Who dived into the Mariana Trench. Where is the Mariana Trench? Unique depth of the planet

Researchers paranormal phenomena They very carefully investigate every case that may turn out to be physical evidence of reincarnation. The cases listed below in no way claim to be serious scientific research, and some of them even look like jokes. However, in each of these cases there are inexplicable oddities that will make even the most hardened skeptic think...

Transfer of birthmarks

In some Asian countries there is a tradition of marking a person’s body after his death (soot is often used for this). Relatives hope that in this way the soul of the deceased will be reborn again, in his own family. People believe that these marks can then become moles on the body of a newborn, and will be proof that the soul of the deceased has been reborn.

In 2012, psychiatrist Jim Tucker and psychologist Jurgen Keil published a study of families in which children were born with moles that matched marks on the bodies of their deceased relatives.

In the case of K.N., a boy from Myanmar, it was noted that the location of the birthmark on his left arm exactly matched the location of the mark on the body of his late grandfather. The grandfather died 11 months before the boy was born. Many people, including members of his family, are convinced that this is his grandfather’s mark, which a neighbor applied to his body using ordinary coal.

When the boy was just over two years old, he named his grandmother "Ma Tin Shwe". Only her late grandfather called her by this name. My own children called my grandmother simply mother. And K.N. called his own mother “Var Var Khin,” and her late grandfather called her the same way.

When K.N.'s mother was pregnant, she often remembered her father and said: “I want to live with you.” The birthmark and the names spoken by the child make his family think that his mother's dream has come true.

A child born with bullet wounds

Ian Stevenson was a professor of psychiatry at the University of Virginia, and was interested in reincarnation. In 1993, in one of the scientific journals, he published an article about birthmarks and birth defects that were believed to have arisen “for unknown reasons.”

The article described a case in which a child from Turkey remembered the life of a man who was shot with a shotgun. And the hospital records listed a man who died six days after a gunshot shattered the right side of his skull.

A Turkish boy was born with unilateral microtia (congenital deformation of the ear) and hemifacial microsomia, which manifested itself in insufficient development of the right half of the face. Cases of microtia are observed in every 6000th baby, and microsomia - in every 3500th baby.

The patient who killed her son and married him

Brian Weiss, chairman of the department of psychiatry at Miami Medical Center, claims to have seen a patient who, during treatment, experienced a spontaneous regressive episode of his past life. Although Weis is a classically trained psychiatrist who has been treating people for many years, he has now become a leader in past life regression therapy.

In one of his books, Weiss tells the story of a patient named Diane, who worked as a head nurse at an emergency center.

During the regression session, it turned out that Diane allegedly lived the life of a young migrant in North America, and this happened during the years of conflicts with the Indians.

She talked especially a lot about how she hid from the Indians with her baby while her husband was away.

She said that her baby had a birthmark just below his right shoulder that looked like a crescent moon or a curved sword. While they were hiding, the son screamed. Fearing for her life, and trying to somehow calm him down, the woman accidentally strangled her son by covering his mouth.

A few months after the regression session, Diane began to feel sympathy for one of the patients who came to them with an asthma attack. The patient, in turn, also felt a strange connection with Diane. And she experienced a real shock when she saw a crescent-shaped mole on the patient, just below the shoulder.

Revived handwriting

At the age of six, Taranjit Singh lived in the village of Alluna Miana, in India. When he was two years old, he began to claim that his real name was Satnam Singh and that he was born in the village of Chakchella in Jalandhar. The village was located 60 km from his village.

Taranjit allegedly remembered that he was a 9th grade student (about 15–16 years old) and that his father's name was Jeet Singh. One day, a man riding a scooter collided with Satnam, who was riding a bicycle, and killed him. This happened on September 10, 1992. Taranjit claimed that the books he was carrying with him on the day of the accident were soaked in blood and that he had 30 rupees in his wallet that day. The child was very persistent, so his father, Ranjit, decided to investigate the story.

A teacher in Jalandhar told Ranjit that a boy named Satnam Singh had indeed died in the accident, and that the boy's father was indeed named Jeet Singh. Ranjit went to the Singh family and they confirmed the details of blood-soaked books and 30 rupees. And when Taranjit met the family of the deceased, he was able to unmistakably recognize Satnam in the photographs.

A forensic scientist, Vikram Raj Chauha, read about Taranjit in a newspaper and further investigated. He took samples of Satnam's handwriting from his old notebook and compared them with Taranjit's handwriting. Despite the fact that the boy “is not yet used to writing,” the handwriting samples were almost identical. Dr. Chauhan then showed the results of this experiment to his colleagues, and they too recognized the identity of the handwriting samples.

Born knowing Swedish

Psychiatry professor Ian Stevenson has studied numerous cases of xenoglossy, which is defined as “the ability to speak a foreign language that is completely unknown to the speaker in his or her normal state.”

Professor of Psychiatry Ian Stevenson

Stevenson examined a 37-year-old American woman whom he called "TE." TE was born and raised in Philadelphia, the son of immigrants who spoke English, Polish, Yiddish and Russian at home. She studied French at school. Her knowledge of Swedish was limited. a few phrases she had heard on a television show about the life of Swedish Americans.

