Dive to the bottom of more than 10,000 meters, scientists have discovered something that should not be found, what is it?

The sea is the cradle of life. Scientists have confirmed that all creatures on earth originated from the ocean . It is no wonder that humans have a mysterious obsession with the ocean. After all, it is our hometown.

From being able to dive only a few meters at the beginning, to now diving to the deep sea of ​​10,000 meters with the help of technology, human beings have seen many unfamiliar ocean scenery. At that moment, we saw the same scenery as our ancient ancestors.

However, there are "surprises" everywhere in the deep sea. When people are still immersed in the joy of reaching more than 10,000 meters under the sea, "terrifying" and should not appear in front of scientists, so suddenly, so people don't know overwhelmed.

What did scientists see at a depth of more than 10,000 meters? So much so that we are plunged into endless pessimism?

How hard is it to dive into the deep sea

The maximum depth of free diving for humans without any tools is about 214 meters , which is not worth mentioning in front of 10,000 meters. Among other mammals, only sperm whales and Cuvier’s beaked whales can dive below 2,000 meters, among which Cuvier’s beaked whales With a depth of 2992 meters, it became the mammal with the deepest dive in the world. When the depth reaches more than 10,000 meters , it is difficult for sunlight to reach here, and the color of the sea begins to darken and become pitch black . The creatures that can be seen began to decrease, but life did not disappear.

What is the concept of diving to more than 10,000 meters? First of all, we have to endure the huge pressure brought by the sea water. For every 10 meters of diving depth, the water pressure increases by 1 atmosphere. At 10,000 meters, the pressure is as high as 1,000 atmospheres. Even if human beings are fully armed and equipped with oxygen tanks, their bodies will be unable to withstand the pressure. The high pressure caused the organs to rupture , and they were completely crushed under the high pressure. Second, descending to that depth there is no sunlight and nothing to be seen. The last is the endless cold . If people are in such an environment, they will quickly lose their temperature and die.

In order to complete our dive, human beings kept developing technology. Finally , on January 14, 1960, Swiss physicist Jacques Picard and US Navy personnel Walsh dived aboard the deep-sea diving ship Trieste . The bottom of the Mariana Trench reaches a depth of 11 kilometers. So far, human beings have reached the depth of 10,000 meters and the deepest trench in the world.

Mariana Trench

The Mariana Trench is located at 11°20′ north latitude and 142°11.5′ east longitude , with a total length of 2,550 kilometers, an average width of 70 kilometers, and a known detection depth of 11 kilometers.

We all know that the highest mountain in the world is Mount Everest . Put it into the Mariana Trench, which is more than 10,000 meters deep. It is still about two kilometers away from the sea . This is the deepest, coldest and darkest in the world. The place. It is also a holy place for each country to show its deep-sea diving technology.

Such a depth will make people think that the Mariana Trench is a deep-sea area. In fact, it is not. At a depth of 1,000 meters, the submersibles of scientific investigations have also seen a wide variety of fish , and even sperm whales. However, as the probe dived, fewer and fewer creatures were seen. On the seabed of 8145 meters , scientists found lionfish , and in 2019 , the Chinese scientific expedition team found it on the south side of the Mariana Trench There are 10 coral forests with different colors. All of these show that even deep into the Mariana Trench, life can bloom miracles here .

deep sea creatures

There is a cartoon called "SpongeBob SquarePants", in which the protagonists are SpongeBob SquarePants, Patrick Star and Brother Octopus, they live under the sea. In fact, the cartoon is right. Among the animals that can withstand such high pressure, darkness and low temperature in the deep sea, there are indeed sponges, starfish and some cephalopods.

Scientists call marine creatures that live below 1,000 meters all year round as deep-sea creatures. Their characteristics are: soft bodies , even vertebrates have mollusk souls, and they will emit light , because sunlight cannot reach the deep sea, they can only prepare their own.” flashlight". Those with eyes will grow their eyes, and those without eyes will grow complex tentacles ; they look weird, because no one cares about their appearance at the bottom of the sea, just grow them as they please.

There are three main types of deep-sea organisms: plankton, swimmers, and benthic organisms .

Among them, who is the strangest, it must be the anglerfish. The anglerfish looks ugly and scary , with a big mouth that can never be closed, with hideous teeth on it. Because there is very little food in the deep sea , if it encounters it, it must be eaten to death. The big mouth is to prevent the prey from escaping .

Anglerfish come with their own fishing rods, and the bait on the front of some fishing rods will also glow to confuse the prey .

There are many fish in the deep sea that look similar to the anglerfish, but they are not as ugly as the anglerfish. When you see this thing in the dark deep sea, you will think you have seen an alien creature . So what surprised scientists and shouldn't have found is the ugly-chic anglerfish?

Certainly not. Scientists have seen many big scenes, and little anglerfish can't scare them. What is it that should not have been discovered by scientists at 10,000 meters of seabed?

