The deepest dive. Maximum depth of human immersion
The Mariana Trench (or Mariana Trench) is the deepest place on the earth's surface. It is located on the western edge of the Pacific Ocean, 200 kilometers east of the Mariana Archipelago.
It’s paradoxical, but humanity knows much more about the secrets of space or mountain peaks than about the depths of the ocean. And one of the most mysterious and unexplored places on our planet is 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 line of the lot went overboard, but there was no bottom! And only at a depth of 8184 meters the descent of the rope stopped. This is how the deepest underwater crack on Earth was discovered. It was called the Mariana Trench, named after the nearby islands. Its shape (in the form of a crescent) and the location of the deepest section, called the “Challenger Deep,” were determined. It is located 340 km south of the island of Guam and has coordinates 11°22′ N. latitude, 142°35′ e. d.
Since then this deep-sea depression has been called the “fourth pole”, “the womb of Gaia”, “the bottom of the world”. Oceanographers have long tried to find out its true depth. Studies over the years have given different values. The fact is that at such a colossal depth, the density of water increases as it approaches the bottom, therefore the properties of the sound from the echo sounder in it also change. Using barometers and thermometers at different levels along with echo sounders, in 2011 the depth in the Challenger Deep was determined to be 10994 ± 40 meters. This is the height of Mount Everest plus another two kilometers above.
The pressure at the bottom of the underwater chasm is almost 1100 atmospheres, or 108.6 MPa. Most deep-sea vehicles are designed for a maximum depth of 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 deep-sea bathyscaphe Trieste, for the first time in the world, descended to the very bottom of the Mariana Trench in the Challenger Deep area with two passengers on board: US Navy Lieutenant Don Walsh and Swiss oceanographer Jacques Piccard.
Their observations led to an important conclusion about the presence of life at the bottom of the canyon. The discovery of an upward flow of water also had important environmental significance: based on it, nuclear powers refused to dump radioactive waste at the bottom of the Mariana Trench.
In the 90s, the trench 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, picking up from the bottom samples of silt, minerals, samples of deep-sea fauna and photos of the inhabitants of unknown depths.
In 2012, James Cameron, the author of Titanic, Terminator and Avatar, dived alone into the abyss. He spent 6 hours at the bottom, collecting samples of soil, minerals, fauna, as well as taking photographs and 3D video filming. Based on this material, the film “Challenge the Abyss” was created.
Amazing discoveries
In the trench, at a depth of about 4 kilometers, there is an active Daikoku volcano, spewing liquid sulfur that boils at 187 ° C in a small depression. The only lake of liquid sulfur was discovered only on Jupiter’s moon, Io.
“Black smokers” swirl 2 kilometers from the surface - sources of geothermal water with hydrogen sulfide and other substances that, upon contact with cold water, turn into black sulfides. The movement of sulfide water resembles clouds 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 “cauldrons” that one should look for the origins of life on Earth. Hot springs “heat” the icy waters, supporting life in the abyss - the temperature at the bottom of the Mariana Trench is between 1-3° C.
Life beyond life
It would seem that in an environment of complete darkness, silence, icy cold and unbearable pressure, life in the depression is simply unthinkable. But studies of the depression prove the opposite: there are living creatures almost 11 kilometers under water!
The bottom of the hole is covered with a thick layer of slime from organic sediments that have been sinking from the upper layers of the ocean for hundreds of thousands of years. Mucus is an excellent breeding ground for barrophilic bacteria, which form the basis of nutrition for protozoa and multicellular organisms. The 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 under normal conditions, with high pressure, lack of light, low amounts of oxygen and high concentrations of toxic substances. Life in such unbearable conditions gave many of the inhabitants of the abyss a frightening and unattractive appearance.
Deep-sea fish have incredibly large mouths lined 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, which live at a depth of 2000 meters, generally reach 5-6 meters in length.
Representatives of different species of living organisms live at different depths. The deeper the inhabitants of the abyss, the better developed their organs of vision are, allowing them to catch the slightest reflection of light on the body of prey in complete darkness. Some individuals themselves are capable of producing 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 increasingly lose their color; the bodies of many of them are almost transparent.