But during eight sessions of regressive hypnosis, TE believed herself to be “Jensen Jacobi,” a Swedish peasant.

As “Jensen,” TE answered questions asked of her in Swedish. She also answered them in Swedish, using about 60 words that the Swedish-speaking interviewer had never uttered in front of her. Also, TE as “Jensen” was able to answer English questions in English.

TE, under the direction of Stevenson, passed two polygraph tests, a word association test, and a language ability test. She passed all these tests as if she was thinking in Swedish. Stevenson spoke with her husband, family members and acquaintances, trying to find out if she had encountered Scandinavian languages ​​before. All respondents said that there were no such cases. In addition, Scandinavian languages ​​were never taught in the schools where TE studied.

But not everything is so simple. Session transcripts show that TE's vocabulary when she becomes "Jensen" is only about 100 words, and she rarely speaks in full sentences. During the conversations, not a single complex sentence was recorded, despite the fact that “Jensen” was supposedly already an adult man.

Memories from the monastery

In his book Your Past Lives and the Healing Process, psychiatrist Adrian Finkelstein describes a boy named Robin Hull who often spoke in a language his mother could not understand.

She contacted an oriental language specialist, who identified the language as one of the dialects spoken in the northern region of Tibet.

Robin said that many years ago he went to a monastery school, where he learned to speak the language. The truth was that Robin did not study anywhere, since he had not yet reached school age.

The specialist undertook further investigation, and based on Robin's descriptions, he was able to find out that the monastery was located somewhere in the Kunlun Mountains. Robin's story prompted this professor to travel personally to Tibet, where he discovered the monastery.

Burnt Japanese soldier

Another of Stevenson's studies concerns a Burmese girl named Ma Win Thar. She was born in 1962 and at the age of three began to talk about the life of a Japanese soldier. This soldier was captured by Burmese villagers, then tied to a tree and burned alive.

There were no detailed details in her stories, but Stevenson says it could all be true. In 1945, the Burmese were actually able to capture some of the soldiers who were lagging behind the retreating Japanese army, and they actually sometimes burned Japanese soldiers alive.

Ma Win Thar exhibited features incompatible with the image of a Burmese girl. She loved to cut her hair short, loved to dress in boy's clothes (she was later forbidden to do this).

She abandoned the spicy foods favored in Burmese cuisine in favor of sweet foods and pork. She also showed some violent tendencies, which manifested itself in her habit of slapping her playmates in the face.

Stevenson says Japanese soldiers often slapped Burmese villagers in the face, and that the practice is not culturally natural for the region's indigenous people.

Ma Win Thar rejected her family's Buddhism and went so far as to call herself a "foreigner."

And the strangest thing here is that Ma Win Tar was born with severe congenital defects in both hands. There was webbing between her middle and ring fingers. These fingers were amputated when she was just a few days old. The remaining fingers had “rings”, as if they were being squeezed tightly by something. Her left wrist was also encircled by a “ring” consisting of three separate indentations. According to her mother, there was a similar mark on her right wrist, but it disappeared over time. All these marks were incredibly similar to burns from the rope that was used to tie the Japanese soldier to a tree before being burned.

Brother's scars

In 1979, Kevin Christenson died at the age of two. At 18 months of life, cancerous metastases were discovered in his broken leg. The boy was given chemotherapy drugs through the right side of his neck to combat a host of problems caused by the disease, including a tumor in his left eye that was causing it to protrude and a small lump above his right ear.

12 years later, Kevin's mother, having divorced his father and remarried, gave birth to another child named Patrick. From the very beginning, there were similarities between the half-brothers. Patrick was born with a birthmark that looked like a small cut on the right side of his neck. And the mole was located exactly where Kevin was injected with drugs. There was also a nodule on Patrick's scalp, and it was in the same place as Kevin's. Like Kevin, Patrick had a problem with his left eye and was later diagnosed with a corneal cataract (fortunately not cancer).

When Patrick started walking, he limped, even though there was no medical reason for him to limp. He claimed to remember a lot about one operation. When his mother asked him what exactly was being done, he pointed to a lump above his right ear where Kevin had once had a biopsy.

At the age of four, Patrick began asking questions about his “old house,” even though he had only ever lived in one house. He described the “old house” as “orange and brown.” And if you're now guessing that Kevin lived in a house with orange and brown colors, you're right.

Memories of cats

When John McConnell was fatally shot six times in 1992, he left behind a daughter named Doreen. Doreen had a son, William, who was diagnosed in 1997 with pulmonary valve atresia, a birth defect in which a faulty valve directs blood from the heart to the lungs. The right ventricle of his heart was also deformed. After numerous surgeries and treatments, William's condition improved.

When John was shot, one of the bullets entered his back, pierced his left lung and pulmonary artery, and reached his heart. John's injury and William's birth defects were extremely similar.

One day, in an attempt to avoid punishment, William told Doreen: “When you were a little girl and I was your daddy, you behaved badly many times, but I never hit you!”

William then asked about the cat Doreen had as a child and mentioned that he called the cat “Boss.” And this is amazing, because only John called the cat that way, and the cat’s real name was “Boston.”

