Mariana Trench on the world map. Coordinates, depth, how it was formed, inhabitants. Interesting facts, secrets. Who lives in the Mariana Trench? What is hidden in the Mariana Trench

All of us in childhood read many legends about incredible sea ​​monsters ah, inhabiting the ocean floor, always knowing that these are just fairy tales. But we were wrong! These incredible creatures can be found even today if you dive to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the deepest place on Earth. What hides the Mariana Trench and who is it mysterious inhabitants- read our article.

The deepest place on the planet is the Mariana Trench or Mariana Trench- located in the western part Pacific Ocean near Guam, east of the Mariana Islands, from which its name came. In its shape, the trench resembles a crescent moon, about 2550 km long and 69 km wide on average.

According to the latest data, the depth Mariana Trench is 10,994 meters ± 40 meters, which even exceeds the highest point on the planet - Everest (8,848 meters). So this mountain could well be placed at the bottom of the depression, moreover, about 2,000 meters of water would still remain above the top of the mountain. The pressure at the bottom of the Mariana Trench reaches 108.6 MPa - more than 1,100 times the normal atmospheric pressure.

A man only twice sank to the bottom Mariana Trench. The first dive was made on January 23, 1960 by US Navy Lieutenant Don Walsh and explorer Jacques Picard in the Trieste submersible. They stayed at the bottom for only 12 minutes, but even during this time they managed to meet flat fish, although according to all possible assumptions, life at such a depth should have been absent.

The second human dive was made on March 26, 2012. The third person who touched the mysteries Mariana Trench, became a filmmaker James Cameron. He dived on the single-seat Deepsea Challenger and spent enough time there to take samples, take pictures and film in 3D. Later, the footage he shot formed the basis documentary film for the National Geographic Channel.

Due to the strong pressure, the bottom of the depression is covered not with ordinary sand, but with viscous mucus. For many years, the remains of plankton and crushed shells accumulated there, which formed the bottom. And again, due to pressure, almost everything is at the bottom Mariana Trench turns into fine greyish-yellow thick mud.

Sunlight has never reached the bottom of the depression, and we expect the water there to be icy. But its temperature varies from 1 to 4 degrees Celsius. IN Mariana Trench at a depth of about 1.6 km are the so-called "black smokers", hydrothermal vents that shoot water up to 450 degrees Celsius.

Thanks to this water Mariana Trench life is sustained as it is rich in minerals. By the way, despite the fact that the temperature is much higher than the boiling point, water does not boil due to very strong pressure.

Approximately at a depth of 414 meters is the Daikoku volcano, which is the source of one of the most rare events on the planet - lakes of pure molten sulfur. IN solar system this phenomenon can only be found on Io, a moon of Jupiter. So, in this "cauldron" the seething black emulsion boils at 187 degrees Celsius. So far, scientists have not been able to study it in detail, but if in the future they can advance in their research, they may be able to explain how life appeared on Earth.

But the most interesting thing in Mariana Trench are its inhabitants. After it was determined that there was life in the basin, many expected to find incredible sea monsters there. For the first time, the expedition of the research vessel "Glomar Challenger" encountered something unidentified. They lowered into the cavity a device, the so-called "hedgehog" with a diameter of about 9 m, made in the NASA laboratory from beams of ultra-strong titanium-cobalt steel.

Some time after the start of the descent of the apparatus, the sound-recording device began to transmit some kind of metallic rattle to the surface, reminiscent of the gnashing of saw teeth on metal. And vague shadows appeared on the monitors, resembling dragons with several heads and tails. Soon, scientists became worried that the valuable device could forever remain in the depths of the Mariana Trench and decided to take it aboard the ship. But when they pulled the hedgehog out of the water, their surprise only intensified: the strongest steel beams of the structure were deformed, and the 20-centimeter steel cable on which it was lowered into the water was half sawn.

However, perhaps this story was too embellished by the newspapermen, since later researchers discovered very unusual creatures there, but not dragons.

Xenophyophores - giant, 10-centimeter amoeba that live at the very bottom Mariana Trench. Most likely due to strong pressure, lack of light and relatively low temperatures these amoebas have acquired enormous dimensions for their species. But in addition to their impressive size, these creatures are also resistant to many chemical elements and substances, including uranium, mercury and lead, which are lethal to other living organisms.

