Among so many countries in the world, in the approximately 60 million years since the formation of the Mariana Trench, some and only detectors from the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, China, and Japan have had the honor to go deep into the Mariana Trench. The deepest trench is more than 11 kilometers, and according to the data transmitted by the probe, the trench is still getting deeper. What is even more incredible is that this trench has been swallowing seawater continuously after its formation, and even the annual water intake is 3 billion tons, which is 3 trillion tons of seawater every 1 million years. So the question is, so much seawater has been swallowed, why hasn't the sea level dropped?

Discover the Mariana Trench

In fact, according to relevant data, humans first discovered and explored the Mariana Trench in the 1870s. In December 1872, the United Kingdom launched the "Census of the Sea Project", and the Royal "Challenger" was responsible for this task. In the third year of the project, the "Challenger" arrived in Mariana in the western Pacific Ocean. Expedition to the Islands. At that time, the international ocean exploration technology was very limited, and the method for measuring the depth of the ocean was also very simple. The method adopted by the United Kingdom at that time was to tie the heavy objects with ropes and throw them into the sea, and wait for the heavy objects to be completely When it sinks to the bottom of the sea and does not continue to sink, then the rope is drawn up and marked, and the depth of the ocean is determined by measuring the length of the rope sinking.

What caught the sailors on the Challenger by surprise was that the extra 8,000 meters of rope had reached the end, but the heavy object still did not bottom out and needed to continue to sink. After that, the Challenger added the rope several times and returned to the original place for measurement, but it was still difficult to get the result, and finally called the area "Challenger Abyss", which is actually the Mariana Trench. Just after the relevant report from the UK, many countries in the world that thought they had the capability to conduct marine surveys scrambled to go there, but almost all of them failed to return in the end.

Measure the depth of the Mariana Trench and find it swallows a huge amount of seawater

For the first time, the representative measurement results were measured by the British Challenger, which measured the depth of the "abyss" to be at least 10,900 meters. Subsequently, the USS Trieste submersible successfully entered in 1960 and detected a depth of 10,916 meters, breaking the previous British measurement and becoming a new world record. After that, the Japanese "Takuyo" also successfully entered the trench and measured a maximum depth of 11040.41 meters, which was also recorded in the world record.

It is worth mentioning that, as the measured depths are continuously updated, speculations about how the area was formed are also constantly being made. As the theory of earth plate motion continues to mature, it is widely believed in the world that this area is a trench formed by the mutual movement of the Philippine plate and the Pacific plate. Geologists believe that the Philippine plate is formed by the subduction of the Pacific Ocean. Named the Mariana Trench.

The first report of the Mariana Trench engulfing the waters of the ocean was several years ago. European reports said that a mysterious hole appeared in the waters near Spain. Its depth is difficult to predict by human beings. swallow the sea water. Later, the probes in China, the United States, Britain and Japan successfully arrived at the local area and sent back data, and only then did they discover the deepest ocean trench in the world. The amount of water swallowed reached 3 billion tons. Experts have concluded that the Mariana Trench was formed about 60 million years ago, and the seawater swallowed by it has been able to submerge any continent on earth.

Why aren't sea levels falling?

When they realized that the abyss-like trench continued to swallow huge amounts of ocean water, but the sea level did not drop because of it, the experts were puzzled at first. In the end, experts found that the Mariana Trench will enter the upper mantle after swallowing seawater. Under the strong pressure of the upper mantle, the substances in the asthenosphere of ocean water react and merge into the asthenosphere to become a substance. This mass is converted back to water vapor by volcanic eruptions, evaporated back to the atmosphere, and then brought to the Earth's surface by precipitation. After a series of morphological changes, the engulfed ocean water returned to the ocean. Experts also said that the swallowed ocean water may not all enter the mantle. It is not ruled out that some of it will become groundwater along the gaps in the crust, but it will eventually return to the ocean due to the circulation of the earth's water resources. Therefore, even though the Mariana Trench swallows a huge amount of seawater every year, it is equal to part of the ocean cycle.

In fact, in addition to the fact that the Mariana Trench is constantly swallowing seawater, scientists have also found that there are actually many trenches on the earth that are also constantly swallowing seawater. So far, as many as 30 trenches have been detected and swallowed, of which 17 are large trenches, and the others are small trenches, but the Mariana Trench is the one that swallows the most seawater. But that hasn't caused Earth's oceans to dry up, or even sea levels to drop. The current international research results are that the swallowed seawater does not disappear out of thin air, nor is it consumed, but participates in the water cycle in other ways. After a series of complex cycles, the swallowed seawater has the opportunity to return to the surface or the atmosphere. Although it takes a long time, no matter whether the water vapor enters the atmosphere and undergoes complex temperature changes, it will eventually form a rainfall pattern. It falls back into the ocean in the form of groundwater; it is recycled as groundwater, and ultimately it is still in the earth's water circulation system.

The sea level is not only not falling, but is even rising. Experts have judged that it is a "greenhouse effect". Because as the earth's temperature rises, glaciers that were not involved in the water cycle melt into the ocean, causing sea levels to rise. The reason why all human beings need to carry out environmental protection and control the earth's temperature is that if the sea level continues to rise, grabbing the plateau to become a residential land will become the mainstream trend, which may cause a series of problems that threaten the sustainable development of human civilization. Therefore, the earth is the only homeland on which human beings live. It is not an empty phrase that everyone is responsible for protecting the earth's environment, but should be implemented on every individual on the earth. China has taken the lead in issuing "carbon peak" and "carbon neutral". and" plan, and are working hard to achieve it.