Ocean pollution

The answer is that scientists found human-produced plastics more than 10,000 meters deep in the ocean . A very ironic thing, plastic waste came to the Mariana Trench one step earlier than most people.

The ocean has been polluted at a rate faster than human imagination in recent years, and its spread has covered the entire earth's oceans .

Coastal factories discharge wastewater from petrochemical production directly into the sea. The wastewater contains harmful substances such as crude oil . It is sticky and floating on the water. Many seabirds are forced to coat their feathers with black paint as they float on the water. of crude oil .

This crude oil seriously affects the waterproofness and flight of their feathers. Many seabirds are disturbed by the oil leakage and discharge, so they cannot hunt and migrate normally, and finally all die at sea , while other fish eat the seabird carcasses wrapped in oil. In the stomach, harmful substances directly enter the intestines of fish, causing them to block or poison them , and finally those fish that eat seabird carcasses also die, and so on . In addition, the wastewater contains a large amount of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, causing eutrophication of seawater, algal growth, fish and shellfish hypoxia and death, and coastal ecological damage .

In addition, pesticides are used inland and enter the ocean along rivers. Many pesticides contain heavy metals and use organic matter as a solvent . These pesticides can easily enter the fat of fish and birds . In particular, DDT , which has been widely used in the last century, affects the eggs of birds, softens the eggshell, and affects the reproductive ability of marine organisms. The more fat organisms are most affected.

With the ocean currents, these pesticide residues reach the north and south poles, where organisms store a lot of fat in their bodies, and it is very easy to incorporate pesticides into their bodies. So, in the eggs of Antarctic penguins, scientists found the composition of DDT .

Finally, there is the plastic discovered by scientists at a depth of more than 10,000 meters. It has a particularly wide range of sources, because plastics occupy all aspects of human life. The biggest feature of plastic is that it is difficult to degrade , especially the old plastic in the early years. The molding technology is not mature, and it also contains many harmful benzene ring substances . Plastic waste will exist naturally for hundreds of years, equivalent to several generations of animals. So the impact of plastic is not temporary, it is eternal for animals.

Every year, countless marine creatures die due to being entangled with plastic, eating plastic by mistake, and being poisoned by plastic. There are often dead marine creatures. Once they are unpacked, their stomachs are full of plastic garbage . Plastic will travel to every corner of the ocean with ocean currents, and it is not difficult to understand that there will be plastic in the Mariana Trench.

The dangers of plastic waste

Plastic waste in the ocean is not just as simple as floating or sinking to the bottom of the sea. There is also a type of plastic waste that is the particles of plastic decomposed under the action of sunlight and seawater. It is invisible to the naked eye and is plastic particles with a diameter of less than millimeters .

According to the analysis of seawater extracted from the Mariana Trench, in the bottom seawater of 2673-10908m in the Mariana Trench, the microplastic content is 2.06-13.51/L , and the plastic particles in the offshore seawater are beyond people's imagination.

East China Normal University purchased 15 brands of sea salt on the market, and the final result showed that there are 550-681 plastic particles in each kilogram of sea salt . These plastic particles will be directly counted into the human body along with the seafood. In this way, a person will ingest more than 1,000 plastic particles in a year, and these particles will exist in the human body forever .

The most troubling thing is that microplastics cannot be removed at all. It does not leave with the evaporation of water, and humans are destined to coexist with it.

The ocean is connected. As long as there is plastic pollution in one place, all parts of the world will be affected , not to mention that this pollution is blooming in many places around the world. No country in the world has been spared, only discovered and undiscovered.

The original purpose of plastic was to facilitate human life, and it did give human convenience, but also made human pay the price for the convenience of the year. In the early years of human production of plastics, limited by the technology at that time, many toxic substances were used, which also led to the toxic particles decomposed from those plastic wastes . After entering the human body, some of the particles will remain in the body. Growth, toxicity also accumulates in the human body .

lessons learned

The garbage generated by human beings spreads all over the earth. As the largest existence on earth, the ocean is naturally harmed. If human beings take measures in time, I believe it is not too late.

First of all, human beings are now inseparable from plastics. It is impossible not to use any plastic products overnight, but it can be minimized , such as the reuse of shopping bags .

Secondly, use degradable plastics and harmless plastics. With the advancement of science and technology, the technology of plastic production is also becoming more and more mature. We have abandoned the harmful substances in the production of plastics in the early years, which also minimizes the harmfulness of plastics. And degradable plastic can also shorten the time plastic exists in the world , without having to force marine animals to spend their lives with plastic.

Finally, don't litter. We can't do without plastic. We can throw plastic into its own garbage can , and collect it and dispose of it in a unified way, which is hundreds of times better than when it appears in the stomachs of marine animals. In addition, some scientists have found that some microorganisms are helpful for decomposing plastics , which is currently in the research stage.