Pressure in M Arian Trench turns glass and wood into powder, so only creatures without bones or shells can live here. But in 2012, scientists discovered a mollusk. How he retained his shell is still not known. In addition, hydrothermal springs emit hydrogen sulfide, which is deadly to shellfish. However, they learned to bind the sulfur compound into a safe protein, which allowed the population of these mollusks to survive.

And that is not all. Below you can see some of the inhabitants Mariana Trench, which scientists have been able to capture.

Mariana Trench and its inhabitants

While our eyes are directed to the sky to the unsolved mysteries of space, our planet remains unsolved mystery- ocean. To date, only 5% of the world's oceans and secrets have been studied Mariana Trench this is only a small part of the secrets that are hidden under the water column.

The Mariana Trench (or Mariana Trench) became known in 1875, when the British research ship Challenger first studied the depth of this place using a deep-sea lot.

Probably, the ship's crew was very surprised when they unwound kilometers of rope so that the lot could finally reach the bottom. According to the results of the study, it was determined that at the deepest point the bottom is at a distance of 8,367 meters from the ocean surface.

In 1951, a new British expedition aboard the Challenger 2, using an echo sounder, determined the depth of the depression at 10,863 ± 100 meters. The depth of the bottom varies depending on its topography. Since then, the deepest point on the planet has been called the Challenger Deep.

Progress moved forward, and people began to think about visiting the bottom of the Mariana Trench with the help of a manned deep-sea vehicle.

The first human dive to the bottom of the Mariana Trench. Project "Nekton"

The first two people in history to reach the deepest point the globe- Swiss scientist Jacques Picard and US Navy Lieutenant Don Walsh.

The device that made it possible to dive under conditions of extreme pressure was called the Trieste and was originally built by two Swiss enthusiastic scientists - Auguste Picard and his son Jacques Picard. After a series of successful dives in the Mediterranean, the Trieste was bought by the US Navy, who were interested in exploring the ocean depths. After the modernization of the bathyscaphe, the installation of a heavy-duty gondola and modern navigation and electronic systems, "Trieste" was ready to conquer new depths.

The goal for the dive was chosen neither more nor less than the most deep point the globe. The project, dubbed Nekron, planned to take two people to the bottom of the Challenger Abyss in the Mariana Trench and conduct on-site scientific research. On January 23, 1960, at 08:23 local time, the Trieste, with Jacques Picard and Don Walsh on board, began a slow descent into darkness. After 4 hours and 43 minutes, the bathyscaphe touched the bottom at a distance of 10,919 meters from the ocean surface.

For the first time, a man found himself at the bottom of the deepest place on the planet. Pressure, 1072 times higher than normal, with terrible force crushed the gondola of the bathyscaphe.

At the bottom, the researchers spent 20 minutes, during which they conducted a series of scientific experiments to measure radiation, measured the temperature of the water, which was 3.3 ° C (the air temperature in the gondola was 4.5 ° C), made a large number of photographs of the ocean floor and even saw small fish similar to a flounder.

After dropping the ballast, the bathyscaphe began to rise, which lasted 3 hours and 27 minutes.

For a long 52 years, no other person conquered the Mariana Trench, limiting themselves only to the descent into the Challenger Abyss of automatic robots.

Conquest of the Mariana Trench by James Cameron

Who would have thought that next person who for the first time long years decides to visit the bottom of the Mariana Trench, it will turn out not to be some oceanologist, but the famous Hollywood director James Cameron! On March 26, 2012, Cameron on the Deepsea Challenger submerged to a depth of 10,908 meters.

Bathyscaphe Deepsea Challenger, containing the latest scientific equipment and 3D cameras, implies the presence of only one pilot in the cockpit, but allows you to stay under water for up to 56 hours and freely maneuver on the ocean floor using 12 electric motors. Its creation, taking into account the design stage, took almost 7 years, and the construction was carried out by a private Australian company.

During the study of the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the director conducted video and photography, and also, with the help of manipulators, took samples of the ocean soil, where, as it turned out later, microorganisms previously unknown to science were present.

James Cameron is currently third and the last man who visited the deepest point on the planet - the Challenger Abyss at the very bottom of the Mariana Trench. In total, only two underwater vehicles with people on board fell to the bottom of the Mariana Trench.

Illustration: depositphotos.com | tolokonov

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Mariana Trench (or Mariana Trench) - the deepest place earth's surface. It is located on the western edge of the Pacific Ocean, 200 kilometers east of the Mariana Archipelago.