On the slopes where the “black smokers” are located, mollusks live that have learned to neutralize sulfides and hydrogen sulfide that are lethal to them. And, which still remains a mystery to scientists, under conditions of enormous pressure at the bottom, they somehow miraculously manage to keep their mineral shell intact. Other inhabitants of the Mariana Trench show similar abilities. The study of fauna samples showed many times higher levels of radiation and toxic substances.
Unfortunately, deep-sea creatures die due to changes in pressure when any attempt is made to bring them to the surface. Only thanks to modern deep-sea vehicles has it become possible to study the inhabitants of the depression in their natural environment. Representatives of fauna unknown to science have already been identified.
Secrets and riddles 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! This is confirmed by 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 still exist in the depths of the hole.
There are many stories about the corpses of giant monsters washed up on the shore. When descending into the abyss of the German bathyscaphe "Haifish", 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 chew some kind of prehistoric lizard! Only a pulse of electric current through the outer skin managed to scare away the monster.
Another time, when an American submersible was diving, the grinding of metal began to be heard from under the water. The descent was stopped. Upon inspection of the raised equipment, it turned out that the titanium alloy metal cable was half sawed (or chewed), and the beams of the underwater vehicle were bent.
In 2012, the video camera of the Titan unmanned aerial vehicle from a depth of 10 kilometers transmitted a picture of metal objects, presumably a UFO. 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. Each story has its fans and skeptics, its arguments for and against.
Before the risky dive into the trench, James Cameron said that he wanted to see with his own eyes at least part of the secrets of the Mariana Trench, about which there are so many rumors and legends. But he did not see anything that went beyond the knowable.
So what do we know about her?
To understand how the Mariana underwater gap was formed, it should be remembered that such gaps (trenches) are usually formed along the edges of the oceans under the influence of moving lithospheric plates. Oceanic plates, being older and heavier, “crawl” under continental plates, forming deep gaps at the junctions. The deepest is the junction of the Pacific and Philippine tectonic plates near the Mariana Islands (Mariana Trench). The Pacific plate is moving at a rate of 3-4 centimeters per year, resulting in increased volcanic activity along both its edges.
Along the entire length of this deepest failure, four so-called bridges—transverse mountain ridges—were discovered. The ridges were presumably formed due to the movement of the lithosphere and volcanic activity.
The gutter is V-shaped in cross-section, greatly expanding at the top 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 vertical and is only 7-8°. The depression stretches from north to south for 2,500 kilometers. The trench has an average depth of about 10,000 meters.
Only three people to date have visited the very bottom of the Mariana Trench. In 2018, another manned dive to the “bottom of the world” in its deepest section is planned. This time, the famous Russian traveler Fyodor Konyukhov and polar explorer Artur Chilingarov will try to conquer the depression and find out what it hides in its depths. Currently, a deep-sea bathyscaphe is being manufactured and a research program is being drawn up.
Freediving is a special type of scuba diving. After all, in order to be under water, a person only needs to hold his breath.
is the earliest form of diving and is still popular both sportingly and commercially. This sport is constantly evolving.
The record for holding one's breath has already reached 12 minutes, and the record for diving in depth has long exceeded 100 meters. There are probably no limits to human capabilities.
Record depth of diving without scuba gear
The first diving record without scuba gear was set by divers Enzo Mallorca and Jacques Mayol. They dived to a depth of 100 meters. But their result was not officially included in sports records.
But thanks to Luc Besson’s film “Abyss Blue,” their names will always be remembered (they became the prototypes of the main characters of the film).
In 2002, French freediver Loic Leferme set a truly amazing record. Without scuba gear, he dived to a depth of 162 meters. Before that, his record was 137 meters. In 2004, Loïc Leferme decided to set another record. He sank to a depth of 171 meters, but was unable to swim out.
World record dive
It is considered the most popular type of underwater diving without scuba gear. But there are many other disciplines in this area within the International Association for the Advancement of Apnea (AIDA).
For example, static and dynamic apnea, “constant weight in fins” and so on. And in every discipline the records are amazing.
In the category " free dive» A new world record was set in 2013 at the World Freediving Championships in Greece. The record holder among women was Russian Natalya Molchanova. She sank to a depth of 91 meters without scuba gear. Among men, the record was set in 2011 and has not been broken since then.
Then the record holder was William Trubridge from New Zealand. He sank to a depth of 121 meters.
became Natalya Molchanova. First, she set the record in 2009, and then in 2013 she broke it herself.
