Earth
Our home
Over the course of history we've constantly learned more and more about our planet
Humanity's endless curiosity for the unknown has led us to explore the far reaches beyond the horizon
When that wasn't enough we took to the skies and even ventured beyond it
But there is one place one place that remains a mystery a place where darkness
Brings a new meaning to the word
The Ocean
Seventy-two percent of the Earth's surface is covered by water yet ninety-five percent of the world below the surface
Remains unexplored we have better maps of Mars and the moon than we do of the ocean floor
Nearly 50% of all life on Earth is also found in the ocean
But scientists estimate that at the very least a million more
aquatic species have yet to be discovered which basically means that
theoretically, no matter how unlikely or illogical it might be to us now,
there is still a chance,
a chance,
that a talking yellow sponge-like creature is enjoying a delicious krabby patty right as we speak...
If you've ever flown with a commercial airline and tried to look out the window things will look pretty small obviously,
but keep that distance in mind now imagine that you're on a boat and instead of seeing the ground from high up in the air,
you see the ocean floor from the surface
That's how deep the Challenger Deep is,
at the depth of almost 11,000 meters,
it's the lowest known point in the ocean
The most amazing thing though is that we have been there
Humans have actually touched the bottom of this place and not only that we did it in
1960
1960! That's over 50 years ago now!
Humans would not visit again until 52 years later when in 2012
James Cameron the famous movie director actually ventured down to the bottom himself
Marine animals have something called "cleaning stations", at these stations fish, sharks, turtles,
"I like turtles!"
and other aquatic life
congregate to be cleaned by smaller shrimp and fish-like creatures,
when the animal approaches the cleaning station it will open it's mouth and
position it's body in such a way as to signal that it needs cleaning,
the cleaner fish will then remove and eat the parasites from the skin
and even swim into the mouth and gills of any fish being cleaned
For decades now scientists have been tracking a
mysterious song heard in the depths of the ocean the song like sounds have been
identified as belonging to a single male whale
trying to communicate with others, the problem is that he produces sounds at the frequency of around
52 Hertz, but most other wave species sing at frequencies much lower,
between the 15 and 25 Hertz range
Thus his singing goes unnoticed
no matter how hard he tries,
and it's been named
"The Loneliest Whale in the World"
which coincidentally sounds like a perfect title for a Pixar movie
It's been estimated that roughly three million
Shipwrecks are right now resting at the ocean floor,
as they slowly sank beneath the surface
never to be seen again that they carried with them all their cargo, their gold, everything
So as we speak, there are several billions worth of treasures
waiting to be found at the bottom of the ocean
In 2012 a video from an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico
spotted a highly unusual and surreal-looking creature
It was captured over 1,000 meters below the surface floating around like a sheet or a blanket in the water
The creature was later revealed to actually be a form of a jellyfish,
Deepstaria Enigmatica, to be exact
which is an awesome name by the way,
not much is known about the animal other than that it lives at a depth of between
1,000 and 2,000 meters
There is something called
Deep-sea Gigantism
and it's exactly what the name suggests
It's the tendency for
deep-sea animals to display a larger size than their smaller more common relatives
For example the Giant and Colossal squid,
the colossal is the larger of the two and can grow up to 14 meters long
the average length of a freaking bus!
Another example is the Japanese Spider crab with a maximum leg span of almost four meters
There's also the giant oarfish which can become over 17 meters long
and the giant isopod which looks absolutely enormous
compared to its smaller relatives.
It's not exactly known what is causing the creatures' increased size
It could be the result of adaptation for scarcer food,
greater pressure, the extreme temperature and complete lack of sunlight, or for other unknown reasons
In early 2013
3 days after a ship had capsized just outside the coast of Nigeria a team of divers were sent down to
look for the dead bodies of the ship's crew, what they did not expect to find was someone
still alive;
the ship's cook Harrison Okene had in complete darkness
survived for three days in a small pocket of air
30 metres below the surface,
the only thing he had was a bottle of coca-cola
His rescue was also captured on film and has gone quite viral ever since
The Bermuda Triangle has long been considered to be a mysterious place with strange, paranormal activity,
a place where ships and aircrafts alike can mysteriously disappear never to be seen again
This is not the case at all
Officially the triangle is not even considered to exist, in fact the Bermuda Triangle has as many
disappearances as any other region of the ocean of similar size
and a lot of the supposed mysteries about the place even
happened outside of the triangle,
the only reason is considered paranormal is the work of popular culture
It should come as no surprise that water pollution is a big problem all around the world today;
Our complete disregard for destroying something that is absolutely essential
for life on this planet is nothing short of astounding, and it's not just about the life in the ocean
It's about life on Earth
humans included
millions of marine creatures, birds, and terrestrial animals are killed every
year as the direct consequence of pollution
In China over 90% of the water in and around cities is polluted,
which should come as a shock to no-one as they release around
60 million tons of waste into the ocean
EVERY
SINGLE
DAY
The issue comes down to our inability to account for long-term effects, the fact that what we do now, today!
could literally mean life, or death in just a few short years
But let's not forget about our pollution of the skies
Global warming has an enormous effect on the oceans as well,
about 30% to 40% of the carbon dioxide we release into the atmosphere
dissolves into the ocean, rivers, and lakes
It reacts with the water to form
carbonic acid and starts a process called
"Ocean Acidification"
Where slowly but increasingly turning our oceans into acid.
Let me say that again just to let you know how moronic this really is:
We are knowingly, knowingly destroying something that is crucial to our survival
and probably the reason we even exist in the first place
by turning it into fucking acid!