Paradoxically, humanity knows much more about the secrets of space or mountain peaks than about ocean depths. And one of the most mysterious and unexplored places on our planet is just 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 rope of the lot went overboard, but there was no bottom! And only at a depth of 8184 meters the descent of the rope stopped. Thus, the deepest underwater crack on Earth was discovered. It was named the Mariana Trench, after the nearby islands. Its shape (in the form of a crescent) and the location of the deepest section, called the "Challenger Abyss", were determined. It is located 340 km south of the island of Guam and has coordinates 11°22′ N. sh., 142°35′ E d.

“The fourth pole”, “the womb of Gaia”, “the bottom of the world” has since been called this deep-water depression. ocean scientists for a long time tried to find out its true depth. Research different years gave different meanings. The fact is that at such a colossal depth, the density of water increases as it approaches the bottom, so the properties of the sound from the echo sounder also change in it. By using barometers and thermometers together with echo sounders on different levels, in 2011 the depth value in the "Challenger Abyss" was set at 10994 ± 40 meters. This is the height of Mount Everest plus another two kilometers from above.

The pressure at the bottom of the underwater crevasse is almost 1100 atmospheres, or 108.6 MPa. Most deep-sea submersibles are designed for maximum depth at 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 Trieste deep-sea bathyscaphe, for the first time in the world, descended to the very bottom of the Mariana Trench in the area of ​​​​the Challenger Abyss with two passengers on board: US Navy Lieutenant Don Walsh and Swiss oceanographer Jacques Picard.

Their observations made it possible important conclusion about the presence of life at the bottom of the canyon. The discovery of the upward flow of water also had an important ecological significance: based on it, nuclear powers abandoned the disposal of radioactive waste at the bottom of the Mariana Fall.

In the 90s, the gutter 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, raising samples of silt, minerals, samples of deep-sea fauna and photos of inhabitants of unknown depths from the bottom.

In 2012, James Cameron, the author of Titanic, Terminator and Avatar, dived into the abyss alone. He spent 6 hours at the bottom, collecting samples of soil, minerals, fauna, as well as taking photographs and 3D video. Based on this material, the film "Challenge to the Abyss" was created.

Amazing discoveries

In the trench at a depth of about 4 kilometers is the active Daikoku volcano, spewing liquid sulfur, which boils at 187 ° C in a small depression. The only lake of liquid sulfur was discovered only on Jupiter's moon Io.

At 2 kilometers from the surface, "black smokers" swirl - sources of geothermal water with hydrogen sulfide and other substances that, upon contact with cold water are converted to black sulfides. The movement of sulfide water resembles puffs 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 "boilers" that one should look for the origins of life on Earth. Hot springs "warm up" icy waters, supporting life in the abyss - the temperature at the bottom of the Mariana Trench is in the range of 1-3 ° C.

Life beyond life

It would seem that in an atmosphere of complete darkness, silence, icy cold and unbearable pressure, life in the hollow is simply unthinkable. But studies of the depression prove the opposite: there are living creatures almost 11 kilometers under water!

The bottom of the sinkhole is covered with a thick layer of mucus from organic sediments falling from upper layers ocean for hundreds of thousands of years. Mucus is an excellent nutrient medium for barrophilic bacteria, which form the basis of the nutrition of protozoa and multicellular organisms. 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. normal conditions environment, high pressure, no light, little oxygen and high concentrations of toxic substances. Life in such unbearable conditions gave many inhabitants of the abyss a frightening and unattractive look.

Deep-sea fish have incredible mouths, seated 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, living at a depth of 2000 meters, generally reach 5-6 meters in length.

Representatives live at different depths different types living organisms. The more deep sea dwellers the abyss, the better their organs of vision are developed, allowing them to catch the slightest glimmer of light on the body of their prey in complete darkness. Some individuals themselves are able to produce 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 lose their color more and more, the bodies of many of them are almost transparent.

On the slopes where the “black smokers” live, mollusks live, having learned to neutralize the sulfides and hydrogen sulfide that are fatal to them. And, which remains a mystery to scientists so far, under conditions of enormous pressure at the bottom, they somehow miraculously manage to keep their mineral shell intact. Similar abilities are shown by other inhabitants of the Mariana Trench. The study of fauna samples showed a multiple excess of the level of radiation and toxic substances.

Unfortunately, deep sea creatures die due to the change in pressure with any attempt to bring them to the surface. Only thanks to modern deep-sea vehicles it became possible to study the inhabitants of the depression in their natural environment. Representatives of the fauna unknown to science have already been identified.

Secrets and mysteries 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! Confirmation is 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 are still preserved in the depths of the failure.

