From mysterious sounds to unidentified monsters, here is why we don’t know much at all about
the deepest place on Earth!
10: The Mariana Trench Deepest Depths The Mariana Trench is the deepest place on
Earth.
The enormous trench is shaped like a crescent and located in the Western Pacific, very near
the Mariana Islands, hence the name.
Not only does the Mariana Trench contain the deepest point on Earth, but it also contains
several of the deepest points known to mankind.
There are mud volcanoes inside, strange creatures we've yet to meet, and pressures that are
1000 times what you get at sea level.
The reason we don't know much about the Mariana Trench is because of how deep it is.
At the southern end of the trench is Challenger Deep, the lowest spot in the ocean.
The best estimates we have say that Challenger Deep is 36,070 feet.
This measurement comes from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, who used special
sound pulses to properly measure its depth.
The second deepest place in the world is also located inside the Mariana Trench.
It's known as Sirena Deep, and it's a blistering 35,462 feet deep.
It's also located about 124 miles east of Challenger Deep.
To give you a comparison of just how deep the Mariana Trench is, if you took Mt. Everest
and flipped it upside down, there would still be 7044 feet to go before you reached the
bottom!
Skydivers jump out of airplanes at about 7000 feet, meaning the Mariana Trench is as deep
as Everest is tall + the distance of skydiving from the clouds to the ground!
9: Horrifying Creatures The Mariana Trench is so massive that we simply
don't know what's down there.
After you descend 3000 feet into the ocean, there is absolutely no sunlight to witness
life forms.
The few creatures we have discovered living in the Mariana Trench are absolutely horrifying.
Plus, scientists say we have barely scratched the surface of life in this great ocean gulf.
Still, we can get a pretty good idea of just what kind of goblins are living in the Mariana
Trench by looking at the creatures we've already discovered.
First on the list is the Dumbo octopus, a cute yet bizarre octopus with ears like Dumbo
the elephant.
This is the deepest dwelling octopus known to us so far, living at about 13,000 feet
deep.
Cute right??
Then we have the deep-sea dragonfish, one of the most horrific animals ever.
The dragonfish is an assassin with no scales and a slippery and slimy skin just like an
eel.
These monsters live about 6000 feet deep and rely on bioluminescent body parts to help
them hunt.
Then we have the barreleye fish, something that looks like it belongs in another dimension.
The fish is incredibly rare and has a translucent body that allows you to see straight through
its skin and into its brain.
Researchers have only found a handful of these fish, and they live about 2500 feet within
the Mariana Trench.
Last but not least is the terrifying goblin shark.
This toothy creature looks like somebody blended a shark with an orc from Lord of the Rings.
It has a snout that looks like a sword, with protruding jaws and pink skin.
Some of them can grow to be as big as 18 feet.
They live at least 3000 feet beneath the surface, diving deeper into the Mariana Trench the
older they get.
8: Undersea Volcanoes There are more than monsters in the Mariana
Trench.
Researchers used a remotely operated vehicle to explore some of the deeper waters of the
trench, and much to their surprise, they were able to document a volcanic eruption going
on about 2.8 miles below the surface of the ocean.
It has been described as the deepest eruption ever recorded on our planet.
To give you an idea of just how deep the volcano is, it’s located deeper inside the Mariana
Trench than Mount Rainier is high above the sea level.
Researchers say the eruption happened sometime between 2013 and 2015.
It happened in a zone within the trench called the “back-arc.”
This is an area on the sea floor with many active volcanoes.
Marine geologist Bill Chadwick from Oregon State University recently said in a statement
that almost all of the world's volcanic activity does indeed take place under the ocean, with
almost none of it being detected by scientists.
Submarine eruptions, as they’re known, are elusive despite their frequency.
This particular eruption was discovered in 2015 by cameras on an ROV.
The cameras captured photographs of a dark lava flow spreading across the sea floor.
The camera also witnessed hydrothermal vent fluid venting from the lava flow, indicating
that the lava was warm and fresh.
And this is just another reason why it's so hard to explore the Mariana Trench.
The last thing explorers want is to be burned alive by undersea lava!