Diving to great depths is very dangerous. Therefore, one must prepare for such dives not just for months, but for years. Achieving the results described is possible only through constant training. Read about diving on our website and get results. If you want to set a world record in free diving, then start preparing now.
We live on a planet of water, but we know the Earth's oceans less well than some cosmic bodies. More than half of the surface of Mars has been mapped with a resolution of about 20 m - and only 10-15% of the ocean floor has been studied with a resolution of at least 100 m. 12 people have been on the Moon, three have been to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, and all of them did not dare to stick their nose out of the heavy-duty bathyscaphes.
Let's dive in
The main difficulty in the development of the World Ocean is pressure: for every 10 m of depth it increases by another atmosphere. When the count reaches thousands of meters and hundreds of atmospheres, everything changes. Liquids flow differently, gases behave unusually... Devices capable of withstanding these conditions remain piecemeal products, and even the most modern submarines are not designed for such pressure. The maximum diving depth of the latest Project 955 Borei nuclear submarines is only 480 m.
Divers descending hundreds of meters are respectfully called aquanauts, comparing them with space explorers. But the abyss of the seas is in its own way more dangerous than the vacuum of space. If something happens, the crew working on the ISS will be able to transfer to the docked ship and in a few hours will be on the surface of the Earth. This route is closed to divers: it may take weeks to evacuate from the depths. And this period cannot be shortened under any circumstances.
However, there is an alternative route to depth. Instead of creating ever more durable hulls, you can send there... living divers. The record of pressure endured by testers in the laboratory is almost double the capabilities of submarines. There is nothing incredible here: the cells of all living organisms are filled with the same water, which freely transfers pressure in all directions.
The cells do not resist the water column, like the solid hulls of submarines; they compensate for external pressure with internal ones. It’s no wonder that the inhabitants of “black smokers,” including roundworms and shrimp, thrive at many kilometers deep in the ocean floor. Some types of bacteria can withstand even thousands of atmospheres quite well. Man is no exception here - the only difference is that he needs air.
Beneath the surface
Oxygen Breathing tubes made of reeds were known to the Mohicans of Fenimore Cooper. Today, hollow plant stems have been replaced by plastic tubes, “anatomically shaped” and with comfortable mouthpieces. However, this did not make them more effective: the laws of physics and biology interfere.
Already at a meter depth, the pressure on the chest rises to 1.1 atm - 0.1 atm of water column is added to the air itself. Breathing here requires a noticeable effort of the intercostal muscles, and only trained athletes can cope with this. At the same time, even their strength will not last long and at a maximum of 4-5 m depth, and beginners have difficulty breathing even at half a meter. In addition, the longer the tube, the more air it contains. The “working” tidal volume of the lungs is on average 500 ml, and after each exhalation, part of the exhaust air remains in the tube. Each breath brings less oxygen and more carbon dioxide.
Forced ventilation is required to deliver fresh air. By pumping gas under increased pressure, you can ease the work of the chest muscles. This approach has been used for more than a century. Hand pumps have been known to divers since the 17th century, and in the middle of the 19th century, English builders who erected underwater foundations for bridge supports already worked for a long time in an atmosphere of compressed air. For the work, thick-walled, open-bottom underwater chambers were used, in which high pressure was maintained. That is, caissons.
Deeper than 10 m
Nitrogen No problems arose during work in the caissons themselves. But upon returning to the surface, construction workers often developed symptoms that French physiologists Paul and Vattel described in 1854 as On ne paie qu'en sortant - "payback at the exit." It could be severe itching of the skin or dizziness, pain in the joints and muscles. In the most severe cases, paralysis developed, loss of consciousness occurred, and then death.
To go to the depths without any difficulties associated with extreme pressure, you can use heavy-duty spacesuits. These are extremely complex systems that can withstand immersion of hundreds of meters and maintain a comfortable pressure of 1 atm inside. True, they are very expensive: for example, the price of a recently introduced spacesuit from the Canadian company Nuytco Research Ltd. EXOSUIT is about a million dollars.
The problem is that the amount of gas dissolved in a liquid directly depends on the pressure above it. This also applies to air, which contains about 21% oxygen and 78% nitrogen (other gases - carbon dioxide, neon, helium, methane, hydrogen, etc. - can be neglected: their content does not exceed 1%). If oxygen is quickly absorbed, then nitrogen simply saturates the blood and other tissues: with an increase in pressure by 1 atm, an additional 1 liter of nitrogen dissolves in the body.