"Limb"

One of Dr. Weiss's patients, Katherine, gave him a real shock during a regression session by mentioning that she was in "limbo" and that Dr. Weiss' father and his son were also there.

Katherine said:

"Your father is here, and so is your son, small child. Your father says you will recognize him because his name is Avrom and you named your daughter after him. In addition, the cause of his death was heart problems. Your son’s heart is also important because it was underdeveloped, working in reverse.”

Dr. Weiss was shocked because the patient knew a lot about his personal life. Photos of his living son, Jordan, and his daughter were on the table, but Katherine seemed to be talking about Adam, the doctor's first-born son, who died at 23 days old. Adam was diagnosed with complete anomalous pulmonary venous drainage with an atrial special defect - that is, the pulmonary veins grew on the wrong side of the heart, and it began to work backwards.

Alexey Stepanov

Mariana Trench, or Mariana Trench - an oceanic trench in the west Pacific Ocean, which is the deepest geographical feature known on Earth.
The depression stretches along Mariana Islands at 1500 km; it has a V-shaped profile, steep (7-9°) slopes, a flat bottom 1-5 km wide, which is divided by rapids into several closed depressions. At the bottom, the water pressure reaches 108.6 MPa, which is more than 1100 times the normal atmospheric pressure at the level of the World Ocean. The depression is located at the junction of two tectonic plates, in the zone of movement along faults, where the Pacific plate goes under the Philippine plate.

Research into the Mariana Trench began with the British expedition of the Challenger, which carried out the first systematic measurements of the depths of the Pacific Ocean. This military three-masted corvette with sail equipment was rebuilt into an oceanographic vessel for hydrological, geological, chemical, biological and meteorological work in 1872. Also, significant contributions to the study of the Marianas deep-sea trench were made by Soviet researchers. In 1958, an expedition on the Vityaz established the presence of life at depths of more than 7000 m, thereby refuting the prevailing idea at that time about the impossibility of life at depths of more than 6000-7000 m. In 1960, the bathyscaphe Trieste was immersed to the bottom Mariana Trench to a depth of 10915 m.

The device recording sounds began to transmit to the surface noises reminiscent of the grinding of saw teeth on metal. At the same time, unclear shadows appeared on the TV monitor, similar to giant fairy-tale dragons. These creatures had several heads and tails. An hour later, scientists on the American research vessel Glomar Challenger became concerned that the unique equipment, made from beams of ultra-strong titanium-cobalt steel in a NASA laboratory, having a spherical structure, the so-called “hedgehog” with a diameter of about 9 m, could remain in the abyss forever. The decision was made to raise it immediately. It took more than eight hours for the “hedgehog” to be recovered from the depths. As soon as he appeared on the surface, he was immediately placed on a special raft. The television camera and echo sounder were lifted onto the deck of the Glomar Challenger. It turned out that the strongest steel beams of the structure were deformed, and the 20-centimeter steel cable on which it was lowered was half sawn through. Who tried to leave the “hedgehog” at depth and why is an absolute mystery. Details of this interesting experiment conducted by American oceanologists in the Mariana Trench were published in 1996 in the New York Times (USA).

This is not the only case of a collision with the inexplicable in the depths of the Mariana Trench. Something similar happened to the German research vehicle Haifish with a crew on board. Once at a depth of 7 km, the device suddenly refused to float. Finding out the cause of the problem, the hydronauts turned on the infrared camera. What they saw in the next few seconds seemed to them a collective hallucination: a huge prehistoric lizard, sinking its teeth into the bathyscaphe, tried to chew it like a nut. Having come to their senses, the crew activated a device called an “electric gun”. The monster, struck by a powerful discharge, disappeared into the abyss.

The inexplicable and incomprehensible have always attracted people, which is why scientists around the world want to answer the question: “What does the Mariana Trench hide in its depths?”

Can living organisms live at such great depths, and what should they look like, given the fact that they are pressed by huge masses of ocean waters, the pressure of which exceeds 1100 atmospheres? The challenges associated with exploring and understanding the creatures that live at these unimaginable depths are numerous, but human ingenuity knows no bounds. For a long time, oceanographers considered the hypothesis that life could exist at depths of more than 6,000 m in impenetrable darkness, under enormous pressure and at temperatures close to zero, to be crazy. However, the results of research by scientists in the Pacific Ocean have shown that even in these depths, much below the 6000-meter mark, there are huge colonies of living organisms, pogonophora ((pogonophora; from the Greek pogon - beard and phoros - bearing), a type of marine invertebrate animals living in long chitinous tubes open at both ends). Recently, the veil of secrecy has been lifted by manned and automatic underwater vehicles made of heavy-duty materials, equipped with video cameras. The result was the discovery of a rich animal community consisting of both familiar and less familiar marine groups.

Thus, at depths of 6000 - 11000 km, the following were discovered:

Barophilic bacteria (developing only at high pressure),

Of the protozoa - foraminifera (an order of protozoa of the subclass of rhizomes with a cytoplasmic body covered with a shell) and xenophyophores (barophilic bacteria from protozoa);

Multicellular organisms include polychaete worms, isopods, amphipods, sea cucumbers, bivalves and gastropods.

