life, and within the boundaries of the solar system.

A year ago, oceanologists created a three-dimensional map of the bottom and now have a more accurate idea of what kind of Mariana trough. Photos and videos received from dives and from satellites, we hope, will finally allow scientists to fill the white spots in the history of the Earth.