With a rapid decrease in pressure, excess gas begins to be released rapidly, sometimes foaming, like an opened bottle of champagne. The resulting bubbles can physically deform tissues, block blood vessels and deprive them of blood supply, leading to a wide variety of and often severe symptoms. Fortunately, physiologists figured out this mechanism quite quickly, and already in the 1890s, decompression sickness could be prevented by using a gradual and careful decrease in pressure to normal - so that nitrogen leaves the body gradually, and blood and other fluids do not “boil” .
At the beginning of the twentieth century, English researcher John Haldane compiled detailed tables with recommendations on the optimal modes of descent and ascent, compression and decompression. Through experiments with animals and then with people - including himself and his loved ones - Haldane found that the maximum safe depth without requiring decompression was about 10 m, and even less for a long dive. Returning from the depths should be done gradually and slowly to give the nitrogen time to be released, but it is better to descend rather quickly, reducing the time for excess gas to enter the body tissues. New limits of depth were revealed to people.
Deeper than 40 m
Helium The fight against depth is like an arms race. Having found a way to overcome the next obstacle, people took a few more steps - and met a new obstacle. So, after decompression sickness, a scourge appeared, which divers almost lovingly call “nitrogen squirrel”. The fact is that under hyperbaric conditions this inert gas begins to act no worse than strong alcohol. In the 1940s, the intoxicating effect of nitrogen was studied by another John Haldane, the son of “the one.” His father’s dangerous experiments did not bother him at all, and he continued harsh experiments on himself and his colleagues. “One of our subjects suffered a lung rupture,” the scientist wrote in the journal, “but he is now recovering.”
Despite all the research, the mechanism of nitrogen intoxication has not been established in detail - however, the same can be said about the effect of ordinary alcohol. Both disrupt normal signal transmission at the synapses of nerve cells, and perhaps even change the permeability of cell membranes, turning ion exchange processes on the surfaces of neurons into complete chaos. Outwardly, both manifest themselves in similar ways. A diver who “caught a nitrogen squirrel” loses control of himself. He may panic and cut the hoses, or, conversely, get carried away by telling jokes to a school of cheerful sharks.
Other inert gases also have a narcotic effect, and the heavier their molecules, the less pressure is required for this effect to manifest itself. For example, xenon anesthetizes under normal conditions, but lighter argon only anesthetizes under several atmospheres. However, these manifestations are deeply individual, and some people, when diving, feel nitrogen intoxication much earlier than others.
You can get rid of the anesthetic effect of nitrogen by reducing its intake into the body. This is how nitrox breathing mixtures work, containing an increased (sometimes up to 36%) proportion of oxygen and, accordingly, a reduced amount of nitrogen. It would be even more tempting to switch to pure oxygen. After all, this would make it possible to quadruple the volume of breathing cylinders or quadruple the time of working with them. However, oxygen is an active element, and with prolonged inhalation it is toxic, especially under pressure.
Pure oxygen causes intoxication and euphoria, and leads to membrane damage in the cells of the respiratory tract. At the same time, the lack of free (reduced) hemoglobin makes it difficult to remove carbon dioxide, leads to hypercapnia and metabolic acidosis, triggering physiological reactions of hypoxia. A person suffocates, despite the fact that his body has enough oxygen. As the same Haldane Jr. established, even at a pressure of 7 atm, you can breathe pure oxygen for no longer than a few minutes, after which breathing disorders, convulsions begin - everything that in diving slang is called the short word “blackout”.
Liquid breathing
The still semi-fantastic approach to conquering depth is to use substances that can take over the delivery of gases instead of air - for example, the blood plasma substitute perftoran. In theory, the lungs can be filled with this bluish liquid and, saturating it with oxygen, pump it through pumps, providing breathing without any gas mixture at all. However, this method remains deeply experimental; many experts consider it a dead end, and, for example, in the USA the use of perftoran is officially prohibited.