At the depths there is no sunlight, no algae, constant salinity, low temperatures, an abundance of carbon dioxide, enormous hydrostatic pressure (increases by 1 atmosphere for every 10 meters). What do the inhabitants of the abyss eat?

The food sources of deep animals are bacteria, as well as the rain of “corpses” and organic detritus coming from above; deep animals are either blind, or with very developed eyes, often telescopic; many fish and cephalopods with photofluoride; in other forms the surface of the body or parts of it glow. Therefore, the appearance of these animals is as terrible and incredible as the conditions in which they live. Among them are frightening-looking worms 1.5 meters long, without a mouth or anus, mutant octopuses, unusual starfish and some soft-bodied creatures two meters long, which have not yet been identified at all.

So, man has never been able to resist the desire to explore the unknown, and the rapidly developing world of technological progress allows us to penetrate ever deeper into secret world the most inhospitable and unruly environment in the world - the oceans. There will be enough items for research in the Mariana Trench for many years, given that the most inaccessible and mysterious point of our planet, unlike Everest (altitude 8848 m above sea level), was conquered only once. So, on January 23, 1960, US Navy officer Don Walsh and Swiss explorer Jacques Piccard, protected by the armored, 12-centimeter thick walls of the bathyscaphe called Trieste, managed to descend to a depth of 10,915 meters.

Despite the fact that scientists have made a huge step in researching the Mariana Trench, the questions have not decreased, and new mysteries have appeared that have yet to be solved. And the ocean abyss knows how to keep its secrets. Will people be able to reveal them in the near future?

On January 23, 1960, Jacques Piccard and US Navy Lieutenant Donald Walsh in the bathyscaphe Trieste at a depth of 10919 m reached the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the deepest place in the World Ocean. The water temperature at this depth was 2.4 ° C (the minimum temperature is 1.4 ° C, observed at a depth of 3600 m). The bathyscaphe "Trieste" was designed and developed by Jacques' father, the famous Swiss stratosphere explorer Auguste Piccard.

The dimensions of the capsule that housed the researchers inside the submersible are small in relation to the size of the submarine as a whole. In particular, it is noticeably superior to tanks with metal ballast, one of which is visible at the top left.

The Trieste, like other bathyscaphes, featured a pressurized, spherical steel gondola for the crew, attached to a large float filled with gasoline to provide buoyancy. A model of the Deep Sea wristwatch was attached to the outer wall of the Trieste bathyscaphe. A high degree of water protection was ensured not only by the sealed case, but also by a special liquid that filled the inner chamber of the watch instead of air.

The bathyscaphe floats on the principle of an iron. When on the surface, it is held by a huge float filled with gasoline located above the gondola with the crew. The float has another important function: when submerged, it stabilizes the bathyscaphe vertically, preventing rocking and capsizing. When gasoline begins to slowly release from the float, which is replaced by water, the bathyscaphe begins to dive. From this moment on, the device has only one way - down to the bottom. In this case, of course, movement in the horizontal direction is also possible using propellers driven by the engine.

In order to rise to the surface, the submersible is provided with metal ballast, which can be shot, plates or blanks. Gradually freeing itself from “excess weight”, the apparatus rises. The metal ballast is held by electromagnets, so if something happens to the power supply system, the bathyscaphe immediately “soars” upward, like a balloon taking off into the sky.

One of the achievements of this dive, which had a beneficial effect on the environmental future of the planet, was the refusal of nuclear powers to bury radioactive waste at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. The fact is that Jacques Picard experimentally refuted the prevailing opinion at that time that at depths above 6000 m there is no upward movement of water masses.

Comparison with Everest

A black and white photograph from half a century ago shows the legendary bathyscaphe Trieste as it prepares to dive. The crew of two was in a spherical steel gondola. It was attached to a float filled with gasoline to provide positive buoyancy.

Deepest depression

The Mariana Trench (Mariana Trench) is an oceanic trench, the deepest in the World Ocean. According to measurements from 2011, the bottom of the trench drops to a maximum depth of 10,920 m. These are data from organizations associated with UNESCO, and they roughly correspond to measurements taken by landers, which showed a maximum depth of 10,916 m. This place is called the Challenger Deep - after the English ship, who discovered the depression in the 19th century.

The depression is a tectonic fault.

In 2012, an American oceanographic expedition discovered four ridges up to 2.5 km high at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. According to the University of New Hampshire, they were formed about 180 million years ago in the process of constant movement of lithospheric plates. The marginal part of the Pacific Plate is gradually “sinking” under the Philippine Plate. And then folding in the form of mountains is formed near the border of lithospheric plates.

In cross-section, the Mariana Trench has a characteristic V-shaped profile with very steep slopes. The bottom is flat, several tens of kilometers wide, divided by ridges into several almost closed areas. The pressure at the bottom of the Mariana Trench is more than 1100 times higher than normal atmospheric pressure, reaching 3150 kg/cm2.

Temperatures at the bottom of the Mariana Trench (Mariana Trench) are surprisingly high thanks to hydrothermal vents nicknamed “black smokers.” They constantly heat the water and maintain the overall temperature in the cavity at about 3°C.

