What was the maximum depth the person was at? Secrets of the Mariana Trench
Who was the first to descend to the deepest point of the world. (Mariana Trench)
The Mariana Trench is the deepest known geographical feature in the Pacific Ocean. Depth up to 11022 meters; located east and south of the Mariana Islands at 11°21"0" North. 142°12"0" East.
The most mysterious and inaccessible point on our planet - the Mariana Trench - is called the “fourth pole of the Earth”.
This “womb of Gaia” is located in the western part of the Pacific Ocean and extends 2926 km in length and 80 km in width. At a distance of 320 km south of the island of Guam (Mariana archipelago) there is the deepest point of the Mariana Trench and the entire planet - 11,022 meters.
US Navy officer Don Walsh and Swiss explorer Jacques Piccard dared to challenge the abyss. Bathyscaphe "Trieste" was designed by the Swiss scientist Auguste Picard, taking into account his previous development, the world's first bathyscaphe FNRS-2. 
On January 23, 1960, Jacques Piccard and US Navy Lieutenant Don Walsh dived to a depth of 11,022 m, which is an absolute depth record for manned and unmanned vehicles. 
The dive took about 5 hours, the ascent took about 3 hours, and the time spent at the bottom was 12 minutes. One of the most important scientific results of the dive was the discovery of highly organized life at such depths.
During this expedition, one of the hypotheses about the non-movement of layers of water at great depths was refuted. Two fish were observed from the submersible at extreme depths. This indicated the existence of underwater currents in the vertical direction: after all, living creatures need oxygen brought by the current from the surface. This finding warned scientists against the idea of using the deep ocean to dispose of waste from the nuclear industry.
When the bathyscaphe "Trieste" sank to the bottom of the depression, it stopped three times, encountering some invisible obstacle. As is known, in a bathyscaphe gasoline plays the same role as hydrogen or helium in an airship. To continue the submersion of the submersible, it was necessary to release a certain amount of gasoline, this made the device heavier. 
An obstacle on the way was a sharp increase in the density of water. In the ocean, with depth, as a rule, the temperature decreases and the salinity of water increases, as a result of which its density increases. At some depths these changes occur abruptly. The layer in which there is a sharp change in temperature and density of water is called the “jump layer”. There are usually one or two such layers in the ocean. Trieste discovered a third one.
The two brave men were the only people in the world who approached the center of the planet as close as possible - there were only 6,366 kilometers left to reach it. This record has never been broken. 
I would like to note that the Piccard family are record holders - the grandfather conquered the heights, the father conquered the depths, and the grandson flew around the Earth. 
Trieste's dive into the Mariana Trench
The most mysterious and inaccessible point of our planet - the Mariana Trench - is called the “fourth pole of the Earth” (the North and South are geographical poles, Mount Everest and the Mariana Trench are geomorphological). The depression is located in the western part of the Pacific Ocean and extends 2926 km in length and 80 km in width. At a distance of 320 km south of the island of Guam (Mariana archipelago) there is the deepest point of the Mariana Trench and the entire planet - 11,022 meters below sea level. Living creatures also live in these little-explored depths.
Human immersion in the ocean initially pursued purely practical goals: repairing underwater parts of ships or port facilities, etc. And only many years later did people begin to dive into the depths for scientific purposes. But the realization of this long-standing human dream was associated with extremely great difficulties. First of all, the person had to be isolated from the enormous pressure of the water. With every 10 meters of depth, the pressure increases by 1 atm.
Bathyscaphe "Trieste"
The first underwater vehicle for human immersion, the so-called diving bell, was built in 1538 in the Spanish city of Toledo and tested on the Tagus River. In 1660, the German physicist I.X. Storm and in 1717 the English astronomer and geophysicist E. Halley built more advanced diving bells. Halley's bell, despite the fact that it was made of wood, was immersed to a depth of 20 m and had a special hole for exhaling air. In 1719, a peasant from the village of Pokrovskoye near Moscow, Efim Nikonov, proposed the first autonomous diving equipment and created a design for the first submarine, which he called a “hidden vessel.” According to the instructions of Peter I, such a ship was built, but during testing it was damaged. After the death of Peter I, the government refused Nikonov the funds necessary to repair the ship, and the invention was forgotten.
Subsequently, many new designs of diving equipment appeared, but only in the last quarter of the 19th century. managed to create such technical devices that allowed a person to work freely under water. In 1882, the first diving school in Russia was opened. In 1930, our divers descended to depths of 100–110 m in special spacesuits. Currently, diving suits allow a person to dive to depths of more than 200 m. These heavy diving suits are designed for rescue, repair and other work.