There are many stories about the corpses of giant monsters thrown ashore. When descending into the abyss of the German bathyscaphe "Highfish", 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 crack some prehistoric pangolin! Only by impulse electric current on the outer skin managed to scare away the monster.

On another occasion, when an American submersible was submerging, a scraping of metal began to be heard from under the water. The descent was stopped. When inspecting the lifted equipment, it turned out that the titanium alloy metal cable was half sawn (or gnawed), and the beams of the underwater vehicle were bent.

In 2012 the video camera unmanned vehicle"Titan" from a depth of 10 kilometers transmitted a picture of metal objects, presumably UFOs. 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. Every story has its fans and skeptics, its pros and cons.

Before a risky dive into the trench, James Cameron said that he wanted to see with his own eyes at least some of those secrets of the Mariana Trench, about which there are so many rumors and legends. But he did not see anything that would go beyond the cognizable.

So what do we know about her?

To understand how the Mariana Underwater Gap was formed, it should be remembered that such gaps (troughs) are usually formed along the edges of the oceans under the action of moving lithospheric plates. The oceanic plates, being older and heavier, "creep" under the continental ones, forming deep dips at the junctions. The deepest is the junction of the Pacific and Philippine tectonic plates near the Mariana Islands (Marian Trench). The Pacific Plate is moving at a speed of 3-4 centimeters per year, resulting in increased volcanic activity along both of its edges.

Throughout the length of this deepest failure, four so-called bridges were found - transverse mountain ranges. The ridges were presumably formed due to the movement of the lithosphere and volcanic activity.

The gutter is V-shaped in cross-section, strongly widening upwards 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 sheer and is only 7-8°. The depression stretches from north to south for 2500 kilometers. The trough has an average depth of about 10,000 meters.

Only three people have been to the very bottom of the Mariana Trench to date. In 2018, another manned dive to the “bottom of the world” is planned at its deepest section. This time, the well-known Russian traveler Fyodor Konyukhov and polar explorer Artur Chilingarov will try to conquer the depression and find out what it hides in its depths. At present, a deep-sea bathyscaphe is being manufactured and a research program is being drawn up.

Probably, in the memory of each of us there are concepts from school curriculum in geography, monotonously repeating in the voice of a teacher: the highest point on earth is Everest, the deepest is the Mariana Trench. While still schoolchildren, we listened and imagined, what a depth, as much as 11022m! But, probably, they could not even imagine how many secrets and unknown inhabitants this abyss hides in itself! .

The Mariana Trench (aka the Mariana Trench and the Womb of Gaia) was formed several million years ago due to shifts in tectonic plates. According to the latest data from American scientists, its depth is 10971m, while Soviet researchers in 1957 recorded the familiar figure of 11022m. The water pressure at the bottom of the gutter is 1100 times higher than normal atmospheric pressure.

So who, after all, decided to go down far into the ocean and how many still unsolved mysteries she asked us?

The first to measure the depth of the depression were members of the crew of the Soviet research vessel Vityaz in the aforementioned 1957. And it was they who refuted the azoic theory, according to which it was believed that at a depth below 7000 meters there are no life forms. Scientists have identified colonies of barophilic bacteria that can only survive at very high pressures.

In 1960, the American Trieste bathyscaphe, designed by Jacques Picard, installed new record, having reached the bottom of the depression and stayed there for 12 minutes. And to this day, no one has been able to repeat this! Sinking into the ocean abyss, the crew members saw two 30-centimeter fish, which proved by itself that even under such high pressure and in pitch darkness life exists.

The same, after more than three decades, was proved by the research of the Kaiko automatic bathyscaphe from Japan. He managed to collect soil samples from the bottom of the deepest trench, where 13 species of unicellular organisms were found that were not previously classified by science. What is surprising, they have existed for more than one billion years!

And in 2009, the American deep-sea robot "Nereus" descended to the depth, which transmitted videos and photos taken in the thickness of the ocean to land via a special cable. With his lens, he also managed to catch photofluoric fish, in which some parts or the entire surface of the body emit light.

In addition to them, as well as a number of simple and different types barophilic bacteria, at the bottom of the depression there are also invertebrates in long chitinous tubes, rhizopods with a cytoplasmic body and a turtle (foraminifera), isopods, gastropods... The fish that exist there, in search of food, also stray into schools. But there is something that distinguishes these creatures from those familiar to us. marine life- their terrifying appearance! Huge teeth and eyes rotating in different directions, sharp spikes instead of fins, or, in general, the absence of a mouth and anus, like the 2-meter giant worms living here ... One of the most interesting discoveries became a dragon fish. This fish emits infrared rays with its black body, and then catches their reflection. These ocean inhabitants are of great importance in the development of biology and oceanology.