Therefore, the partial pressure of oxygen when breathing at depth is maintained even lower than usual, and nitrogen is replaced with a safe and non-euphoric gas. Light hydrogen would be better suited than others, if not for its explosiveness when mixed with oxygen. As a result, hydrogen is rarely used, and the second lightest gas, helium, has become a common substitute for nitrogen in the mixture. On its basis, oxygen-helium or oxygen-helium-nitrogen breathing mixtures are produced - helioxes and trimixes.
Deeper than 80 m
Complex mixtures It is worth saying here that compression and decompression at pressures of tens and hundreds of atmospheres takes a long time. So much so that it makes the work of industrial divers - for example, when servicing offshore oil platforms - ineffective. The time spent at depth becomes much shorter than long descents and ascents. Already half an hour at 60 m results in more than an hour of decompression. After half an hour at 160 m, it will take more than 25 hours to return - and yet divers have to go lower.
Therefore, deep-sea pressure chambers have been used for these purposes for several decades. People sometimes live in them for whole weeks, working in shifts and making excursions outside through the airlock compartment: the pressure of the respiratory mixture in the “dwelling” is maintained equal to the pressure of the aquatic environment around. And although decompression when ascending from 100 m takes about four days, and from 300 m - more than a week, a decent period of work at depth makes these losses of time completely justified.
Methods for prolonged exposure to high-pressure environments have been developed since the mid-twentieth century. Large hyperbaric complexes made it possible to create the required pressure in laboratory conditions, and the brave testers of that time set one record after another, gradually moving to the sea. In 1962, Robert Stenuis spent 26 hours at a depth of 61 m, becoming the first aquanaut, and three years later, six Frenchmen, breathing trimix, lived at a depth of 100 m for almost three weeks.
Here, new problems began to arise associated with people's prolonged stay in isolation and in a debilitatingly uncomfortable environment. Due to the high thermal conductivity of helium, divers lose heat with each exhalation of the gas mixture, and in their “home” they have to maintain a consistently hot atmosphere - about 30 ° C, and the water creates high humidity. In addition, the low density of helium changes the timbre of the voice, seriously complicating communication. But even all these difficulties taken together would not put a limit to our adventures in the hyperbaric world. There are more important restrictions.
Below 600 m
Limit In laboratory experiments, individual neurons growing “in vitro” do not tolerate extremely high pressure well, demonstrating erratic hyperexcitability. It seems that this significantly changes the properties of cell membrane lipids, so that these effects cannot be resisted. The result can also be observed in the human nervous system under enormous pressure. He begins to “switch off” every now and then, falling into short periods of sleep or stupor. Perception becomes difficult, the body is seized with tremors, panic begins: high-pressure nervous syndrome (HBP) develops, caused by the very physiology of neurons.
In addition to the lungs, there are other cavities in the body that contain air. But they communicate with the environment through very thin channels, and the pressure in them does not equalize instantly. For example, the middle ear cavities are connected to the nasopharynx only by a narrow Eustachian tube, which is also often clogged with mucus. The associated inconveniences are familiar to many airplane passengers who have to tightly close their nose and mouth and exhale sharply, equalizing the pressure of the ear and the external environment. Divers also use this kind of “blowing”, and when they have a runny nose they try not to dive at all.
Adding small (up to 9%) amounts of nitrogen to the oxygen-helium mixture allows these effects to be somewhat weakened. Therefore, record dives on heliox reach 200-250 m, and on nitrogen-containing trimix - about 450 m in the open sea and 600 m in a compression chamber. The French aquanauts became - and still remain - the legislators in this area. Alternating air, complex breathing mixtures, tricky diving and decompression modes back in the 1970s allowed divers to overcome the 700 m depth bar, and the COMEX company, created by students of Jacques Cousteau, made the world leader in diving maintenance of offshore oil platforms. The details of these operations remain a military and commercial secret, so researchers from other countries are trying to catch up with the French, moving in their own ways.
Trying to go deeper, Soviet physiologists studied the possibility of replacing helium with heavier gases, such as neon. Experiments to simulate a dive to 400 m in an oxygen-neon atmosphere were carried out in the hyperbaric complex of the Moscow Institute of Medical and Biological Problems (IMBP) of the Russian Academy of Sciences and in the secret “underwater” Research Institute-40 of the Ministry of Defense, as well as in the Research Institute of Oceanology named after. Shirshova. However, the heaviness of neon showed its downside.