Explorers of the seas and oceans needed lightweight diving devices that would provide greater human mobility under water. Such devices - scuba tanks - were created in the 40s of the 20th century. French engineers. The record depth of human scuba diving is just over 100 m.
But neither heavy nor even lighter diving suits can ensure a person’s immersion to great depths.
To solve this problem, engineers in many countries developed underwater vehicles - hydrostats and bathyspheres, which were lowered from the ship on steel cables. Their disadvantage was unpleasant jerks during descent, which threatened to break the cable.
In the USSR, the hydrostat was built in 1923, and for many years work was carried out on it in the Black Sea and the Gulf of Finland. In subsequent years, improved hydrostats GKS-6, Sever-1, and others were built in our country. With their help, it was possible to dive to a depth of 600 m. Hydrostats were also built in the USA, Italy and other countries.
In the 40s, new underwater vehicles appeared - bathyscaphes, which could independently move, dive and emerge from great depths. The bathyscaphe is a tank with a light incompressible liquid (gasoline), from which ballast and a thick-walled steel cabin-sphere with people are suspended. Movement is provided by screws and electric motors. Buoyancy is controlled by dropping ballast and releasing gasoline. The first bathyscaphe was created in 1948 by the Swiss Auguste Picard and named FNRS-2.
An interesting fact is that O. Picard first conquered the stratosphere on a stratospheric balloon he invented and reached a height of 16,370 m (1932), then he became interested in the depths of the sea.
In August 1953, J. Guo and P. Wilm dived to a depth of 2100 m on the bathyscaphe FNRS-3. This record lasted only a month and a half. At the end of September 1953, O. Picard and his son J. Picard on the bathyscaphe "Trieste" in the Atlantic off the coast of West Africa reached a depth of 3150 m. But in February 1954, J. Guo and P. Wilm sank in the same area of the ocean to a depth of 4050 m and set a new record.
In 1957, the United States purchased and refitted Trieste, and in 1959 a new series of record dives began. On November 15, 1959, in the Mariana Islands of the Pacific Ocean, Trieste reached a depth of 5530 m, and on January 8, 1960 - 7025 m. Jacques Picard participated in both of these dives, in the first case with Andreas Rechnitzer and in the second with Don Walsham.
And January 23, 1960 was marked by the greatest event in the history of human penetration into the depths of the ocean. Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh dived on the bathyscaphe Trieste into the Mariana Trench of the Pacific Ocean and reached the bottom at a depth of 10,912 m (the maximum depth of the trench is 11,022 m). Trieste remained at the bottom of the Mariana Trench for 30 minutes. Scientists have seen with their own eyes that, despite the enormous pressure (1100 atm.), the deepest layers of ocean water are inhabited by living organisms. The researchers measured the temperature (+3.0 o C) and radioactivity of the water at the very bottom of the depression.
In the USSR, USA, Japan and other countries, scientists and engineers also worked on the creation of controlled underwater vehicles for exploring medium depths. Scientific oceanographic submarines and mesoscapes became such devices. So far, submarines have become more widespread. The first of them, the Soviet “Severyanka”, has been conducting research in the Barents Sea since 1958.
In the USA, in the 60s, two-seater small boats “Kabmarin” and “Nautilette” were built for biological and geological research at shallow depths. The capacity of the submarine “Alvin” is the same; its diving depth reached 1850 m. With its help, the bottom of the Pacific Ocean was explored. The four-seater boat "Aluminaut" could reach 4500 m. In Japan in 1968, the four-seater research submarine "Shinkai" was built. It was intended for oceanographic, fishery and geological observations at depths of up to 600 m.
Another type of underwater vehicle, the two-seater “diving saucer” Denise, was built in France. This apparatus is a compact flat design with a diameter of only 2.85 m and a height of 1.4 m. It is transported on a ship and submerged in water as needed. "Denise" can navigate at depths of up to 300 m and at a distance of 3 nautical miles (5.5 km).
In the USSR, the Argus manned underwater vehicles (depth up to 600 m) and the Paisis-XI built in Canada (depth up to 2000 m) became famous. "Pysis" reached the bottom of Lake Baikal.
Man's conquest of the ocean depths was extremely important, especially for the study of living organisms and the geology of the bottom. With the help of underwater vehicles, new data were obtained on the optical and acoustic properties of water in the oceans and seas.
As for the Mariana Trench, according to some ichthyologists, due to the presence of active hydrothermal springs, colonies of prehistoric marine animals that have survived to this day may exist at its bottom.
