The Mariinsky hollow is the deepest place on Earth

The world ocean is fraught with a lot of interesting, and sometimes even mysterious objects. The Mariinsky basin, also known as the "Mariana Trough", is a huge gorge on the floor of the Pacific Ocean. This is the deepest place on Earth. Its total length is 1.5 km.

By its geometric profile, it resembles the Latin letter V. The width of the bottom - from one and a half to five kilometers. The entire bottom area is divided into small isolated ranges into several isolated locations. The depth is almost 11 kilometers!

Near the bottom, the pressure is 108.6 MPa, which is more than a thousand times higher than the average for the Pacific Ocean. The Mariinsky basin itself was formed due to the motion of two huge tectonic plates, on the border of which it is located.

The first attempts to investigate this amazing place were made by the team of the English corvette Challenger, which conducted systematic measurements of the bottom. A huge contribution to the study of the area in question was made by Soviet scientists, and later by their Russian counterparts.

Despite a huge number of experiments, the Mariinsky Basin remains to this day one of the least studied riddles of the World Ocean: many objects in near space are better investigated.

In 1958, Soviet scientists established that at a depth of more than 7 km there is life. In 1960, the French sent to the hollow of their newest bathyscaphe "Trieste". The research involved the legendary Picard and Jacques-Yves Cousteau.

But the first weirdness was fixed by the American expedition. From the vessel "Glomar Challenger" the research "hedgehog" was lowered. An hour after the dive, the recording microphones began transmitting noise to the surface, suspiciously reminiscent of the saw's operation.

The cameras fixed in the depths some obscure shadows. The scientists did not like the idea that unique equipment could disappear in the Mariana Trench, and therefore an urgent rise was initiated.

Accurately and gradually, the "hedgehog" was raised in eight hours. It turned out that the strongest cobalt-titanium beams of the structure were damaged, and the cable from a special steel alloy was completely half-sawn at all. Who and how could create such a thing remains a mystery. Dumbfounded scientists published a report on this incident in 1996. You can see it in the newspaper The New York Times.

Can the Mariinsky hollow, the depth of which amazes the imagination, conceal in its abyss any such large and strong living beings? Investigate such depths is extremely difficult, because the incredible pressure is able to crush any more or less large structure in a flat cake. Until 1958, the academic community believed that at depths exceeding 6 km, life in principle is impossible.

And it turned out that in an incredible water abyss live pogonophores. It is a type of marine invertebrate that is characterized by living in remarkable chitin tubes, feeding on bottom sediments. Their uniqueness lies in the fact that for life and development these beings do not need sunlight. But why did invertebrates need to "cut" the cables? Or were they not them?

Thus, the Mariinsky hollow, the photographs of which are presented in the article, is one of the most amazing places on Earth.