But hiding under water and someone still misunderstood and unknown. It is not in vain that sometimes on the ocean coasts, fishermen find the bodies of unusual monsters thrown out by the elements, up to 70 meters long.

And within the Mariana Trench, the teeth of the giant shark megalodon were found. These prehistoric monsters weighed about 100 tons, had a length of 24 meters, and a mouth width of 2 meters. It was believed that they disappeared from the face of the Earth 2-2.5 million years ago, but the 10-centimeter teeth from the gutter are about 11-24 thousand years old! Does this mean that not all sharks died out, some of them continued to exist in the Womb of Gaia?

But there are even worse facts! The vessel "Glomar Challenger" in 2003 studied the bottom of the depression. Suddenly, his devices fixed strange noises, as if someone was sawing metal cables, and shadows of creatures 12-16 meters in height appeared on the monitor, somewhat reminiscent of two-headed dragons. Scientists were afraid that the 9-meter robot could remain at the bottom and raised it to land. What they saw was horrifying. The side of the "hedgehog" (the so-called spherical apparatus) was deformed, and the powerful cables holding it seemed to be sawn.

The German apparatus "Highfish" suddenly braked sharply at a depth of 7000m. To find out the reason, the crew members turned on infrared light and saw how their ship fell into the mouth of a huge creature that looked like an ancient lizard. And this lizard is diligently trying to figure out the ship. With difficulty coming to his senses, the researchers decided to use the "electron gun". Having received a dose of electric current, the monster released the bathyscaphe and disappeared.

Unfortunately, there are no pictures of these inhabitants of the ocean, which makes it possible for skeptics to laugh and elevate these stories to the rank of fairy tales. However, ufologists and oceanologists, nevertheless, do not lose hope in the future to conduct more research and prove that the Mariana Trench is not only one of the geomorphological poles of our planet, but a place where many unknown things are hidden, unknown to science. After all, everything unknown has long attracted a person, and new immersions and studies only add questions on this topic, thereby keeping constant voltage and in the inexhaustible interest of the inhabitants of the Earth.

While at the very high point the planet, Everest, was visited by thousands of people, only three descended to the bottom of the Mariana Trench. This is the least explored place on Earth, there are many mysteries around it. On last week Geologists have found that over a million years, 79 million tons of water penetrated into the bowels of the Earth through a fault at the bottom of the depression.

What happened to her after that is unknown. Hi-Tech tells about the geological structure of the lowest point on the planet and about the strange processes that take place at its bottom.

Without sunlight and under colossal pressure

The Mariana Trench is not a vertical abyss. It is a crescent-shaped trough that stretches 2,500 km east of the Philippines and west of Guam, USA. The deepest point of the basin, the Challenger Deep, is located at a distance of 11 km from the surface of the Pacific Ocean. Everest, if it were at the bottom of the depression, 2.1 km would not be enough to sea level.

Map of the Mariana Trench.

The Mariana Trench (as the trench is also commonly called) is part of a global network of troughs that cross the seabed and were formed as a result of ancient geological events. They arise when two tectonic plates collide, when one layer sinks under the other and goes into the Earth's mantle.

The underwater trench was discovered by the British research ship Challenger during the first global oceanographic expedition. In 1875, scientists tried to measure the depth with a diplot - a rope with a load tied to it and meter markings. The rope was only enough for 4,475 fathoms (8,367 m). Almost a hundred years later, the Challenger II returned to the Mariana Trench with an echo sounder and set the current depth to 10,994 m.

The bottom of the Mariana Trench is hidden in eternal darkness - the sun's rays do not penetrate to such a depth. The temperature is only a few degrees above zero - and close to the freezing point. The pressure in the abyss of the Challenger is 108.6 MPa, which is about 1,072 times the normal atmospheric pressure at the level of the World Ocean. This is five times the pressure that is created when a bullet hits a bulletproof object and is approximately equal to the pressure inside a reactor for the synthesis of polyethylene. But people have found a way to get to the bottom.

man in the deep

The first people to visit the Challenger abyss were the US military Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh. In 1960, on the Trieste bathyscaphe, they descended 10,918 m in five hours. At this point, the researchers spent 20 minutes and saw almost nothing because of the silt clouds raised by the apparatus. Except for the fish from the flounder species, which was hit by a searchlight beam. The presence of life under such high pressure was the main discovery of the mission.