There is evidence that in 1918, lobster fishermen from the city of Port Stephens (Australia) saw an amazing transparent white fish 35 meters long in the sea. It was clear that this fish had surfaced from great depths. Many researchers believe that the Mariana Trench hides in its unexplored depths the last surviving representatives of the giant prehistoric shark of the species Carcharodon megalodon. Based on the few surviving remains, scientists have recreated the appearance of the megalodon. This predator lived in the seas 2–2.5 million years ago and was of monstrous size: about 24 meters long, weighing 100 tons, and the width of its mouth dotted with 10-centimeter teeth reached 1.8–2.0 m - a megalodon could easily swallow automobile.
Recently, while exploring the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, oceanologists found perfectly preserved teeth of a megalodon. One of the finds was 24 thousand years old, and the other was even younger - 11 thousand years old! So, not all megalodons went extinct 2 million years ago?
During one of the dives in the Mariana Trench area, the German research vehicle Haifish with a crew on board, being at a depth of 7 km, unexpectedly “refused” to surface. Trying to understand the reason for this, the hydronauts turned on the infrared camera. What they saw at first seemed to them a collective hallucination: a huge creature, similar to a prehistoric lizard, grabbed the body of the bathyscaphe with its teeth, trying to chew it like a nut... Having come to their senses, the crew activated a device called an “electric gun.” Struck by a powerful discharge, the monster unclenched its terrible jaws and disappeared into the darkness of the abyss...
The dive of the American unmanned bathyscaphe platform into the abyss of the Mariana Trench has sensationally completed. Equipped with powerful searchlights, highly sensitive sensors and television cameras, it sank into the depths of the ocean using a steel net woven from 20 mm thick cables. After the submersible reached the bottom, cameras and microphones did not record anything significant for several hours. And then suddenly, silhouettes of strange huge bodies flashed on the television monitors in the beams of spotlights. When the device was hastily raised to the surface, part of its structures turned out to be bent.
And in 2004, the British magazine New Scientist spoke in detail about mysterious sounds in the depths of the Pacific Ocean, detected by underwater sensors of the American SOSUS tracking system. It was created during the Cold War to monitor Soviet submarines. Experts who studied the recordings of signals from highly sensitive hydrophones identified, against the background noise representing the “call signs” of various marine inhabitants, a much more powerful sound, clearly emitted by some creature living in the ocean. This mysterious signal, first recorded in 1977, is much more powerful than the infrasounds with which large whales communicate with each other at a distance of hundreds of kilometers from each other.
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There is an underwater canyon off the east coast of the Philippine Islands. It's so deep that you could fit Mount Everest in it and still have about three kilometers to spare. There is impenetrable darkness and incredible pressure, so you can easily imagine the Mariana Trench as one of the most unfriendly places in the world. However, despite all this, life still somehow continues to exist there - and not just barely survive, but actually thrive, thanks to which a full-fledged ecosystem has appeared there.
Life at such a depth is extremely difficult - eternal cold, impenetrable darkness and enormous pressure will not allow you to exist in peace. Some creatures, such as the anglerfish, create their own light to attract prey or mates. Others, such as the hammerhead, have developed huge eyes to capture as much light as possible, reaching incredible depths. Other creatures are simply trying to hide from everyone, and to achieve this they turn translucent or red (the red color absorbs all the blue light that manages to make its way to the bottom of the cavity).
Cold protection
It is also worth noting that all creatures living at the bottom of the Mariana Trench need to cope with cold and pressure. Protection from cold is provided by fats that form the lining of the creature's body cells. If this process is not monitored, the membranes may crack and cease to protect the body. To combat this, these creatures have acquired an impressive supply of unsaturated fats in their membranes. With the help of these fats, the membranes always remain in a liquid state and do not crack. But is this enough to survive in one of the deepest places on the planet?
What is the Mariana Trench like?
The Mariana Trench is shaped like a horseshoe and its length is 2,550 kilometers. It is located in the eastern Pacific Ocean and is about 69 kilometers wide. The deepest point of the depression was discovered near the southern end of the canyon in 1875 - the depth there was 8184 meters. A lot of time has passed since then, and with the help of an echo sounder more accurate data was obtained: it turns out that the deepest point has an even greater depth, 10994 meters. It was named “Challenger Deep” in honor of the ship that made that very first measurement.
Human immersion
However, about 100 years have passed since that moment - and only then for the first time a person plunged to such a depth. In 1960, Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh set off in the bathyscaphe Trieste to conquer the depths of the Mariana Trench. Trieste used gasoline as fuel and iron structures as ballast. The bathyscaphe took 4 hours and 47 minutes to reach a depth of 10,916 meters. It was then that the fact that life still exists at such depths was first confirmed. Piccard reported that he then saw a “flat fish,” although in fact it turned out that he only noticed a sea cucumber.