The first attempt to measure the depth of the Mariana Trench (Mariana Trench) was made in 1875 by the crew of the English oceanographic vessel Challenger during scientific expedition across the World Ocean. The British discovered the Mariana Trench quite by accident, during a routine sounding of the bottom using a lot (Italian hemp rope and lead weight). Despite the inaccuracy of such a measurement, the result was amazing: 8367 m. In 1877, a map was published in Germany on which this place was marked as the Challenger Deep.

A measurement taken in 1899 from the American coal miner Nero showed a greater depth: 9636 m.

In 1951, the bottom of the depression was measured by the British hydrographic vessel Challenger, named after its predecessor, unofficially called Challenger II. Now, using an echo sounder, a depth of 10899 m was recorded.

The maximum depth indicator was obtained in 1957 by the Soviet research vessel Vityaz: 11,034 ± 50 m. However, when taking readings, the change in environmental conditions at different depths was not taken into account. This erroneous figure is still present on many physical-geographical maps published in the USSR and Russia.

In 1959, the American research vessel Stranger measured the depth of the trench in a rather unusual way for science - using depth charges. Result: 10915 m.

The last known measurements were made in 2010 by the American vessel Sumner; they showed a depth of 10994 ± 40 m.

It is not yet possible to obtain absolutely accurate readings even with the most modern equipment. The operation of an echo sounder is hampered by the fact that the speed of sound in water depends on its properties, which manifest themselves differently depending on the depth.

Diving into the Mariana Trench

The existence of the Mariana Trench has been known for quite some time, and there are technical possibilities for going down to the bottom, but over the past 60 years only three people have had the opportunity to do this: a scientist, a military man and a film director.

During the entire study of the Mariana Trench (Mariana Trench), vehicles with people on board were lowered to its bottom twice and automatic vehicles were dropped four times (as of April 2017).

On January 23, 1960, the bathyscaphe Trieste sank to the bottom of the Mariana Trench (Mariana Trench) abyss. On board were Swiss oceanographer Jacques Piccard (1922-2008) and US Navy lieutenant, explorer Don Walsh (born 1931). The bathyscaphe was designed by Jacques Piccard's father - physicist, inventor of the stratospheric balloon and bathyscaphe Auguste Piccard (1884-1962).

The descent of the Trieste lasted 4 hours 48 minutes, with the crew periodically interrupting it. At a depth of 9 km, the plexiglass glass cracked, but the descent continued until the Trieste sank to the bottom, where the crew saw a 30-centimeter flat fish and some kind of crustacean creature. After staying at a depth of 10912 m for about 20 minutes, the crew began the ascent, which took 3 hours 15 minutes.

Man made another attempt to descend to the bottom of the Mariana Trench (Mariana Trench) in 2012, when American film director James Cameron (born 1954) became the third to reach the bottom of the Challenger Deep. Previously, he repeatedly dived on Russian Mir submersibles into the Atlantic Ocean to a depth of over 4 km during the filming of the movie Titanic. Now, on the Dipsy Challenger bathyscaphe, he sank into the abyss in 2 hours 37 minutes - almost a widow faster than the Trieste - and spent 2 hours 36 minutes at a depth of 10898 m. After which he rose to the surface in just an hour and a half. At the bottom, Cameron saw only shrimp-like creatures.

The fauna and flora of the Mariana Trench have been poorly studied.

In the 1950s Soviet scientists during the expedition of the Vityaz vessel discovered life at depths of more than 7 thousand m. Before this, it was believed that there was nothing living there. Pogonophorans were discovered - a new family of marine invertebrates that live in chitinous tubes. Disputes about their scientific classification are still going on.

The main inhabitants of the Mariana Trench (Mariana Trench), living at the very bottom, are barophilic (developing only at high pressure) bacteria, protozoan creatures - foraminifera - single-celled in shells and xenophyophores - amoebas, reaching 20 cm in diameter and living by shoveling silt.

Foraminifera were obtained by the Japanese automatic deep-sea probe "Kaiko" in 1995, which dived to 10,911.4 m and took soil samples.

The larger inhabitants of the trench live throughout its thickness. Life at depth made them either blind or with very developed eyes, often telescopic. Many have photophores - luminous organs, a kind of bait for prey: some have long processes, like an angler fish, while others have them right in the mouth. Some accumulate luminous liquid and, in case of danger, shower the enemy with it in the manner of a “light curtain”.

Since 2009, the territory of the depression has been part of the American protected area Mariana Trench Marine National Monument with an area of ​​246,608 km 2. The zone includes only the underwater part of the trench and the water area. The basis for this action was the fact that the Northern Mariana Islands and the island of Guam - in fact American territory - are the island boundaries of the water area. The Challenger Deep is not included in this zone, as it is located on the ocean territory of the Federated States of Micronesia.

General information

Location: West Pacific.
Origin: tectonic.
Administrative affiliation :

Numbers

Length: 2550 km.
Width: 69 km.
Challenger Deep : depth - about 11 km, width - 1.6 km.
Deepest point : 10,920±10 m (Challenger Deep, 340 km southwest of Guam (USA), 2011).
Average slope : 7-9°.
Bottom pressure: 106.6 megapascals (MPa).
Nearest islands : 287 km southwest of Fais Island (Yap Islands, Federated States Micronesia); 304 km. northeast of the island of Guam (an unincorporated organized territory of the United States).
Average water temperature at the bottom : +3.3°C.

