The mariana trench is the deepest natural trench in the world, located in the western
pacific ocean, around 200 kilometers east of the mariana islands.
Its maximum known depth is 10 thousand 984 eters, but some measurements put its deepest
point at 11 thousand 034 meters.
That is deep.
So deep, that If you stuck mount Everest inside of it, the tip of the mountain would still
be 2 kilometers under water.
We don’t know a lot about what lies inside the mariana trench, but what if we somehow
drained it?
What exactly would we find?
That’s the question we’re asking right now on Life’s Biggest Questions.
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The Mariana trench is the deepest natural trench in the world, and hardly any light
reaches the deepest points.
There is also a tremendous amount of pressure, at the bottom, the water column above exerts
a pressure of 1 thousand 86 bars, which is 1 thousand times the standard atmospheric
pressure at sea level.
To put it into perspective, its like having an African elephant stand on your big toenail.
Ouch.
Yet somehow, life still exists within it.
Xenophyphores have been found in the trench by the Scripps institution of oceanography
at a record depth of 10.6 kilometers below the sea surface.
First discovered in 1883 by Henry Bowman Brady, Xenophyophore s are unicellular organisms
found on the ocean floor, they extract minerals from their surroundings and use them to form
an exoskeleton.
according to data, microbial life does exist within the trench, not only that, it thrives.
80 percent of life on our planet lives in the deep ocean, under conditions that are
completely unfathomable to us.
At the same time, there would likely be piles of whale and shark carcasses being fed on
by deep sea creatures.
There are also larger creatures in the trench, observed during a 1960’s decent.
Flatfish and shrimp, according to piccard, who also said I quote, the bottom appeared
light and clear, a waste of firm diatomaceous ooze.
Other scientists are sceptical of piccards observations, and suggest he might have actually
seen a sea cucumber.
In December of 2014, a new species of snailfish was found at a depth 8145 meters, in addition
to giant crustaceans.
These organisms are able to grow quite large due to a process known as deep sea gigantism.
The point is, if we drained the mariana trench we would probably find a plethora of undiscovered
species that we never knew existed because the trench is so inaccessible to humans.
But life isn’t all you will find in the mariana trench.
The effect of humans, pollution and waste are seen even at the deepest, most inaccessible
parts of the ocean.
During victor Vescovo’s record breaking dive in 2014, he reported seeing a plastic
bag as well as candy wrappers.
Research has also shown that amphiphods ingest microplastics, and 100 percent of them were
found to have at eaten at least one piece of synthetic material.
To make matters worse, scientific American reported that tests found the presence of
carbon 14 inside the body of aquatic animals.
Carbon 14 is from nuclear bomb testing.
Contrary to popular belief, the trench is not the part of the sea floor that’s closest
to the center of the earth.
You wont find liquid magma at the bottom.
This is because the earth is an oblate spheroid, not a perfect sphere.
But, at the bottom of the trench, theres something going on called tectonic plate subduction.
Its actually been proposed that the mariana trench could be a place where humans could
dispose of nuclear waste, in the hopes that the waste might be pushed down into the earth’s
mantle.
But as nuclear waste dumping is prohibited by international law that just isn’t an
option.
Another interesting fact, plate subduction zones are known to be associated with megathrust
earthqakes.
They are very sensitive areas, and its definitely not a good idea to disrupt this ecosystem.
We don’t know a whole lot about what happens in the mariana trench.
What kind of life exists, what the geology is like.
It would be a very interesting feat to drain the trench and find out exactly what the most
mysterious part of the ocean holds.
Alas, we can’t drain the trench, and maybe that’s a good thing.
If we drained it, all the aquatic life, all the undiscovered species within the trench,
would die.
At the same time, if we disrupt this delecate balance by draining the trench and removing
the immense pressure of the water above, this delecate ecosystem might be disrupted, and
megathrust earthquakes could occur, shaking the earth’s mantle.
What do you think would happen if we drained the mariana trench?
What would we find?
Let us know in the comments.
For now, I’m going to take a moment to answer some comments and questions from my last video
on this channel, What if you fell into liquid nitrogen?
Potatomato – you will become the rapper ice cube.
Austin – what if you were to drink liquid nitrogen.
Short answer, you would probably die.
All in your head productions – if pinnochio said his nose was gonna grow, would it grow?
And if it does, does that mean he’d be lying.
I don’t know, it keeps me up at night.
I would imagine that if Pinocchio said his nose was going to grow, it wouldn’t grow.
Because that’s not a lie.
Pinocchio is known for lying, and when he does, his knows grows.
Ok, I’m officially confused.