Rescuers are scanning an underground area at a depth of about 4000 meters to find the lost marine observation vehicle Titan while trying to navigate to the wreckage of the Titanic. According to the BBC, this harsh and brutal environment in which studies are conducted is more like space than life on earth.
The Titanic is located in a region called the “midnight zone”, known for its freezing temperatures and perpetual darkness. People who have participated in previous expeditions aboard Titan describe navigating more than two hours in pitch-black conditions before finally suddenly crashing into the ocean floor. The submarine’s lights give it a limited field of view, but it doesn’t go beyond a few meters. First responders have to contend with these conditions.
WHY GOING TO THE BOTTOM OF THE OCEAN IS MORE DANGEROUS THAN GOING TO SPACE
Although humans have been exploring the ocean surface for tens of thousands of years, only about 20% of the seafloor has been mapped, according to 2022 figures from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Researchers often say that traveling to space is easier than diving to the bottom of the ocean. According to the Woods Hole Institution of Oceanography, although 12 astronauts spent a total of 300 hours on the Moon’s surface, they were only three years old to explore the Challenger Deep, the deepest known point of Earth’s seafloor (the deepest point in the Mariana Trench). The person spent about three hours in total. CNN covers this very subject… Well, what’s going on in the deep ocean?
Mariana TrenchThere’s a reason why deep-sea exploration is so limited, according to CNN’s analysis: Traveling deeper into the ocean means entering an area of greater pressure levels the further down you go. This is a high risk endeavor. In addition, the environment is dark and visibility is almost non-existent. The temperature is also extremely cold.
The history of ocean exploration
The first submarine was built in 1620 by Dutch engineer Cornelis Drebbel, but it was not enough for beyond shallow waters. We had to wait for the Titanic disaster for sonar technology to begin giving scientists a clearer picture of what lies deep in the ocean. This meant that nearly 300 years had passed since the first submarine.
Here, the biggest discovery was made in 1960 with the historic dive of the Trieste bathyscaphe, a type of free-diving submersible, into the Challenger Deep, which is more than 10,916 meters deep.
These depths have been reached for only a few missions since then. These journeys are extremely dangerous. Because every 10 meters under the surface of the ocean, the pressure increases. At this pressure, the slightest structural defect can be catastrophic.
What lies at the bottom of the ocean?
According to the Woods Hole Institution of Oceanography in Massachusetts, places considered deep oceans extend from 1,000 meters to 6,000 meters below the surface, while deep-sea trenches can go as low as 11,000 meters. This area, called the hadal or hadalpelagic zone, takes its name from the Greek god of the underworld, Hades. In the Hadal region, temperatures hover just above freezing and sunlight does not penetrate.
The first discoveries made in Challenger Deep were quite remarkable. There were chemical relics, shrimp-like supergiant amphopods, and many other creatures such as bottom-dwelling Holothurians or sea cucumbers. Marine geologist Robert Ballard of the Woods Hole Institution of Oceanography said that a new world opened up in the 1970s when he discovered an entirely alien ecosystem in the sea near the Galápagos Rift.
These unusual creatures, some of which glow with bioluminescence to communicate, attract prey and attract mates, have created habitats within the steep walls of ocean trenches. These life forms have adapted to live in this extreme environment and are not found anywhere else on the planet. Instead of sunlight, they use chemical energy erupted from hydrothermal seeps and chimneys created by magma rising from under the ocean floor.
Why is it so hard to map the ocean?
Scientifically speaking, tourist trips to the ocean floor do little to further our understanding of the mysteries of the ocean. Until now, only a very small percentage of the deep ocean or even the middle ocean has been visible to the human eye. And very, very little of the ocean floor has been mapped.
The cost is too high
This is largely due to cost. Boats equipped with sonar technology can incur very high costs. Fuel alone can run up to $40,000 a day. However, a study called Seabed 2030 is currently underway to create a precise map of the ocean floor.
There is still much unknown about the deep seas. Of the 2.2 million species believed to exist in the oceans, only 240,000 have been described by scientists.
Advances in technology could eliminate human exploration of the ocean depths. Innovations such as deep-sea robotics, high-resolution underwater imaging, machine learning, and sequencing of DNA found in seawater will greatly help accelerate the rate and scale of discovery of new life forms.
Human health and scientific research
The ocean is thought to be a gold mine for compounds, and its discovery has led to many biomedical discoveries. Cytarabine, the first drug derived from the sea, was approved for the treatment of leukemia in 1969. This drug was isolated from a sea sponge.
Studies of bioactive compounds in the venom of cone snails, a type of marine mollusk, led to the development of a powerful pain reliever called ziconotide (commercially known as Prialt).
With the help of an enzyme isolated from a microbe found in marine hydrothermal vents, the scientists developed the polymerase chain reaction, a widely used technique for copying strands of DNA. The green fluorescent protein observed in jellyfish allows researchers to monitor once-unseen processes, including the spread of cancer cells and the development of nerve cells.
These are just a few examples. Researchers say the ocean and the life it contains could answer some of medicine’s biggest problems, such as antibiotic drug resistance. Studying the sea may also tell us how life evolved.
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