Before Piccard and Walsh, scientists believed that in Mariana Trench fish cannot live. The pressure in it is so great that calcium can only exist in liquid form. This means that the bones of vertebrates must literally dissolve. No bones, no fish. But nature has shown scientists that they are wrong: living organisms are able to adapt even to such unbearable conditions.

A lot of living organisms in the abyss of the Challenger were discovered by the Deepsea Challenger bathyscaphe, on which director James Cameron alone descended to the bottom of the Mariana Trench in 2012. In soil samples taken by the apparatus, scientists found 200 species of invertebrates, and at the bottom of the depression - strange translucent shrimps and crabs.

At a depth of 8 thousand meters, the bathyscaphe discovered the most deep sea fish- a new representative of the species of lipar or sea slugs. The head of the fish resembles that of a dog, and its body is very thin and elastic - while moving, it resembles a translucent napkin that is carried by the current.

A few hundred meters below live giant ten-centimeter amoeba called xenophyophores. These organisms show amazing resistance to several elements and chemicals, such as mercury, uranium, and lead, which would kill other animals or humans in minutes.

Scientists believe that there are many more species at depth waiting to be discovered. In addition, it is still not clear how such microorganisms - extremophiles - can survive in such extreme conditions.

The answer to this question will lead to a breakthrough in biomedicine and biotechnology and will help to understand how life began on Earth. For example, researchers from the University of Hawaii believe that thermal mud volcanoes near the basin could provide conditions for the survival of the first organisms on the planet.

Volcanoes at the bottom of the Mariana Trench.

What's the break?

The depression owes its depth to the fault of two tectonic plates - the Pacific layer goes under the Philippine, forming a deep trench. The regions in which such geological events have occurred are called the subduction zone.

The thickness of each plate is almost 100 km, and the depth of the fault is at least 700 km from the lowest point of the Challenger Deep. “This is an iceberg. The man wasn't even at the top - 11 was nothing compared to the 700 lurking in the depths. The Mariana Trench is the boundary between the limits human knowledge and a reality that is inaccessible to humans,” says geophysicist Robert Stern from the University of Texas.

Plates at the bottom of the Mariana Trench.

Scientists suggest that large volumes of water enter the Earth's mantle through the subduction zone - the rocks at the fault boundaries act like sponges, absorbing water and transporting it into the bowels of the planet. As a result, the substance is at a depth of 20 to 100 km below the seabed.

Geologists from the University of Washington have found that over the past million years, more than 79 million tons of water have entered the bowels of the earth through the junction - this is 4.3 times more than previous estimates.

The main question is what happens to the water in the bowels. Volcanoes are thought to complete the water cycle by returning water to the atmosphere as water vapor during eruptions. This theory was supported by previous measurements of the volume of water penetrating into the mantle. Volcanoes ejected into the atmosphere approximately equal to the absorbed volume.

A new study refutes this theory - calculations suggest that the Earth absorbs more water than returns. And this is really strange - provided that the level of the World Ocean over the past few hundred years has not only not decreased, but also increased by several centimeters.

A possible solution is to abandon the theory of equal capacity of all subduction zones on Earth. It is likely that the conditions in the Mariana Trench are more extreme than in other parts of the planet, and more water enters the bowels through a rift in the Challenger Deep.

“Does the amount of water depend on the structural features of the subduction zone, for example, on the angle of the bend of the plates? We assume that similar faults exist in Alaska and in Latin America, but so far, humans have not been able to detect a deeper structure than the Mariana Trench,” added study lead author Doug Vines.

Water hiding in the bowels of the Earth is not the only mystery of the Mariana Trench. National Oceanic and atmospheric research The US (NOAA) calls the region an amusement park for geologists.

This is the only place on the planet where carbon dioxide exists in liquid form. It is ejected by several underwater volcanoes located outside the Okinawa Trough near Taiwan.

At a depth of 414 m in the Mariana Trench is the Daikoku volcano, which is a lake of pure sulfur in liquid form, which constantly boils at a temperature of 187 ° C. Geothermal springs are located 6 km below, throwing water at a temperature of 450 ° C. But this water does not boil - the process is hindered by the pressure exerted by a 6.5-kilometer water column.

The ocean floor has been less explored by man today than the moon. Probably, scientists will be able to detect faults deeper than the Mariana Trench, or at least explore its structure and features.