Ocean depths. Secrets of the deep sea

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Ecology

Some people believe that there are practically no unexplored places left on our planet by the beginning of the 21st century, but the largest part of the Earth - the world ocean - remains a virtually unexplored area. And this is not surprising, since every schoolchild knows that the ocean covers more than 70 percent of the surface of our planet, and the average depth of the water system is about four kilometers.

It is these conditions that make the ocean the most populated part of the Earth's ecosystem, which, however, is one of the least friendly on our planet. The ocean is very cold, incredibly dark and lacks oxygen. And what is the terrifying pressure worth?, which in the depths of the ocean is thousands of times higher than the pressure on the surface of the planet! Thanks to all these factors, biochemistry underwater world unlike any other world.

However, despite all these seemingly unbearable conditions that impede the development of life, one cannot help but recognize the fact that we have only just scratched the surface of the study of deep-sea life. Now every scientist realizes that the ocean is home to an incredible diversity of living organisms about which we know almost nothing! In some regions, we can only say anything concrete about one percent of the inhabitants of the ocean floor.

The most bizarre world

The inhabitants of the underwater world are significantly different from the inhabitants of the surface of the planet, and some have simply incredible appearance. Take, for example, a deep-sea shark, or a monster-like idiot, frightening red glow of the so-called postorbital photophores! The species of bioluminescent fish, crawling sea lilies, blood-red mollusks, octopuses with luminous suckers, cone-shaped jellyfish a meter or more wide are fascinating; armored snail and many, many other harmless and deadly poisonous creatures.

Probably one of the most impressive inhabitants of the deep sea is the 13-meter giant octopus or architeuthis, which was recently captured on video for the first time. It is known, however, that these creatures can be truly gigantic in size- up to 18 meters in length, although no one has yet seen them live. It is only known that only sperm whales and Greenland polar sharks can resist such predators.

Life in the depths also thrives in the form of bacteria, worms and crustaceans that literally litter the abyssal (deep-sea) plains that make up much of the world's ocean floor. They feed on organic food, which snow falls on them from the upper layers. What happens deep under the ocean floor? For a long time it was believed that life there was impossible, but in 2003, researchers discovered a unique bacterium in a sedimentary layer at a depth of three hundred meters under the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. This bacterium has been living there for many millions of years.

An incredible sight are the deep-sea corals, which were discovered at a depth of up to six thousand meters, where the water temperature does not exceed two degrees Celsius. Despite this, deep-sea corals can quite rival in splendor its tropical shallow-water relatives. These slow-growing organisms have recently been discovered to litter the seabed from the coast of Ireland to New Zealand (they even cover the supports of oil drilling rigs).

It is noteworthy that humanity realized how widely these living organisms had spread across the ocean floor only when they began to use a special method fishing, destroying the ecostructure of the ocean floor (we are talking about trawl fishing). The largest known habitat of deep-sea corals was discovered only in 2002. It is located off the coast of Norway and covers an area of ​​more than one hundred square kilometers.

Hydrothermal wonders

In some places the abundance of life is simply amazing. Some of the most impressive deep-sea ecosystems have been discovered around hydrothermal vents, where superheated water rich in chemicals erupts from volcanically active ridges located on the ocean floor. Here, thanks to bacteria that feed on methane and sulfides, large communities of living organisms thrive, including giant clams, various bizarre fish and even the riftia, a giant invertebrate animal up to three meters long.

Some photosynthetic bacteria that live near certain hydrothermal vents are surprising not only for their faint glow, but also for their ability to thrive in water temperatures of more than 121 degrees Celsius! Similar volcanic vents that are usually isolated, sometimes releasing huge volumes of superheated water, carrying bacteria from one crater to another. Such moving streams look like real underwater “flying saucers”!

For the first time, deep-sea emissions through conductive channels on the ocean floor (they were called black smokers) were discovered in 1977 with the help of the American manned submersible Alvin. Discovery of an entire ecosystem at a depth of two thousand meters, which does not require photosynthesis processes, literally changed humanity's views on life. We now know that such ecosystems are quite common throughout the seafloor from Scandinavia to the Pacific Ocean.

