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Mariana Trench | In Pursuit of the Abyss - YouTube
Channel: Natural World Facts
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[Music]
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the deep sea
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is a world of extremes so far
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in this series we've taken a look at the
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ways in which animals have adapted to
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survive
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in the cold dark depths we've explored
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the ecosystems of this
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unforgiving realm and seen how
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communities of life
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cling to whatever source of energy they
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can find
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from vents of superheated water to the
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carrion of sunken whales
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but now it's time to dive even deeper
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and discover a place where life is
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pushed to its absolute
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limits for at the bottom of the pacific
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ocean
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the sea floor widens into a gaping abyss
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of obscurities fish that seem to lack
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faces sprawling fields of bacteria
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and giants that resemble life from
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another planet
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let's take a closer look at the hidden
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world
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of the mariana trench
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the infamous mariana trench sits
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like a crescent-shaped dent in the floor
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of the pacific
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a 2550 kilometer long
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69 kilometer wide fracture
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that plummets down into a pure black
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void at the bottom
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it hosts the deepest known location on
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earth
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the challenger deep 11 033 meters
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or 36 200 feet beneath
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the waves the trench itself
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is but one part of a global network of
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deep scars
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that cut across the ocean floor
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features that formed from a process
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called subduction
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in the case of the mariana trench the
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western edge of the pacific plate
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was thrust beneath the smaller mariana
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plate to the west
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creating the deep fracture
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molten material then rose through
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volcanoes near the trench
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building the nearby mariana islands
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at its deepest point the mariana trench
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dips down into a little explored zone of
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the ocean
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the hadel zone named after the realm
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hades the underworld of greek mythology
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a suitable title for a place where the
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conditions of pure
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darkness acidic freezing water
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scarce food and immense pressure create
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a challenging environment for creatures
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to survive in
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for much of history it was believed to
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be a dead zone
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void of any life at all
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an impossible frontier and an empty void
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of perils
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that could never be reached by any human
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but in the 19th century this
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was all about to change
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the marianas depths were first plumbed
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in 1875
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when the crew aboard the hms challenger
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cast a weighted sounding line
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over the side of the vessel and found
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they needed
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more rope they had not expected there to
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be a location
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so deep but news of its discovery
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caught the eye of the ambitious
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knowing it existed simply wasn't enough
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and a few dared to venture to the bottom
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in 1960 85 years after the challenger
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deep was discovered on that pioneering
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voyage
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two men set out to reach the bottom
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[Music]
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jacques picard and navy lieutenant
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don walsh sheltered only by a cramped
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bath escape submersible
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called the triesta their five-hour
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descent
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was fraught with challenges the water
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pressure near the bottom
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was nearly a thousand times greater than
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atmospheric pressure at sea level
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during the journey this caused the
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viewing window to crack
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limiting their time spent on the sea
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floor to only 20 minutes
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even in such a short amount of time what
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they saw
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would shock the scientific community
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life pale shrimp and flounder like fish
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along with what they described as a dark
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brown diatomaceous
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ooze that covered the sea floor
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pickard described this moment with
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excitement in a book about the voyage
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here in an instant was the answer that
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biologists had asked
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for the decades could life exist in the
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greatest depths of the ocean
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it could
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[Music]
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when james cameron followed in the
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triesta's footsteps on board the deep
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sea challenger in 2012
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he too saw the sprawling microbial mats
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bizarre looking filamentous clumps of
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microorganisms
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living off chemicals from altered rocks
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ten thousand
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nine hundred and twelve meters or thirty
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five thousand eight hundred and three
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feet down
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in a sunless world it is these bacteria
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that support
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more complex creatures for without
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sunlight
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larger animals must instead rely on the
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energy produced by bacteria
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undergoing chemosynthesis
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the deep sea equivalent to
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[Music]
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photosynthesis
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the footage you're seeing now was taken
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by an
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unmanned japanese submersible called
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kaiko
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in 1996
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having reached a depth of 10 897 meters
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it marked the deepest dive for an
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unmanned submersible at the time
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its goal was to sample bacteria from the
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mats
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that picard and walsh had observed
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nearly 40 years earlier
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they found that a number of these
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bacterial species
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appeared to be obligately barophilic
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meaning they thrived under high
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environmental pressures
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proving that the idea that life could
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only exist in more moderate conditions
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was flawed but in 1998
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kyko returned to the challenger deep and
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stumbled upon more complex life
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hierondalia gigas a gigantic
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amphipod species
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this discovery posed a bit of a mystery
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the extreme pressures of the deep sea
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cause calcium carbonate that makes up
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the shells of amphipods and many marine
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animals
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to dissolve more readily in water
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leaving their soft bodies vulnerable
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as such amphipods are not usually found
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below about
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five thousand meters or sixteen thousand
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four hundred feet
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and yet here in caicos lights was a
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giant amphipod
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retaining even its tough exoskeleton
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it has since been found that they
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protect their shells using a form of
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aluminium armor
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using chemicals in their gut to extract
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aluminium ions from the sea floor mud
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while they forage for food
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in their role as detrivores these
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amphipods occupy a key role in the
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ecosystem
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they act as a clean-up crew possessing
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enzymes that are able to digest
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even wood
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in more recent times remote submersibles
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have caught yet
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more oddities of the mariana trench in
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their headlights
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among the most abundant inhabitants are
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the holothurians
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sea cucumbers like the remarkable sea
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pig with its ring of feeding tentacles
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that it uses to sift through the mud
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and grab onto food
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some scientists believe that pickard's
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fish was
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in fact a sea cucumber for it is thought
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that fish
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are unable to survive where the pressure
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is so great
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that it would dissolve the bones of any
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vertebrates
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the deepest known fish thrives at depths
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of eight
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thousand meters or twenty six thousand
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two hundred feet
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still two kilometers above the
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challenger deep
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the mariana snailfish discovered in 2014
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yet given the scientific name sudola
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paris sui
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to commemorate sub-lieutenant herbert
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swire
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from the hms challenger
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but snailfish and amphipods are not the
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only oddballs found
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in the trench gigantic xenophages
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grow to be 20 centimeters in diameter
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yet consist
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of only a single cell predatory
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tunicates called sea squirts anchor
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their bodies to the sides of canyons
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in weight of passing prey while deep sea
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hatchet fish
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use bioluminescence to blend in with
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their surroundings
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while only glimpses of these
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otherworldly organisms have been
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recorded
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their abundance goes to show that life
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will always find a way to survive
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even when faced with the intense
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challenge
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of living at the heart of the ocean's
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underworld
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[Music]
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despite all the expeditions and the
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footage that's been gathered
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we have still only just begun to dip our
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toes into the hidden world
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of the mariana trench
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[Music]
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it is likely that many new species await
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discovery
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and will help us piece together the
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puzzle of how animals can survive
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such extremities researching the
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marianas microorganisms
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could lead to vital breakthroughs in
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biomedicine
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and biotechnology and shed light on the
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story of
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life's emergence on planet earth
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but even the furthest depths are within
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reach of human driven destruction
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already has plastic been found in a
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place we scarcely understand
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who knows what vital discoveries might
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vanish
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before we come to understand their
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importance
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thanks for watching
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[Music]
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