7: Mysterious Sounds An autonomous vehicle deep inside the Mariana
Trench picked up a sound recording so creepy and so terrifying that it would make your
hair stand on end!
The sound clip is only 3.5 seconds long.
It was a mysterious metallic sound coming from deep inside the trench, and it took months
and months of research for scientists to finally identify what they feel is the most likely
source of the creepy audio.
Was it something rumbling deep inside the earth??
Scientists now believe that the noise was actually made by an animal, more specifically,
a new type of baleen whale.
According to Sharon Nieukirk from Oregon State University, the low-frequency moan of the
whale was very distinct.
It was the exact type of moan heard from other baleen whales.
But this one was a bit more unique, a little twangy, and never before heard by scientists.
This is amazing because to find a new type of whale in the ocean basically never happens
anymore.
The frequency of the sound spanned a range of between 38 hertz and 8000 hertz.
Sharon and her team of scientists were unable to find any human or geological sources that
could have contributed to the noise.
It definitely wasn't produced by a ship.
The only thing that the sound could have been made by was a whale.
So this leads to the question, what other things are deep down in the depths that we’ve
never heard about?
And now for some journeys to the deep but first wanted to give a big shout out to
Jamie Salmon mr dizzyizzy
Thanks so much for joining our corner of the internet!!
Be sure to subscribe if you haven’t already for more videos like these!!
6: Expeditions Let's take a look at just how difficult it
really is to explore the Mariana Trench.
Because of the extreme conditions there have only been a handful of people that have been
able to go into the depths.
The first dive into the bottom of the Marian Trench was in 1960 by Jacques Piccard – no
relation to Star Trek – and Navy Lieutenant Don Walsh.
These two men descended using an incredibly expensive United States Navy submersible known
as a bathyscaphe.
After years of preparation the two men descended for 5 hours into the trench and then spent
a paltry 20 minutes sitting at the bottom.
They were unable to take photographs because they were sitting in a giant cloud of silt
stirred up by their vessel.
These guys sat there in complete darkness and could do absolutely nothing.
The most exciting moment was when an unidentified fish moved in front of their giant floodlights,
finally proving to the world that life definitely exists at the bottom of the Mariana Trench
– something scientists had been debating before the journey.
In 2019, Victor Vescovo became the new record holder when he made it 10,927m (35,849ft)
below sea level.
In total Vescovo and his team made 5 dives to the bottom of the trench during the expedition.
A submarine and robotic landers all spread out to explore and gather data of the harshest
area of the ocean.
Don Walsh from the 1960’s expedition congratulated Victor for their historic exploration!
They discovered new species and collected samples of microorganisms and rock samples.
Prior to that in 2012, James Cameron had made a solo plunge in a bright green sub, going
down nearly 11km (seven miles).
Billionaire investors are spending more and more on science and marine technology to try
to continue going down into the trench, and are even working on building submarines to
take tourists down to the deepest part of the ocean for $250,000 a ticket.
Would you visit the trench if you could?
Maybe not for $250,000 but maybe in the future if the price goes down?
Let me know in the comments below.
5: A Lot of Pressure The pressure at the very bottom of the Mariana
Trench is enough to crush a person into a pancake.
The pressure would be equivalent to about 100 adult elephants standing directly on your
head.
If you've ever wondered why exactly the pressure gets so intense when you go underwater, it's
because the weight of all that water is literally pushing down upon you.
If you were to stand at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, there would be seven miles
of water above you.
That's seven miles of concentrated water pressing down on your skin and bones, and there’s
just no way your body can handle it.
It’s almost like being in outer space the environment is so different.
You see, the weight of water creates hydrostatic pressure.
At the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the pressure is so great that scientists believe it affects
life in all kinds of strange ways, such as distorting the complex structures of biomolecules.
These are DNA, proteins, and membranes.
Because these biomolecules are distorted by the pressure, life adapts in a very strange
way, creating squishy, weird animals.
One of those animals is the gelatinous trench snailfish, living around 25,000 feet deep.
And other extremely dark gooey creatures, some with teeth, some with bioluminescence,
you just never know what you’re going to get.
4: Undiscovered Monsters There have been some rumors flying around
that giant undiscovered monsters are living in the Mariana Trench.
