From mysterious sounds to unidentified monsters,
here is why we don’t know much at all about the deepest place on Earth! 10: The Mariana Trench Deepest Depths
The Mariana Trench is the deepest place on Earth. The enormous trench is shaped like a crescent
and located in the Western Pacific, very near the Mariana Islands, hence the name. Not only does the Mariana Trench contain the
deepest point on Earth, but it also contains several of the deepest points known to mankind. There are mud volcanoes inside, strange creatures
we've yet to meet, and pressures that are 1000 times what you get at sea level. The reason we don't know much about the Mariana
Trench is because of how deep it is. At the southern end of the trench is Challenger
Deep, the lowest spot in the ocean. The best estimates we have say that Challenger
Deep is 36,070 feet. This measurement comes from the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration, who used special sound pulses to properly measure its depth. The second deepest place in the world is also
located inside the Mariana Trench. It's known as Sirena Deep, and it's a blistering
35,462 feet deep. It's also located about 124 miles east of
Challenger Deep. To give you a comparison of just how deep
the Mariana Trench is, if you took Mt. Everest and flipped it upside down, there would still
be 7044 feet to go before you reached the bottom! Skydivers jump out of airplanes at about 7000
feet, meaning the Mariana Trench is as deep as Everest is tall + the distance of skydiving
from the clouds to the ground! 9: Horrifying Creatures
The Mariana Trench is so massive that we simply don't know what's down there. After you descend 3000 feet into the ocean,
there is absolutely no sunlight to witness life forms. The few creatures we have discovered living
in the Mariana Trench are absolutely horrifying. Plus, scientists say we have barely scratched
the surface of life in this great ocean gulf. Still, we can get a pretty good idea of just
what kind of goblins are living in the Mariana Trench by looking at the creatures we've already
discovered. First on the list is the Dumbo octopus, a
cute yet bizarre octopus with ears like Dumbo the elephant. This is the deepest dwelling octopus known
to us so far, living at about 13,000 feet deep. Cute right?? Then we have the deep-sea dragonfish, one
of the most horrific animals ever. The dragonfish is an assassin with no scales
and a slippery and slimy skin just like an eel. These monsters live about 6000 feet deep and
rely on bioluminescent body parts to help them hunt. Then we have the barreleye fish, something
that looks like it belongs in another dimension. The fish is incredibly rare and has a translucent
body that allows you to see straight through its skin and into its brain. Researchers have only found a handful of these
fish, and they live about 2500 feet within the Mariana Trench. Last but not least is the terrifying goblin
shark. This toothy creature looks like somebody blended
a shark with an orc from Lord of the Rings. It has a snout that looks like a sword, with
protruding jaws and pink skin. Some of them can grow to be as big as 18 feet. They live at least 3000 feet beneath the surface,
diving deeper into the Mariana Trench the older they get. 8: Undersea Volcanoes
There are more than monsters in the Mariana Trench. Researchers used a remotely operated vehicle
to explore some of the deeper waters of the trench, and much to their surprise, they were
able to document a volcanic eruption going on about 2.8 miles below the surface of the
ocean. It has been described as the deepest eruption
ever recorded on our planet. To give you an idea of just how deep the volcano
is, it’s located deeper inside the Mariana Trench than Mount Rainier is high above the
sea level. Researchers say the eruption happened sometime
between 2013 and 2015. It happened in a zone within the trench called
the “back-arc.” This is an area on the sea floor with many
active volcanoes. Marine geologist Bill Chadwick from Oregon
State University recently said in a statement that almost all of the world's volcanic activity
does indeed take place under the ocean, with almost none of it being detected by scientists. Submarine eruptions, as they’re known, are
elusive despite their frequency. This particular eruption was discovered in
2015 by cameras on an ROV. The cameras captured photographs of a dark
lava flow spreading across the sea floor. The camera also witnessed hydrothermal vent
fluid venting from the lava flow, indicating that the lava was warm and fresh. And this is just another reason why it's so
hard to explore the Mariana Trench. The last thing explorers want is to be burned
alive by undersea lava! 7: Mysterious Sounds
An autonomous vehicle deep inside the Mariana Trench picked up a sound recording so creepy
and so terrifying that it would make your hair stand on end! The sound clip is only 3.5 seconds long. It was a mysterious metallic sound coming