It can be calculated that already at a pressure of 35 atm the density of the oxygen-neon mixture is equal to the density of the oxygen-helium mixture at approximately 150 atm. And then - more: our airways are simply not suitable for “pumping” such a thick environment. IBMP testers reported that when the lungs and bronchi work with such a dense mixture, a strange and heavy feeling arises, “as if you are not breathing, but drinking air.” While awake, experienced divers are still able to cope with this, but during periods of sleep - and it is impossible to reach such a depth without spending long days descending and ascending - they are constantly awakened by a panicky sensation of suffocation. And although the military aquanauts from NII-40 managed to reach the 450-meter bar and receive well-deserved medals of Heroes of the Soviet Union, this did not fundamentally solve the issue.
New diving records may still be set, but we have apparently reached the final frontier. The unbearable density of the respiratory mixture, on the one hand, and the nervous syndrome of high pressure, on the other, apparently put the final limit on human travel under extreme pressure.
The British deep-sea bathyscaphe Challenger first descended to the bottom of the Mariana Trench in 1951. In 1960, the bathyscaphe "Trieste" was immersed to the bottom of the Mariana Trench to a depth of 10,915 m. The sound-recording device 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 research vessel became concerned that the unique equipment, made of beams of ultra-strong titanium-cobalt steel, spherical in shape with a diameter of about 9 m, could remain in the abyss forever. The decision was made to take her upstairs. The equipment was recovered from the depths for more than eight hours. As soon as he appeared on the surface, he was immediately placed on a special raft. The television camera and echo sounder were raised onto the deck. 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 device at depth and why is an absolute mystery.
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. At depths of 6,000 - 11,000 km, researchers 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.
Mariana Trench
The Mariana Trench or Mariana Trench is an oceanic trench in the western Pacific Ocean, which is the deepest geographical feature known on Earth. 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.
The study of 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 rig was rebuilt into an oceanographic vessel for hydrological, geological, chemical, biological and meteorological work in 1872.
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. The hedgehog was recovered from the depths for more than eight hours. 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 in the depths 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).
James Cameron's Mariana Trench Dive
There is a place on Earth about which we know much less than about deep space - the bottom of the ocean. It is believed that world science has not yet really even begun to study it. On March 26, 2012, 50 years after the first dive, man sank to the bottom again: the Deepsea Challenge bathyscaphe with Canadian director James Cameron sank to the bottom of the Mariana Trench. Cameron became the third person to reach the deepest point of the ocean and the first to do it alone.
On January 23, 1960, Jacques Piccard and US Navy Lieutenant Don Walsh dived into the Mariana Trench to a depth of 10,920 meters on the bathyscaphe Trieste. The dive took about 5 hours, and the time spent at the bottom was 12 minutes. This was an absolute depth record for manned and unmanned vehicles.
Two researchers then discovered at a terrible depth only 6 species of living creatures, including flat fish up to 30 cm in size:
Let's go back to the present day. This is the Deepsea Challenge deep-sea bathyscaphe, in which James Cameron sank to the bottom of the ocean. It was developed in an Australian laboratory, weighs 11 tons and is more than 7 meters long.
The dive began on March 26. James Cameron's last words were: "Lower, lower, lower." When diving to the bottom of the ocean, the bathyscaphe turns over and sinks vertically:
This is a real vertical torpedo that glides through a huge layer of water at high speed:
The compartment in which Cameron was located during the dive is a metal sphere with a diameter of 109 cm with thick walls capable of withstanding pressure of more than 1,000 atmospheres.
However, the underwater expedition was not entirely successful. Due to a malfunction metal "hands". operated by hydraulics, James Cameron was unable to take samples from the ocean floor that scientists needed to study geology.
Many were tormented by the question of animals that live at such monstrous depths. “Probably everyone would like to hear that I saw some kind of sea monster, but it wasn’t there. There was nothing alive, more than 2-2.5 cm.” A few hours after the dive, the Deepsea Challenge bathyscaphe with the 57-year-old director successfully returned from the bottom of the Mariana Trench.
Behind the veil of secrecy
For humans, everything unexplored has always been of great interest. And the depths of the sea hold so many secrets that more than one generation of scientists will be provided with work.
But there are points on the map that are not just covered in a veil of secrecy, but are the main theme of mystical stories.