Scientists have determined that deep-sea ecosystems develop along the mid-ocean ridge, both in relatively shallow water and at a depth of several kilometers. Some experts even tend to think that life on Earth formed precisely in such vents, which can reach 60 meters in height. Others believe that similar geological formations could become the source of life in the frozen water basins of the Earth, other planets and their satellites, including Mars and Europa.

Hydrothermal vents are not the only oases of life in the depths of the world's oceans. In 1984, biologists discovered so-called cold springs. We're talking about places on the ocean floor, through which water enriched with chemical elements seeps to the surface, supporting life around it. Typically, such sources are found near the boundaries of continents.

Another unusual source of nutrients for many organisms, which allows them to literally thrive, are the dead bodies of whales, sperm whales and other large inhabitants of the deep. These bodies settle to the bottom and can serve as a refuge for various organisms for many decades. For example, the carcass of a whale that settled to the bottom, which weighed up to 160 tons, is capable of feeding more than four hundred species, ranging from sharks and hagfish (vertebrates of the cyclostome class), ending with bone-eating “zombie worms” (osedax) and living off sulfides bacteria.

Seamounts and chasms

The bottom of the seas and oceans is covered with depressions and hills, but there are also real outstanding volcanic peaks. In fact, these peaks are a kind of analogue of the islands, which, as is known, often characterized by extremely rich and unusual flora and fauna. Likewise, underground peaks are home to numerous species unknown to science, of which, probably, half are unique and characteristic only of this particular mountain range.

Despite the fact that the world has a thriving fishing industry, concentrated around approximately one hundred thousand major seamounts in the oceans, Only a few of these seamounts have been truly well studied. This is a real paradise for expeditions aimed at discovering new species. The largest underwater Mountain chain extends from the mid-ocean ridge to 70 thousand kilometers around the planet!

Exploration of the depths of the world's oceans began around 1930, when American oceanographers descended to a depth of one thousand meters in a steel ball, which was connected to the surface with a cable. And already in 1960 Research bathyscaphe "Trieste" plunged to a depth of 11 kilometers into the Mariana Trench located near the Philippines (as you know, this trench is considered the most deep place on the ground). Since then, no one else has dived to such depths.

There is no doubt that the next generation of diving technology will help us continue to unlock the secrets of the deep. Successful attempts include the launch of a Japanese remote-controlled underwater vehicle, which reached the bottom of the Mariana Trench in 1995, but was later lost; the recent invention of the Alvin apparatus, which is capable of reaching 99 percent of the seabed. There are also known underwater vehicles that resemble, rather, fighter jets with jet engines. An entire army of robots is being developed that can build autonomous laboratories on the seabed. Humanity is trying its best to unravel the mysteries of the world ocean, but so far it remains one of the most big mysteries on the ground.

The oceans cover more than 70 percent of the surface of our planet, but we know even less about it than about space. Meanwhile, 80 percent of all life on Earth occurs in the underwater world.

The magic of numbers

Cindy Lee Van Dover, Director marine laboratory Duke University, in its eloquent book New life at the bottom of the Ocean" wrote that back side The moon has been studied disproportionately better than the underwater expanses. People cannot even imagine what is hidden under the water. For example, the Mid-Ocean Ridge is more than 70 thousand kilometers long, and underwater volcanoes erupt so much lava every year that it would be enough to cover one-third of the territory of Russia with a meter thickness. But the real secret for most people, according to Cindy Lee Van Dover, is that half of all the oxygen in the world is produced by single-celled algae, phytoplankton.

Quadrillion dollars

More than twenty-seven million tons of gold, valued at a quadrillion dollars, are dissolved in the world's oceans. Humanity has produced only 170 thousand tons in its entire history. To be fair, seawater contains the noble metal in the form of gold iodide (AuI), and in microscopic proportions.

However, the American Henry Ball developed a technology for increasing the concentration of gold sediment using quicklime. An even more effective invention was made in Russia by an engineer with the sonorous surname of Russian. In other words, the day is not far off when ocean gold will be mined on an industrial scale.