from deep inside the trench, and it took months and months of research for scientists to finally
identify what they feel is the most likely source of the creepy audio. Was it something rumbling deep inside the
earth?? Scientists now believe that the noise was
actually made by an animal, more specifically, a new type of baleen whale. According to Sharon Nieukirk from Oregon State
University, the low-frequency moan of the whale was very distinct. It was the exact type of moan heard from other
baleen whales. But this one was a bit more unique, a little
twangy, and never before heard by scientists. This is amazing because to find a new type
of whale in the ocean basically never happens anymore. The frequency of the sound spanned a range
of between 38 hertz and 8000 hertz. Sharon and her team of scientists were unable
to find any human or geological sources that could have contributed to the noise. It definitely wasn't produced by a ship. The only thing that the sound could have been
made by was a whale. So this leads to the question, what other
things are deep down in the depths that we’ve never heard about? And now for some journeys to the deep but
first wanted to give a big shout out to Jamie Salmon
mr dizzyizzy Thanks so much for joining our corner of the
internet!! Be sure to subscribe if you haven’t already
for more videos like these!! 6: Expeditions
Let's take a look at just how difficult it really is to explore the Mariana Trench. Because of the extreme conditions there have
only been a handful of people that have been able to go into the depths. The first dive into the bottom of the Marian
Trench was in 1960 by Jacques Piccard – no relation to Star Trek – and Navy Lieutenant
Don Walsh. These two men descended using an incredibly
expensive United States Navy submersible known as a bathyscaphe. After years of preparation the two men descended
for 5 hours into the trench and then spent a paltry 20 minutes sitting at the bottom. They were unable to take photographs because
they were sitting in a giant cloud of silt stirred up by their vessel. These guys sat there in complete darkness
and could do absolutely nothing. The most exciting moment was when an unidentified
fish moved in front of their giant floodlights, finally proving to the world that life definitely
exists at the bottom of the Mariana Trench – something scientists had been debating
before the journey. In 2019, Victor Vescovo became the new record
holder when he made it 10,927m (35,849ft) below sea level. In total Vescovo and his team made 5 dives
to the bottom of the trench during the expedition. A submarine and robotic landers all spread
out to explore and gather data of the harshest area of the ocean. Don Walsh from the 1960’s expedition congratulated
Victor for their historic exploration! They discovered new species and collected
samples of microorganisms and rock samples. Prior to that in 2012, James Cameron had made
a solo plunge in a bright green sub, going down nearly 11km (seven miles). Billionaire investors are spending more and
more on science and marine technology to try to continue going down into the trench, and
are even working on building submarines to take tourists down to the deepest part of
the ocean for $250,000 a ticket. Would you visit the trench if you could? Maybe not for $250,000 but maybe in the future
if the price goes down? Let me know in the comments below. 5: A Lot of Pressure
The pressure at the very bottom of the Mariana Trench is enough to crush a person into a
pancake. The pressure would be equivalent to about
100 adult elephants standing directly on your head. If you've ever wondered why exactly the pressure
gets so intense when you go underwater, it's because the weight of all that water is literally
pushing down upon you. If you were to stand at the bottom of the
Mariana Trench, there would be seven miles of water above you. That's seven miles of concentrated water pressing
down on your skin and bones, and there’s just no way your body can handle it. It’s almost like being in outer space the
environment is so different. You see, the weight of water creates hydrostatic
pressure. At the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the pressure
is so great that scientists believe it affects life in all kinds of strange ways, such as
distorting the complex structures of biomolecules. These are DNA, proteins, and membranes. Because these biomolecules are distorted by
the pressure, life adapts in a very strange way, creating squishy, weird animals. One of those animals is the gelatinous trench
snailfish, living around 25,000 feet deep. And other extremely dark gooey creatures,
some with teeth, some with bioluminescence, you just never know what you’re going to
get. 4: Undiscovered Monsters
There have been some rumors flying around that giant undiscovered monsters are living
in the Mariana Trench. Since there are sounds and animals we are