One of these places, the Mariana Trench or Trench, is a typical relief element of continental-ocean transition zones. In such places there is a depression of the ocean floor, which is shaped like a narrow, long depression. The deepest trenches are the Pacific trenches.
The Mariana Islands gave their name to one of the deep ocean trenches two and a half thousand kilometers long. It is distinguished by a flat bottom, the width of which is 1-5 kilometers, and steep V-shaped slopes. The maximum depth of the Mariana Trench is approximately 11 kilometers. This is the deepest point of the entire World Ocean. It is more of an abyss or abyss than a depression.
What else does a person know about this mysterious place? The exploration of the Mariana Trench began in the 19th century, when the ship Challenger with members of the English expedition on board set off to take measurements of the Pacific depths. The trench area contains the oldest seabed in the world. This is what is associated with the depth of the Mariana Trench. In 1960, the bathyscaphe Trieste, with two explorers on board, plunged into the deepest part of the Challenger Deep. This dive was a journey into the mystery of the deep sea, since the relief of the trench was completely unknown. The risk was great. Hollywood film director James Cameron made his contribution to the study of this issue, who, being the third person in the world to conquer the Mariana Trench, conducted research and obtained a lot of new invaluable information.
The inhabitants of the Mariana Trench require a separate discussion. Back in 1958, an expedition of Soviet scientists proved the existence of life at a depth of seven thousand meters. Before this, it was believed that it existed no further than six thousand. By the way, this expedition established that the maximum depth of the Mariana Trench is eleven thousand twenty-two meters. As for living organisms, their study is carried out by underwater vehicles made of materials characterized by high strength; at depth they are automatically piloted. The video cameras with which these devices were equipped recorded living organisms (entire colonies) below the mark of seven thousand meters. In what conditions do these one and a half meter worms, unidentified creatures two meters long with a soft body, mutated octopuses, and sea stars live? In complete darkness, absence of algae, at low temperatures and monstrous hydrostatic pressure. In such conditions, all living organisms have a truly terrifying appearance, and they feed mostly on bacteria.
The depth of the Mariana Trench holds so much that is inexplicable that oceanologists will continue to try for many years to lift the veil of secrecy over this part of the Pacific Ocean. This was once again confirmed by a Hollywood director who recently became a researcher. Having descended to a depth of eleven kilometers, he photographed a lot of interesting things.
Sources: zelenb.com, animalworld.com.ua, loveopium.ru, fb.ru
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On January 23, 1960, Jacques Piccard and his friend US Navy Lieutenant Walsh, together on the modernized bathyscaphe Trieste, descended into the Mariana Trench or Trench to a depth of 10919 meters.
The name of the depression is based on the Mariana Islands in the Pacific Ocean.
Bathyscaphe Trieste was created according to the design of Auguste Piccard, father of Jacques Piccard.
The dive was 5 hours, the ascent was 3 hours, the stay at the bottom was about 20 minutes..
At the bottom, Picard and Walsh discovered living organisms that lived there: bottom fish and crayfish.
After lifting the sphere where the researchers were located to the porthole, they discovered a crack..
So two people descended to the maximum depth...
The greatest depth to which a person dived was in a bathyscaphe into the Mariinsky Trench with a depth of 11912 meters. The first man's name was Jacques Piccard, and the bathyscaphe was Trieste.
1) The depression is called Mariana, not Mariinskaya
2) Depth where the descent was - 10919
3) In addition to Picard, Walsh also fell into the depression. 3 years ago
Human immersion depth
When the opportunity arose to dive to depth. There was also a desire to become the best in this matter. There is a constant struggle for records, despite the negative impact that depth has on a person. For example, water pressure causes ear pain and there is a risk that the eardrum will burst.
Although professional divers cope with this problem easily. The main thing is to equalize the pressure using swallowing movements. In addition, with each meter of depth, water pressure increases, and the volume of air in the lungs decreases.
Because of this, swimmers often incorrectly estimate oxygen reserves, which can subsequently play a cruel joke on the diver. And rising from the depths has its own specifics and difficulties. But despite this, the battle for records continues.
Maximum depth of human immersion
The first dive to a depth of one hundred meters was not even included in sports records. But all divers know the names of the divers who did it. These are Enzo Mallorca and Jacques Mayol. By the way, they became the prototypes of the main characters of the famous film by Luc Besson “Abyss Blue”.