Amazing creatures

Ocean animal world has been studied very poorly, but even what we know is amazing. For example, a male squid always greets the female with a warm brown color and scares away the male with white. His multi-tasking mating games are especially surprising, when he meets both a “woman” and a “rival” at the same time. In this case, the squid will be colored fragmentarily so as not to change the ritual. And what are mantis shrimp worth, capable of delivering a blow with their forelimbs that is equal in power to the impact force of a 22-caliber bullet?

Godzilla: The Right to Exist

The average depth of the world's oceans is 3,720 meters, while sunlight penetrates into the depth sea ​​water only 100 meters. This means that the vast majority of the underwater world lives in complete darkness. But all this is “trifle” compared, for example, to the pressure of 1,100 atmospheres that occurs in the Challenger Deep of the Mariana Trench (10,994 meters below sea level). Scientists who descended into the Trieste bathyscaphe (1960) saw many creepy fish at its bottom. Other dives also brought sensations, including the discovery of giant teeth belonging to a prehistoric hundred-ton shark. One of the researchers on the Highfish bathyscaphe, who also dived into the Challenger Deep, once said that he would not be surprised if the giant Godzilla lizard was discovered.

10 million viruses

Scientists say the ocean environment is perfect place for the life of the smallest living organisms. Thus, in one milliliter of sea water in the deserted expanses of the Coral Sea, a special device discovered a million bacteria and ten million viruses, many of which are unknown to science. Perhaps they were the ones who synthesized it at the Bolshoi Barrier Reef the world's most effective natural sunscreen, ideally protecting against UVA/UVB rays. Leading chemists from various companies are trying to unravel its formula, but so far without success. Nature knows how to keep its secrets. However, manufacturers of chemical creams deliberately reduce the properties of coral ultraviolet protector.

Atlantis

The world's oceans keep many historical secrets, as evidenced by artifacts that are found in the most unexpected places of the underwater world. After each such discovery, disputes about Atlantis flare up with renewed vigor. And although science has not found confirmation of the treatises “Timaeus” and “Critias”, written by the ancient Greek philosopher Plato about 2500 years ago, many scientists do not undertake to claim that Atlantis did not exist.

The fact is that humanity has only managed to survey 5% of the surface of the world's oceans. “We are still destined to find evidence of civilizations that could have disappeared into the abyss of the waters,” says Austrian oceanographer and underwater biologist Hans Hass. That is why the ocean is called the world's largest museum.

650 degrees Fahrenheit

Many unusual things have been found in the ocean geographical objects, such as pillars reaching several stories high, or ideal pipes that release sulfuric acid. For example, on the ocean floor in the vicinity of the Gulf of Mexico there are underwater volcanoes that emit methane rather than lava. There are also hot springs that shoot out bursts of steam that have a temperature of 650 degrees Fahrenheit. This is enough to melt lead, but amazing animals live there, in particular, three-meter annelids, whose appearance resembles alien creatures from the novels of the most daring science fiction writers.

The endless expanses of water have always attracted and frightened people at the same time. Brave sailors set off to travel in search of the unknown. Many mysteries of the oceans remain unsolved today. It is not for nothing that you can hear from scientists that the hydrosphere is less studied than the surface. There is some truth in this, because the degree of study of the waters of the world's oceans does not exceed 5%.

Ocean Exploration

The exploration of the depths of the sea began much earlier than the exploration of outer space and distant galaxies. Devices were created that could lower a person to significant depths. Underwater imaging technologies and robotic systems developed. The area of ​​the oceans and its depths are so large that many types of bathyscaphes have been designed to study them.

After the first human flight into outer space in 1961, scientists devoted all their efforts to exploring the Universe. The secrets of the oceans faded into the background because getting to them seemed much more difficult. The programs started to study the seas were frozen or reduced.

Researchers received information about the existence of underwater rivers at the bottom of the oceans. Various hydrocarbon compounds emerge through cracks in the earth's crust under the water column, mix with it and move. This phenomenon is referred to as “cold seepage.” However, the temperature of the gases is not lower than that of the surrounding water.