Who lives at the bottom of the ocean?
However, not only sea cucumbers are found at the bottom of the depression. Along with them live large single-celled organisms known as foraminifera - they are giant amoebas that can grow up to 10 centimeters in length. Under normal conditions, these organisms create shells of calcium carbonate, but at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, where the pressure is a thousand times greater than on the surface, calcium carbonate dissolves. This means that these organisms have to use proteins, organic polymers and sand to create their shells. Also living at the bottom of the Mariana Trench are shrimp and other crustaceans known as amphipods. The largest amphipods look like giant albino woodlice and can be found in the Challenger Deep.
Food at the bottom
Considering that sunlight does not reach the bottom of the Mariana Trench, another question arises: what do these organisms eat? Bacteria manage to survive at such depths because they feed on methane and sulfur that emerge from the earth's crust, and some organisms feed on these bacteria. But many rely on what is called "sea snow" - tiny pieces of detritus that reach the bottom from the surface. One of the most striking examples and the richest sources of food are the carcasses of dead whales, which as a result end up on the ocean floor.
Fishes in the Trench
But what about fish? The deepest fish in the Mariana Trench was discovered only in 2014 at a depth of 8143 meters. An unknown ghostly white subspecies of Liparidae with wide wing-like fins and an eel-like tail was recorded several times by cameras that plunged into the depths of the depression. However, scientists believe this depth is likely the limit of where the fish can survive. This means that there cannot be fish at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, since the conditions there do not correspond to the body structure of vertebrate species.
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 explain 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 diving equipment, this 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, an underwater vehicle was developed and built in Sydney - a single-seat bathyscaphe Deepsea Challenger, equipped with 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 huge teeth, 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. An interesting feature of these organisms, in addition to their size, is 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.
As children, we all read many legends about incredible sea monsters that inhabit the ocean floor, always knowing that these were 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. Read our article about what the Mariana Trench hides and who its mysterious inhabitants are.
The deepest place on the planet is the Mariana Trench or Mariana Trench- is located in the western Pacific Ocean near Guam, east of the Mariana Islands, from which its name comes. The shape of the trench resembles a crescent, about 2,550 km long and an average width of 69 km.
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, there would still be about 2,000 meters of water above the top of the mountain. The pressure at the bottom of the Mariana Trench reaches 108.6 MPa - this is more than 1,100 times higher than normal atmospheric pressure.
Man only fell to the bottom twice Mariana Trench. The first dive was made on January 23, 1960 by US Navy Lieutenant Don Walsh and explorer Jacques Piccard in the bathyscaphe Trieste. They stayed at the bottom for only 12 minutes, but during this time they managed to meet flat fish, although according to all possible assumptions there should have been no life at such a depth.
The second human dive took place on March 26, 2012. The third person who touched the secrets Mariana Trench, became a film director James Cameron. He dived on the single-person Deepsea Challenger and spent enough time there to take samples, take pictures and film 3D video. Later, the footage he shot formed the basis of a 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 grayish-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 approximately 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 supported as it is rich in minerals. By the way, despite the fact that the temperature is significantly higher than the boiling point, water does not boil due to very strong pressure.
At approximately a depth of 414 meters is the Daikoku volcano, which is the source of one of the rarest phenomena on the planet - a lake of pure molten sulfur. In the solar system, this phenomenon can only be found on Io, a satellite of Jupiter. So, in this "cauldron" the bubbling 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 about Mariana Trench- these are its inhabitants. After it was established that there was life in the depression, 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 a device into the depression, the so-called “hedgehog” with a diameter of about 9 m, made in a NASA laboratory from beams of ultra-strong titanium-cobalt steel.
Some time after the descent of the apparatus began, the device recording sounds began to transmit to the surface some kind of metallic grinding sound, reminiscent of the grinding of saw teeth on metal. And unclear shadows appeared on the monitors, reminiscent of dragons with several heads and tails. Soon, scientists became worried that the valuable apparatus might remain forever in the depths of the Mariana Trench and decided to lift it onto the ship. But when they removed the hedgehog from 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 through.
However, perhaps this story was too embellished by the newspapers, since later researchers discovered very unusual creatures there, but not dragons.
Xenophyophores are giant, 10-centimeter amoebas that live at the very bottom Mariana Trench. Most likely, due to strong pressure, lack of light and relatively low temperatures, these amoebas acquired enormous sizes 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 ariana 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 preserved his shell is still not known. In addition, hydrothermal springs emit hydrogen sulfide, which is fatal 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 managed to capture.
Mariana Trench and its inhabitants
While our eyes are directed to the sky towards the unsolved mysteries of space, there remains an unsolved mystery on our planet - the 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.