just now learning about, could there be some enormous monster like a kraken, or even a
living megalodon, hiding out in the deepest undersea gorge? The answer is maybe. Perhaps not a megalodon but maybe something
else. We know today that life is abundant inside
the trench. Missions using unmanned vehicles have discovered
strange creatures living on the seafloor in the deepest parts of the ocean. Some of these animals are gigantic, products
of what is known as deep-sea gigantism. Giant isopods for example. These crustaceans look exactly like the pill
bugs you find in your garden. The only difference is that the giant isopod
is roughly 2 feet long, if not longer! Then we have giant colossal squids to consider,
which are far larger than common squids and live in the deepest parts of the ocean. Following this trend, it's safe to say that
something big – or even giant may be living in the Mariana Trench. We just haven't encountered it yet. However, megalodons went extinct a very long
time ago and they fed on blubberous mammals like seals and whales that breathe air. So we should have seen one by now. But perhaps there is another kind of megashark
lurking that we can't even imagine!! 3: The Formation of the Trench
To understand a bit more about how hard it is to explore the Mariana Trench, we should
look at just how this amazing geological feature was formed. The Mariana Trench was created by a process
known as subduction. The crust of the Earth is made of plates which
float on the molten rock of the mantle. Because these plates are floating on the mantle,
their edges sometimes bump into one another and cause things like earthquakes and tsunamis. When two of these plates crash into one another,
one plate is pulled down, creating an enormous trench at the point of contact. This is how the Mariana Trench was formed. It’s the meeting place where two plates
collided. Of course, these plates are huge. The Mariana Trench is not only deep, it’s
long too. It goes on for about 1500 miles and is 43
miles wide. It's also roughly 180 million years old. But what you might not believe is that the
Mariana Trench is not the closest point to the center of the earth, even though it is
the deepest place on Earth. You would actually be closer to the center
of the planet if you were standing on the surface of the Arctic Ocean at the geographic
North Pole. 2: The Deepest Trash
Even though the Mariana Trench is so deep, so limitless, and so mysterious, it has not
been spared the horrors of humanity. A recent and disturbing report from National
Geographic confirmed that a piece of trash – a plastic bag, specifically – was found
at the deepest point in the ocean. This plastic bag is now recognized as the
deepest piece of litter in the world. It was found at an exact depth of 36,000 feet. Scientists working with the Deep-Sea Debris
Database have been checking out a collection of photographs taken over the past 30 years,
and what they found is that the most prevalent debris in the ocean is throw-away plastic,
meaning shopping bags and plastic water bottles. About 89% in total. A separate study recently suggested that the
Mariana Trench shows higher levels of pollution in certain areas than many of the most polluted
rivers found throughout Asia. The thinking behind the theory is that chemical
pollutants enter the trench from many other places in the ocean, brought in on the water
column. Some fear that by the time we're actually
able to explore the Mariana Trench in its fullness, the whole thing will be a polluted
pit of death. 1: Future Exploration
There is still a lot of interest in exploring the Mariana Trench. It's just that most people doing it happen
to be rich philanthropists like I mentioned before. A man named Larry Connor is scheduled to make
two dives into the Mariana Trench in April 2021. According to USA Today, Larry Connor will
be diving to a depth of more than 35,000 feet. He plans on visiting Challenger Deep and Sirena
Deep, both of which are in the Mariana Trench. These dives will be happening in mid-April
of 2021, so keep your eyes open for any new discoveries. The crew will be spending about 4 hours at
the bottom of the trench, conducting scientific research. Larry is using the Hadal Exploration System
for his dives, the only deep exploration facility in the whole world. He will also be accompanied by Patrick Lahey,
considered to be the most experienced submersible pilot in the world. And as if going to the two deepest points
on Earth wasn’t enough, Larry is also scheduled for a mission to the International Space Station
in 2022. That will make Larry the only person to travel
from the deepest point on Earth to outer space – no easy feat. What do you think is lurking at the bottom
of the Mariana Trench? Let me know your thoughts in the comments
and thank you for watching. Be sure to hit the subscribe button and come
back soon for another awesome video!