Underwater rivers are not the only interesting phenomenon. The area of ​​the oceans is so large that many mysterious things are hidden under it. 7 were found on the seabed that were larger in size than their known counterparts on land. This strange movement of water is caused by a number of reasons:

• different temperatures;
• distinguishing salinity;
• the presence of a complex bottom surface topography.

The combination of all these factors causes the movement of water with greater density, which rushes down.

Milky seas and false bottom

The glow-in-the-dark expanses of the ocean were nicknamed “milk seas.” Researchers have repeatedly recorded similar phenomena on film. There are many hypotheses that seek to explain their essence, but no one can name the exact reason for the glow of water. According to one of them, “milk seas” are a huge accumulation of luminescent microorganisms. Some ocean fish also have the property of glowing in the dark.

A false bottom is another one that science sometimes encounters. The first mention of it dates back to 1942, when scientists using echolocators noticed an unusual layer reflecting acoustic signals at a depth of 4 hundred meters. Further research established that this layer rises to the surface of the water at night and sinks again at dawn. Scientists' guesses were confirmed; this phenomenon was created by ocean animals - squids. Sunlight is unpleasant for them and they hide from it great depths. Dense clusters of these organisms do not transmit sound waves.

Acoustic equipment also detects strange sound waves emanating from the seabed. They were discovered in the early 90s of the 20th century. After some time, the devices stopped recording this phenomenon. IN Once again the sounds emerged ten years later, becoming louder and more varied. Scientists cannot indicate their source and cause.

Bermuda Triangle

There are other secrets of the oceans that cause panic in the common man. In certain places, airborne and sea ​​vessels Together with people, giant whirlpools arise and shining circles are visible. Many have heard about the mysterious Bermuda Triangle, in which all the listed phenomena are observed. The area of ​​the zone is about 1 million km 2. Rumors about this mysterious area began after the disappearance of military aircraft in 1945. They managed to convey information that they had lost orientation in space. Over the past time, dozens of similar cases have occurred.

Various theories have been researched and put forward to try to explain them. Many of them are pseudoscientific and cannot be taken seriously. One of the most reliable was voiced by D. Monaghan. He saw the reason in the accumulation of hydrocarbon and other gases in a solid state near the ocean floor. The ongoing tectonic processes influenced them. As a result, the substances turned into a gaseous state and collected at the surface of the water.

The ships sank as the density of the water decreased significantly. The planes lost orientation under the influence of gases. The movement of hydrocarbons in water creates infrasound, which causes a state of panic in a person. Such fear could force the entire crew to hastily abandon the ship. This is not the only mysterious zone in the vast expanses of water. What other mysteries of the oceans scientists have to unravel, one can only guess.

Bizarre world

Underwater live a wide variety of organisms with unusual appearance. Some of them are poisonous, others are harmless. An incredible variety of sizes and shapes, as well as unusual adaptations with which ocean animals camouflage or hunt. Among the most mysterious is a huge octopus 13 m in length. This inhabitant of the underwater world was recently caught on camera. According to some reports, its size can be much larger, up to 18 m. Only sperm whales and polar sharks are equal in strength to it.

The depths of the sea have many invertebrate inhabitants and microorganisms with which the bottom is literally littered. Their food is organic matter that falls on top of them. The problems of the ocean are solved by its inhabitants themselves, for example, the issue of processing the remains of living organisms. While exploring the features of the oceans, scientists discovered a bacterium living deep under its bottom. It lives under a three-hundred-meter layer of sediment for many millions of years.

Corals

Corals living at depths of up to 6 km are a very interesting sight. Under such a layer of water the temperature does not rise above +2ºC. Their magnificence is not inferior to those that we see in the shallow waters of tropical seas. The life of these organisms proceeds slowly, and their range is very large.

It was only possible to understand the extent of their distribution after using trawls. began to be caught using such a barbaric method, which destroys the bottom eco-structure. Not far from Norway, the most great place their settlement. It has an area of ​​over 100 km 2.

