Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench is the deepest known point in Earth’s oceans. In 2010, the United States Center for Coastal & Ocean Mapping measured the depth of the Challenger Deep at 10,994 meters below sea level with an estimated vertical accuracy of approximately 40 meters. The first depth measurement in the Mariana Trench was made by the British survey vessel HMS Challenger, used by the Royal Navy. in 1875 to conduct research in the trench. The greatest depth they recorded at that time was 8,184 meters. In 1951, another Royal Navy ship, also named ‘HMS Challenger’, returned to the area for additional measurements, as reported by Geology. In 2009, sonar mapping conducted by researchers aboard RV Kilo Moana, operated by the University of Hawaii, determined a depth of 10,971 meters with a potential error of approximately 22 meters.
According to Live Science, a recent scientific expedition has discovered an incredibly diverse life in the deepest ocean conditions on Earth aka the Mariana Trench. Animals that live in the deepest parts of the Mariana Trench survive in total darkness and extreme pressure, said Natasha Gallo, a doctoral student at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography who has studied video footage from Cameron’s 2012 expedition.
Food in the Mariana Trench is extremely limited, due to the deep slot server thailand no 1 ravines away from land. Leaves, coconuts and trees rarely find their way to the bottom of the trenches, Gallo said, and dead plankton that sinks from the surface must descend thousands of feet to reach the Challenger Deep. In contrast, some microbes rely on chemicals, such as methane or sulfur, while other creatures devour them. marine life at the bottom of the food chain. The three most common organisms at the bottom of the Mariana Trench are xenophyophores, amphipods and tiny sea cucumbers (holothurians), Gallo said. Single-celled Xenophyophores resemble giant amoebas, and they feed by surrounding and absorbing their food.
New Species Holothurians in the Mariana Trench
Shrimp-like amphipods that are commonly found in deep-sea trenches. Holothurians may be a strange and translucent new species of sea cucumber. “These are some of the deepest holothurians ever observed, and their numbers are relatively abundant,” Gallo said.
Scientists have also identified more than 200 different microorganisms in the mud collected from the Challenger Deep.
The sludge is brought back to the laboratory on dry land in special tubes, and painstakingly stored under conditions that mimic the cold and high pressure.