Since there are sounds and animals we are just now learning about, could there be some
enormous monster like a kraken, or even a living megalodon, hiding out in the deepest
undersea gorge?
The answer is maybe.
Perhaps not a megalodon but maybe something else.
We know today that life is abundant inside the trench.
Missions using unmanned vehicles have discovered strange creatures living on the seafloor in
the deepest parts of the ocean.
Some of these animals are gigantic, products of what is known as deep-sea gigantism.
Giant isopods for example.
These crustaceans look exactly like the pill bugs you find in your garden.
The only difference is that the giant isopod is roughly 2 feet long, if not longer!
Then we have giant colossal squids to consider, which are far larger than common squids and
live in the deepest parts of the ocean.
Following this trend, it's safe to say that something big – or even giant may be living
in the Mariana Trench.
We just haven't encountered it yet.
However, megalodons went extinct a very long time ago and they fed on blubberous mammals
like seals and whales that breathe air.
So we should have seen one by now.
But perhaps there is another kind of megashark lurking that we can't even imagine!!
3: The Formation of the Trench To understand a bit more about how hard it
is to explore the Mariana Trench, we should look at just how this amazing geological feature
was formed.
The Mariana Trench was created by a process known as subduction.
The crust of the Earth is made of plates which float on the molten rock of the mantle.
Because these plates are floating on the mantle, their edges sometimes bump into one another
and cause things like earthquakes and tsunamis.
When two of these plates crash into one another, one plate is pulled down, creating an enormous
trench at the point of contact.
This is how the Mariana Trench was formed.
It’s the meeting place where two plates collided.
Of course, these plates are huge.
The Mariana Trench is not only deep, it’s long too.
It goes on for about 1500 miles and is 43 miles wide.
It's also roughly 180 million years old.
But what you might not believe is that the Mariana Trench is not the closest point to
the center of the earth, even though it is the deepest place on Earth.
You would actually be closer to the center of the planet if you were standing on the
surface of the Arctic Ocean at the geographic North Pole.
2: The Deepest Trash Even though the Mariana Trench is so deep,
so limitless, and so mysterious, it has not been spared the horrors of humanity.
A recent and disturbing report from National Geographic confirmed that a piece of trash
– a plastic bag, specifically – was found at the deepest point in the ocean.
This plastic bag is now recognized as the deepest piece of litter in the world.
It was found at an exact depth of 36,000 feet.
Scientists working with the Deep-Sea Debris Database have been checking out a collection
of photographs taken over the past 30 years, and what they found is that the most prevalent
debris in the ocean is throw-away plastic, meaning shopping bags and plastic water bottles.
About 89% in total.
A separate study recently suggested that the Mariana Trench shows higher levels of pollution
in certain areas than many of the most polluted rivers found throughout Asia.
The thinking behind the theory is that chemical pollutants enter the trench from many other
places in the ocean, brought in on the water column.
Some fear that by the time we're actually able to explore the Mariana Trench in its
fullness, the whole thing will be a polluted pit of death.
1: Future Exploration There is still a lot of interest in exploring
the Mariana Trench.
It's just that most people doing it happen to be rich philanthropists like I mentioned
before.
A man named Larry Connor is scheduled to make two dives into the Mariana Trench in April
2021.
According to USA Today, Larry Connor will be diving to a depth of more than 35,000 feet.
He plans on visiting Challenger Deep and Sirena Deep, both of which are in the Mariana Trench.
These dives will be happening in mid-April of 2021, so keep your eyes open for any new
discoveries.
The crew will be spending about 4 hours at the bottom of the trench, conducting scientific
research.
Larry is using the Hadal Exploration System for his dives, the only deep exploration facility
in the whole world.
He will also be accompanied by Patrick Lahey, considered to be the most experienced submersible
pilot in the world.
And as if going to the two deepest points on Earth wasn’t enough, Larry is also scheduled
for a mission to the International Space Station in 2022.
That will make Larry the only person to travel from the deepest point on Earth to outer space
– no easy feat.
What do you think is lurking at the bottom of the Mariana Trench?
Let me know your thoughts in the comments and thank you for watching.
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