Hydrothermal wonders

One of the ecosystems was discovered by scientists in the area of ​​underwater hot springs, where boiling water breaks out from under the earth's crust into the ocean. The area is simply teeming with a variety of invertebrates and microorganisms. Among them there are also different types of fish. Bacteria have been discovered that can live in streams of water with a temperature of 121ºC.

The world's oceans cover 70% of the surface of our planet. Scientists have discovered many interesting and mysterious phenomena in its thickness. However, the main mysteries of the oceans have yet to be unraveled.

The secrets that the ocean keeps in its depths are unlikely to ever be fully unraveled by us. Throughout its history, humanity has been able to explore only 5 percent of the depths of the sea, and therefore it is not surprising that at the bottom of gloomy depressions and in the chasms of dark caves, previously unseen amazing creatures are hiding and sunken ancient cities are sleeping in eternal sleep... (website)

The sea returns the drowned

Several years ago, residents of the Norman island of Guernsey experienced real horror: for three days in a row, the ocean washed up drowned people, and “fresh” ones at that. More than forty dead bodies were discovered, but the police are unable to explain where they came from, since there were no shipwrecks or storms in the area at that time. Further investigations carried out with the participation of Interpol yielded nothing, identification dead people by fingerprints - also.

U local residents their own, mostly mystical, versions appeared. Thus, independent researchers believe that the ocean most likely “collected” corpses from different layers of time or from parallel worlds. However, even in this case, it remains a mystery why the ocean did this and why it chose the island of Guernsey for its purpose...

Unidentified object at the bottom of the sea

I once discovered a strange and very mysterious structure at the bottom Baltic Sea Swedish diving team. Later, the Ocean X Team even managed to film the object on video and take at least some measurements, but experienced specialists were still unable to establish what it was. The structure resembles either a sunken ship of an alien intelligence, or some kind of ancient altar, and any equipment next to it fails, even a flashlight goes out.

Analysis of samples of the material from which the object is made showed that it is of extraterrestrial origin. Swedish divers plan to return to their unique find and at the same time are perplexed: why is it not of interest to anyone except them? Moreover, orthodox scientists claim that this is just a rock formation from the pre-glacial period, without even bothering to go underwater and examine this “formation”...

Lost underwater city

Off the coast of India, archaeologists recently discovered the remains of ancient city. Well, what’s surprising about that, you ask. And the fact that experts estimate the age of those city buildings at 9,500 - 10,000 years, which means that our civilization is much older than is commonly believed.

Can you imagine how many interesting things such underwater ruins can tell people?! But the only problem is that on land we ignore and even destroy everything that does not fit into generally accepted history. Why do we need more underwater artifacts and even entire cities? Therefore, orthodox science is not only in no hurry to examine the remains ancient settlement, but also prevents its study in every possible way...

Voice of the Depths

In 1997 NOAA (National Oceanic Administration) hydrophones recorded a sound called Bloop. Sea explorers have never heard such a loud and unusual “voice of the depths”: it turns out that in nature (in their opinion) there are simply no marine animals capable of screaming so loudly and terribly. Or do they still exist? This question is of great concern to independent researchers, who fully admit that unknown to us animals, perhaps even intelligent ones, live in the ocean depths.

How do they manage to avoid being seen by people? Firstly, the World Ocean is huge: even in area it is several times larger than land, not to mention its depth, which makes this world truly immense. Secondly, as some researchers believe, the World Ocean is connected to the planet’s deep underground water “reservoirs,” which can be many times larger in volume. In this case, the water element can hide within itself any conceivable and inconceivable forms of life...

It is no coincidence that there is even an opinion that we have studied space much better than the depths of the ocean. And although this statement is a clear exaggeration, it accurately conveys the main thing - the water element of the Earth, which is practically at our fingertips, but for some reason we cannot study, despite all our efforts, from ancient times to the present day. Maybe someone is stopping people from doing this? For example, they don’t really want to make contact with us, much less reveal to us the secrets of the depths of the sea...