The temperature in the depths of the Mariana Trench is so polarized that even the water here begins to become "unorthodox."
Humans have climbed Mount Everest many times and stood at the highest point of the earth, but few have been able to reach the lowest point in the world. When it comes to the lowest point of the earth, the first thing that comes to mind must be the Mariana Trench.
As the deepest trench on earth, the Mariana Trench is 11,034 meters deep, and even if Everest is filled into the trench, the difference between the two is more than 2,000 meters.
Compared with human exploration of Mount Everest, humans do not know much about the Damariana Trench, after all, the environment here is much harsher.
Many people are curious, in the deepest part of the Mariana Trench, what does the water look like there? What is the temperature there?
First, let's take a look at how the Mariana Trench was formed
Although we have not seen what the seabed terrain looks like, this does not hinder our understanding of the seabed topography.
The topography of the seabed is similar to that of the land, with various terrains such as submarine plains, submarine plateaus, submarine mountains, submarine basins and trenches.
Trenches are trenches in the seabed terrain, similar to canyons between two mountains on land. Of course, not just a trench can be called a trench, only two walls are steep, narrow, and the depth is more than 5,000 meters is the real trench.
The Mariana Trench is 2,550 km long and has an average width of 70 km, with the deepest point being the Fichatz Abyss within the trench, at a depth of 11,034 metres, the deepest point on Earth.
Scientists generally believe that the formation of the Mariana Trench is the result of the collision of the Pacific plate and the Eurasian plate.
When the two plates met, due to the high rock density and low position of the Pacific Plate, it swooped directly under the Eurasian Plate, and the place where the two collided became the Mariana Trench.
Human exploration of the Mariana Trench
As the lowest point on earth, human beings are full of curiosity about it.
In 1899, scientists first measured the depth of the Nairo Abyss at 9660 meters southeast of Guam, which was thought to be the deepest point on Earth, a record that has been maintained for 30 years.
In 1951, the British Challenger II submersible first measured trenches, and the depth measured at that time was 10,900 meters.
In 1960, scientists took a deep-sea submersible and successfully dived to the deepest part of the Mariana Trench for the first time for scientific investigation, which was the first time that anyone had reached the deepest point of the earth.
For more than fifty years since then, although humans have repeatedly divened into the Mariana Trench in submersibles, they have not explored the bottom. Until 2012, James Cameron took the Deep Sea Challenger submersible and dived to a depth of 10,929 meters in the trench.
Such challenging explorations are also present. In 2020, China's "Strivers" manned submersible successfully sat at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, with a depth of 10,909 meters.
Humans have reached the depth of the trench at a depth of 10,000 meters, so is the water at a depth of 10,000 meters in the Mariana Trench still liquid? Where is the temperature?
In our general understanding, the deeper we dive in the ocean, the darker the light becomes, the lower the temperature, and at the very bottom of the trench, it must be a place full of darkness and cold.
According to scientists' repeated explorations of the Mariana Trench, the temperature in the depths of the trenches is around 4 ° C, and because the temperature has not reached the freezing point, there is no difference between the water in the depths of the trench and the sea water on the surface.
However, this does not mean that all the water in the trench is like this.
As mentioned earlier, the Mariana Trench is the product of the collision of two large plates, which will lead to more frequent geological activity in the trench, and in some parts of the trench, there are also large and small hot springs.
These hot springs gush out from the ground, allowing the surrounding temperatures to reach 400°C. And in the trench at a depth of 10,000 meters, it has reached a pressure of 1,100 atmospheres.
Around the hot springs on the seabed, the density produced by the expansion of seawater due to high temperature is exactly the same as the density of water vapor that is compressed due to high pressure, and the liquid and gas of water are completely blended together to become a liquid under high pressure and high temperature.
We generally refer to this liquid as supercritical water.
The living environment of the Mariana Trench is so poor, is there any living creature here?
Cold, dark, and oppressive, this is the truest portrayal of the Mariana Trench. Even if the living environment here is so harsh, there are still marine life.
Scientists have found a fish on the 8,145-meter seabed of the Mariana Trench, which is the size of a human palm, white in color, with a large head, small eyes, and no scales on its body.
In fact, when humans first took a submersible to explore the Mariana Trench, they found that there was a marine life at the bottom of the trench, which was a white, sea cucumber-like creature.
To survive in such an environment, I have to say that their vitality is really tenacious.
The Mariana Trench swallows up a large amount of seawater every year
In recent years, as human exploration of the Mariana Trench has increased, scientists have discovered the astonishing fact that the Mariana Trench swallows up a large amount of seawater every year.
Using the data captured during the Maria Trench earthquake, researchers found that an average of 3 billion cubic meters of seawater flowed through the trench to the Earth's interior every year.
The Mariana Trench swallows up so much water every year, why is there not so much sea water on Earth?
The root cause lies in the hot springs and volcanic eruptions on the seabed.
After the seawater enters the earth's interior, a part of it will re-gush out along the hot springs on the seabed, and the inflow of seawater is nothing more than "heating" and then returning.
However, the "heated" seawater carries a large amount of dissolved matter and hydrate in the Earth's interior, forming a unique ecosystem of undersea hot springs.
Volcanic eruptions are considered to be one of the strongest manifestations of thermal energy on the Earth's interior on the surface. Volcanoes carry large amounts of water vapor when they erupt, and this water vapor eventually turns into rainwater and returns to the surface.
It is for these reasons that the seawater that was swallowed up by the Mariana Trench returned to the Earth's surface after experiencing an "internal cycle."
Say at the end
We live on 71% of the earth covered by oceans, with an average depth of about 3795 meters, and only 5% of our human exploration of the oceans. In contrast, humans know very little about the oceans.
There are both obstacles brought about by the marine environment and restrictions on the level of science and technology. However, I believe that with the passage of time, as human intelligence and technology improve, our understanding of the ocean will become deeper and deeper.