"MARIANA TRENCH - FEEL THE BEAUTY OF DEEPNESS"
During this circumnavigation, in 1975 with the help of sounding equipments they made the historic discovery of the world's deepest oceanic trench "The Mariana Trench".
The Mariana Trench, also known as Marianas Trench, is a crescent shaped 2542 km long and 69 km wide trench in the Western Pacific ocean. If we do multiply the Grand Canion's length with five, Mariana Trench is still longer than it.
Previously the Mariana island was named after Las Marianas to pay honor to the Spanish queen Mariana of Australia, the widow of Philip IV.As Mariana Trench is located at 200 km east of Mariana Island, so the trench is named such being the nearest place from Mariana Island.
According to the geologists, during the collision of two floating tectonic plates inside the Earth's crust, one plate goes downwards while another rises up.This subduction causes such oceanic trenchs. In the same process, when the western edge of the older,cooler and denser Pacific plate collided with the younger Mariana Trench, Pacific plate got subducted and Mariana plate rised up forming the mysterious Mariana Trench.
At the bottom of Mariana Trench the water exerts a pressure of 1086 bars which is 1071 times the standard atmospheric pressure at the sea level. So if one goes there he would die in seconds due to such extreme pressure of water. Not only pressure but the temperature is 1 to 4 ℃ as the sunrays cannot reach there.
Mariana Trench comprises the deepest point in the world.There are 9 volcano islands in Mariana region and more than 60 submarine volcanoes.
Among them atleast 20 are hydrothermally active volcanoes. The mysterious region also has vents bubbling up liquid sulphur and carbon dioxide.
The Challenger Deep with a depth of 10,902m to 10,929m, being the deepest known point of the seabed of the Earth is located at the southern end of the Mariana Trench.
Due to the atmospheric conditions, till now it has been very hard to reach there and make researches on it. But the adventures human nature has not been ever defeated by any obstacles. From space to the world under the ground, from the hill to the desert everywhere they have proven their superior power of interest. Likewise Mariana Trench has also been a part of research from the very beginning. But till now only two human being have successfully reached and came out of Mariana Trench. On 23 January 1960, Jacques Piccard and Navy Lt. Don Walsh set the successful record of diving down and reaching the world's deepest point "Challanger Deep"conquering the utmost heat, pressure and so many hardles in a U.S. Navy submersible, a bathyscaphe called the Trieste. Trieste was 15m. long with a floating chember consisting 85,000 litres of gasoline for buoyancy and two water ballast tanks at the either side of the vessels and a spherical chember for two people. They dived 11 km down and could spent 20 minutes at the bottom but was unable to take any photographs there. 52 years later, on 25th May 2012, Sir James Cameron repeated the epic journey. This exploration campaign was so successful. Sir James Cameron designed much lighter Deepsea Challanger with the help of Sir Don Walsh. Deep sea challanger spent 3 hours at the bottom and was able to take images, 3D videos and samples from challanger deep.
Being about 11 thousands meters deep, this area struggles to get any sunlight. So the temperature of water is below 0℃.
The pressure is also very extreme. This pressure would easily collapse the bones made of calcium and the lungs filled with air. So one common concept comes that no creature can survive there in this cool, dark place with extreme pressure of water level. But surprisingly, there exists a whole world of mysterious organisms. They have made some unique adaptations to deal with these obstacles. Their bodies are made of more cartilages than bones, they have a membrane of fats like vegetable oil to prevent to be frezzed in the utmost low temperature.
The lack of food is also a challenge to the living life of the challanger deep as the leaves or plant parts hardly goes thousands meters and reaches the deepest trench. So the organisms have acquired some other adoptions to produce their required energy. Some microbes produce energy from chemicals. Some marine lives gulp the other lives of lower food chain also. The plants don't get any sunlight so instead of photosynthesis, they produce energy by chemosynthesis.
Three organisms most commonly seen at the bottom of Marianan Trench are xenophyophore, amphipods and small sea cucumbers (holothurians). Dumbo octopus, angler fish, frilled shark, barreleye fish and many more creatues can also be seen very often here.
But beyond all our expectations the most Unfortunate fact is, inspite of the extreme pressure, temperature of this remote place, researchers found the highest level of microplastic in Challanger deep yet found compared to The Pacific, Arctic and Atlantic oceans. They found pieces of microplastic in each litre of sediment and 13 pieces of microplastic in each litre of water. They also added that the quantity of microplastic increases with the increasing depth of the trench. These pollutants basically come from the industrial area of Asia, Japan and China. The microplastics being sedimented underneath the water are carried from one oceanic body to other through the food chain. Though it is difficult for human to dive down The Mariana Trench every now and again but their activities have already effected the ecosystem there.
We all expect more adventures and research in Mariana Trench. Those can take the oceanography to a new level. Many more strange creature with their mysterious adaptation can come out. Yet many discoveries are waiting for us. The journey of knowing Mariana Trench has just begun. Sir Don Walsh said, “The very deepest places of the ocean will mainly be explored by unmanned vehicles, but there will always be room for manned vehicles,”.
NOAA research expansions will continue the study and the mission of exploring this mysterious area. They are also planning some long term protection plan of this area with the collaboration of US government.
Comments
Post a Comment