Curious facts

• To emphasize the size of the depression, its depth is often compared to the high mountain Earth - Everest (8848 m). It is suggested to imagine that if Everest were at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, there would still be more than two kilometers left from the top of the mountain to the surface of the Pacific Ocean.
• The research vessel "Vityaz" is a 109-meter, single-screw, double-deck motor ship with a displacement of 5,710 tons. It was launched in 1939 at the German shipyard "Schihau" in Bremerhaven (Germany). Initially it was a cargo-passenger ship called “Mars”. During World War II, it was a military transport and transported more than 20 thousand refugees from East Prussia. After the war, due to reparations, he first ended up in England, then in the USSR. Since 1949 - a research vessel of the Institute of Oceanology of the USSR Academy of Sciences, named “Vityaz” in memory of the famous Russian corvettes of the 19th century. Pictured on postage stamps USSR. Since 1994, permanently moored at the pier of the Museum of the World Ocean in the very center of Kaliningrad. Design feature: winches for anchoring, trawling the bottom and taking soil samples at a depth of 11 thousand m.
• To date, only 5% of the ocean floor has been studied in relatively detail.
• In 1951, after members of the Challenger expedition measured the depth of the trench with an echo sounder (10,899 m), it was decided - just in case - to also measure it with the good old rope lot. The measurement showed a slight deviation: 10,863 m.
• British writer Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), describing a dive to the bottom of a deep-sea trench in his novel “The Deep of Maracot,” predicted future exploration of the Mariana Trench using controlled vehicles. His predictions turned out to be much more realistic than the description given earlier by the French science fiction writer Jules Verne (1828-1905) in the novel “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,” where the Nautilus submarine descends to a depth of 16 thousand meters and rises to the surface, “ emerging from the water like a flying fish” in just 4 minutes.
• ■ After its descent into the Mariana Trench, the bathyscaphe Trieste was used more than once for deep-sea diving. In 1963, with his help, the US Navy found the wreckage of the sunken nuclear submarine Thresher, lying at a depth of 2560 m with a crew of 129 people. As a result of numerous modifications, almost nothing from the original device was preserved. The bathyscaphe is currently on display in the hall National Museum US Navy in Washington, DC.
• Pogonophora underwater creatures are very difficult to study. These are the thinnest thread-like worms, often only one tenth of a millimeter thick and up to two to three tens of centimeters long, and are also enclosed in fairly strong tubes.

The relief of the earth's surface is very diverse. From space it looks like a smooth ball, but in fact on its surface there are both the highest mountains and the deepest depressions. Where is the most deep place on Earth - in ocean or land?

The world ocean is a huge expanse of water, occupying more than 71% of the Earth's surface. It includes all the seas and our planet. Relief of the ocean floor complex and varied, its waters are the habitat of millions of living organisms.

The deepest ocean in the world is the Pacific. The map shows that it occupies a huge area and borders Asia, North and South America, Australia, Antarctica. More than 49.5% of the Earth's total water space contains the Pacific Ocean itself. Its bottom is a mixture of relict relief with transgressive plains. Most of the rises on the ocean floor are tectonic in origin. There are hundreds of natural underwater canyons and combs. The deepest depression in the world is located in the Pacific Ocean - Mariana Trench.

Mariana Trench

The Mariana Trench (or Mariana Trench) is a deep ocean trench considered the deepest of all known on Earth. It received its name in honor of the Mariana Islands, next to which it is located. This is the deepest and mysterious place in the Pacific Ocean.

Scientists have been studying the Mariana Trench since the late 19th century. This is the deepest trench recorded by researchers.

At that time they did not have good equipment at their disposal, so the data that was received did not correspond to reality. In 1875, a deep-sea lot established the depth. This lowest point on earth.

During the same period, the deepest place on Earth began to be called the “Challenger Deep” after the British ship on which the explorers sailed. Secondarily the Mariana Trench was measured in 1951.

In the middle of the last century, scientists managed to study the depression more and established its depth at 10,863 m. Subsequently, the Challenger Deep was visited by many research vessels. The most accurate results were obtained in 1957. Then the depth of the depression was 11,023 m.

Important! The Mariana Trench is now 10,994 m below sea level, the deepest place in the ocean known to date.

Inhabitants of the ocean floor

Even now, the bottom of the Pacific Ocean has not been fully studied, because it is the deepest ocean in the world. Many places in the Mariana Trench remain unexplored because at such great depths pressure too high. But, despite all the difficulties, people managed to descend to the depths of the depression. The first dive into the deepest trench happened in 1960. Scientist Jacques Piccard and US Navy serviceman Don Walsh descended to a record depth of 10,918 m. During the dive, people were inside the submersible. Scientists said that they saw flat 30-centimeter fish on the ocean floor that looked like flounder.

During further research, other living organisms were discovered:

1. In 1995, Japanese researchers discovered foraminifera - living organisms living at a depth of 10,911 m.
2. During a number of dives by American scientists, fish of the opisthoproctaceae family were found, football fish and frilled shark.
3. In the course of numerous studies, the bottom of the Mariana Trench was studied by special probes, which photographed monkfish, sea devil and other terrifying fish at a depth of 6000–8000 m.