The 100-meter mark has long ceased to be a record. In freediving, the deepest dive was made by Austrian swimmer Herbert Nitzsch. His record in 2001 was 214 meters. By the way, Nietzsche is called a freediving legend.
Throughout his life, he set world records in this type of diving 31 times. Among women, the record holder in diving without scuba gear was American Tanya Streeter. In 2002, it sank to a depth of 160m.
The world record for scuba diving belongs to the French diver Pascal Bernabe, who, by the way, is a primary school teacher in everyday life. In July 2005, he plunged to a depth of 330 meters in less than 10 minutes. But the ascent lasted 9 hours. The diver prepared for this result for 3 years.
Although this may not be the maximum depth of human immersion. After all, many results are not recorded and not officially announced. For example, it is unlikely that anyone will talk in the press about the actions of military scuba divers or the capabilities of their special equipment.
In general, depth will always attract a person; the main thing is not to lose your head from its charms and not to forget about safety.
what is the maximum depth of human immersion
Olga Loskutova Student, closed 5 years ago
Alexander Enlightened 5 years ago
1. A diver from Monaco, Pierre Frolla, set a new world record for diving without scuba gear, the press service of the Principality of Monaco reported.
Frolla, carrying a 28-kilogram load, was able to hold his breath and dive to a depth of 123 meters. He rose to the surface using his legs and flippers on his legs.
Frolla made his first attempt to set a record on July 2, but then the judges recorded a violation of the rules when rising from the depths.
2. A new world record for scuba diving depth was set by Briton Mark Elliat. The diver managed to reach 313 meters. This is five meters deeper than the previous record, set on November 6, 2001 by his compatriot John Bennett.
The dive to a depth of 313 meters took only 12 minutes, but it took him 6 hours and 40 minutes to rise to the surface to avoid decompression sickness.
RIPvanWINKLE Artificial Intelligence 5 years ago
With the core on its feet to the bottom of the Mariana Trench.
Cheerful witch doctor Thinker 5 years ago
11022 m in the bathyscaphe Trieste to the bottom of the Mariana Trench.
Gordon Shumway Guru 5 years ago
Depends on the equipment.
Light scuba - record 330 m
Heavy diver - up to 200 meters
In the bathyscaphe, the bottom of the Mariana Trench was reached more than 11 km.
Artyom Timoshenko Student 2 months ago
to the bottom of the Mariana Trench
Deepest dive
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In January 1960, Rolex took part in the historic dive of the US Navy bathyscaphe Trieste to the bottom of the Mariana Trench. The Rolex watch attached to the submersible visited a depth of 10,916 meters.
50 years ago, on January 23, 1960, explorer Jacques Piccard and US Navy Lieutenant Don Walsh made the first dive to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the deepest geographical feature known on Earth, in the bathyscaphe Trieste.
12788 Credo 12:32 09/04/2010
Bathyscaphe "Mir-1" set a new diving record on Lake Baikal
I remember last year they wrote that it dropped to almost 1670. And it turns out that only now I have reached 1640 meters. In general, it would be worth reading the literature and you would find out that a depth of 1641 m was encountered. But it seems that later they descended on bathyscaphes and could not establish this depth. Therefore, the depth remained at 1637 meters.
The film “The Great Journey Deep into Baikal” will probably be released soon. What is the depth?
The news is kind of strange. what is already known is passed off as a discovery. Oil seeps in the lake have been known for a very long time. And about the depths there are also unknowns, now one thing, then another. or does each season have its own depth - maximum? It would be better to talk about new discoveries or observations, if any. This is really interesting.
Here's a treasure - Putin dived on the worlds. bye
On July 29, 2008, the Mir-1 deep-sea submersible set a record for the deepest dive in fresh water. The bathyscaphe sank 1680 meters into the waters of the lake. The dive showed that Baikal is deeper than previously thought. Prior to this, the greatest depth of the lake - 1637 meters - was recorded off the eastern shore of Olkhon Island.
Mir-1 is piloted by the deputy head of the expedition, head of the laboratory of deep-sea manned vehicles at the Institute of Oceanology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Anatoly Sagalevich. The President of Buryatia, Vyacheslav Nagovitsin, is also on board. The dives take place between capes Izhimei and Wuhan.
The record is minus. yay.
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