There are legends that there are huge 25-meter sharks in the Mariana Trench. Scientists even found trophies - bones, shark teeth and other fossils. But this does not in any way indicate that sharks still live there now. Perhaps they were here long ago.

The deepest places in the world's oceans

Each of the four oceans has its own deep place. The lowest point is in the Pacific Ocean, but what about other trenches and depressions?

Puerto Rico Trench

The Puerto Rico oceanic trench is located at the junction Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. The absolute depth of the trench reaches 8385 m. Due to the structure of the relief, this area is often subject to tremors and high volcanic activity. Nearby islands suffer from constant tsunamis and earthquakes.

Java Basin

The Java Trench (or Sunda Trench) is the deepest place Indian Ocean. The gutter stretches by 4–5 thousand kilometers, and the lowest point reaches 7729 m. The depression received its name because of its proximity to the island of Java. The bottom of the trench is an alternation of plains and canyons with ridges and ledges.

Greenland Sea

The part of the Arctic Ocean that is located on Crossing Iceland with Greenland and the island of Jan Mayen is called the Greenland Sea.

Sea area – 1.2 million square meters. km. The average depth of the body of water is 1444 m, and the deepest point is 5527 m below sea level. Most of the seabed topography is a huge basin with underwater ridges.

This the deepest trench in Europe. There are many commercial fish here, which are caught by fishermen from nearby islands.

Inland depressions of Russia

Deep depressions are located not only in the waters of the world's oceans. A striking example of this is the Baikal Rift, located in. The lake itself is considered the deepest on Earth, so it is not surprising that the lowest inland place is located here. Lake Baikal is surrounded by mountains, so the height differences between the ocean level and the rift exceeds 3615 m.

Important! The depression reaches 1637 m in depth and is the greatest depth of Lake Baikal.

Depression of Lake Ladoga. Lake Ladoga located in the Republic of Karelia. It is considered the largest freshwater lake on the territory of Europe. The average depth of the lake ranges from 70-220 m, but it reaches its absolute maximum in one place - 223 m below sea level.

Caspian Sea. Caspian lake located on the border of Europe and Asia. It is the largest enclosed body of water on earth, which is why it is often called the Caspian Sea.

On the Russian side, the reservoir borders on the Volga and Volga islands, but most of the Caspian Sea is located on the territory of Kazakhstan. Maximum depth lake is 1025 m below sea level.

Khantayskoye Lake. Occupies third place among the deepest places in Russia. The maximum depth here reaches 420 m. The reservoir is located in the Krasnoyarsk Territory. There is not a lot of data about this place, but it is enough to include Lake Khantaiskoe among the deepest places in Russia.

Inland depressions

Our Earth is rich in relief. You can see a lot high mountains, thousands of endless plains and hundreds of depressions. Below is a list of the deepest places recorded around the world:

• Jordanian rift valley(Ghor) - located at the intersection of Syria, Jordan and Israel. The deepest place is 804 m.
• Depression of Lake Tanganyika - located in Central Africa and is longest freshwater lake in the world. The deepest place is 696 m.
• The Great Slave Lake Depression is located in Canada. The lowest point is 614 m. This is the deepest trench in North America.
• The Great Bear Lake Depression is also located in Canada and is rich uranium deposit. The deepest place is 288 m.

Science's perspective on the deepest places

Diving to the bottom of the Earth with Cameron

Conclusion

In fact, there are dozens of deep places in the world. Many of them can be found at the bottom of reservoirs, others in the Earth itself. This topic is quite interesting, and scientists are studying such places. Now you know where the deepest place on Earth is, in which ocean located deepest depression and what interesting places the world are studied by specialists.

There are 5 oceans on Earth, which occupy a significant part of the land. Having conquered space and landed a man on the Moon, sending autonomous spacecraft to the most distant planets of the solar system, people know negligible little about what is hidden in the depths of the sea on their home planet.

What is the Mariana Trench?

This is the name of the deepest place in the Pacific Ocean known today. It is a trench formed by the convergence of tectonic plates. The maximum depth of the Mariana Trench is approximately 10,994 meters (2011 data). There are other trenches in all other oceans, but not so deep. Only the Java Trench (7729 meters) can be compared with the Mariana Trench.

Location

The deepest place on Earth is located in the western Pacific Ocean, near the Mariana Islands. The trench stretches along them for one and a half thousand kilometers. The bottom of the depression is flat, its width ranges from 1 to 5 kilometers. The trench got its name in honor of the islands next to which it is located.

"Challenger Deep"

This is the name given to the deepest place (10,994 meters) of the Mariana Trench. Here it is necessary to clarify that it is not yet possible to obtain the exact dimensions of this gigantic trough of the ocean floor. The speed of sound at different depths varies greatly, and the Mariana Trench has a very complex structure, so the data obtained using an echo sounder is always slightly different.

History of discovery

People have long known that deep-sea places exist in the seas and oceans. In 1875, the English corvette Challenger opened one of these points. What depth of the Mariana Trench was recorded then? It was 8367 meters. The measuring instruments at that time were far from ideal, but even this result made a stunning impression - it became clear that the deepest point of the ocean floor on the planet had been found.

Gutter studies

In the 19th century, it was simply impossible to explore the bottom of the Mariana Trench. At that time, there was no technology that would allow one to descend to such a depth. Without modern means diving was tantamount to suicide.

The trench was re-examined many years later, in the next century. Measurements taken in 1951 showed a depth of 10,863 meters. Then, in 1957, members of the Soviet scientific vessel Vityaz studied the depression. According to their measurements, the depth of the Mariana Trench was 11,023 meters.

The last study of the trench was carried out in 2011.

Cameron's Great Journey

The Canadian director became the third person in the history of exploration of the Mariana Trench to descend to its bottom. He was the first in the world to do it alone. Before its sinking, the trench was explored by Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard in 1960 using the bathyscaphe Trieste. In addition, Japanese scientists tried to find out the depth of the Mariana Trench using the Kaiko probe. And in 2009, the Nereus apparatus descended to the bottom of the trench.

Descent to such incredible depths comes with a huge number of risks. First of all, a person is threatened by a monstrous pressure of 1100 atmospheres. It can damage the body of the device, which will lead to the death of the pilot. Another serious danger that lurks when descending to depth is the cold that reigns there. It can not only cause equipment failure, but also kill a person. The bathyscaphe may collide with rocks and be damaged.

For many years, James Cameron dreamed of visiting the deepest point of the Mariana Trench - the Challenger Deep. In order to carry out his plans, he equipped his own expedition. Especially for this purpose, an underwater vehicle was developed and built in Sydney - a single-seat bathyscaphe Deepsea Challenger, equipped scientific equipment, as well as photo and video cameras. In it, Cameron sank to the bottom of the Mariana Trench. This event occurred on March 26, 2012.

In addition to photographs and video footage, the Deepsea Challenger bathyscaphe had to take new measurements of the trench and try to provide accurate data on its dimensions. Everyone was worried about one question: “How much?” The depth of the Mariana Trench, according to the apparatus, was 10,908 meters.

The director was impressed by what he saw below. Most of all, the bottom of the depression reminded him of a lifeless lunar landscape. He did not meet the terrible inhabitants of the abyss. The only creature he saw through the submersible's porthole was a small shrimp.

After a successful voyage, James Cameron decided to donate his bathyscaphe to the Oceanographic Institute so that it could continue to be used to explore the depths of the sea.

Creepy denizens of the deep

The lower the ocean floor, the less sunlight penetrates through the water column. The depth of the Mariana Trench is the reason that impenetrable darkness always reigns in it. But even the absence of light cannot become an obstacle to the emergence of life. Darkness gives birth to creatures that have never seen the sun. And they, in turn, were only recently able to be seen by marine biologists.

This spectacle is not for the faint of heart. Almost all the inhabitants of the Mariana Trench seem to have been born from the imagination of an artist who creates monsters for horror films. Seeing them for the first time, you might think that they do not live next to humans on the same planet, but are alien creatures, they look so alien.

To some extent, this is true - negligible little is known about the oceans and their inhabitants. The bottom of the Mariana Trench has been explored less than the surface of Mars. Therefore, for a long time it was believed that at such a depth life is impossible without sunlight. It turned out that this was not the case. The depth of the Mariana Trench, gigantic pressure and cold are no obstacle to the birth of amazing creatures living in complete darkness.

Most of them have an ugly appearance due to terrible living conditions. The pitch darkness reigning in the depths made the marine inhabitants of these places completely blind. Many fish have teeth huge size, such as howliods, which swallow their prey whole.

What can living creatures that are so far from the surface of the ocean eat? At the bottom of the depression, the remains of living organisms accumulate, forming a multi-meter layer of bottom silt. The inhabitants of the depths feed on these deposits. Predatory fish have luminous areas of the body with which they attract small fish.

The gutter is inhabited by bacteria that can only develop at high pressure, single-celled organisms, jellyfish, worms, mollusks, and sea cucumbers. The depth of the Mariana Trench allows them to reach very large sizes. For example, amphipods found at the bottom of the trench are 17 centimeters long.

Amoebas

Xenophyophores (amoebas) are single-celled organisms that can only be seen with a microscope. But at depth, these inhabitants of the Mariana Trench reach gigantic sizes - up to 10 centimeters. Previously, they were found at a depth of 7500 meters. Interesting feature These organisms, in addition to their size, have the ability to accumulate uranium, lead and mercury. Externally, deep-sea amoebas look different. Some are disc or tetrahedron shaped. Xenophyophores feed on bottom sediments.

Hirondellea gigas

Large amphipods (amphipods) have been discovered in the Mariana Trench. These deep-sea crayfish feed on dead organic matter that accumulates at the bottom of the depression and have a keen sense of smell. The largest specimen found was 17 centimeters in length.

Holothurians

Sea cucumbers are another representative of organisms that live at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. This class of invertebrates feeds on plankton and bottom sediments.

Conclusion

The Mariana Trench has not yet been properly explored. No one knows what creatures inhabit it and how many secrets it holds.