(1914-1975) Abbot of the Pskov-Pechersky Monastery (1959-1975) March 15, 1975...
Many people know that the highest point is Everest (8848 m). If you are asked where the deepest point of the ocean is, what will you answer? Mariana Trench– this is the very place we want to tell you about.
But first I would like to note that they never cease to amaze us with their mysteries. The described place has also not yet been properly studied for completely objective reasons.
So, we offer you interesting facts about the Mariana Trench or, as it is also called, the Mariana Trench. Below are valuable photographs of the mysterious inhabitants of this abyss.
It is located in the western part of the Pacific Ocean. This is the deepest place in the world known to date.
Having a V-shape, the depression runs along the Mariana Islands for 1,500 km.
Mariana Trench on the map
An interesting fact is that the Mariana Trench is located at the junction of the Pacific and Philippine.
The pressure at the bottom of the trench reaches 108.6 MPa, which is almost 1072 times higher than normal pressure.
You probably now understand that due to such conditions, exploring the mysterious bottom of the world, as this place is also called, is extremely difficult. However, the scientific community, since the end of the 19th century, has not stopped studying this mystery of nature step by step.
Mariana Trench Research
In 1875, the first attempt was made to explore the Mariana Trench globally. The British expedition "Challenger" carried out measurements and analysis of the trench. It was this group of scientists who set the initial mark at 8184 meters.
Of course, this was not the full depth, since the capabilities of that time were significantly more modest than today's measuring systems.
Soviet scientists also made enormous contributions to research. An expedition led by the research vessel Vityaz began its own studies in 1957 and discovered that there was life at a depth of more than 7,000 meters.
Until this time, there was a strong belief that life at such depths was simply impossible.
We invite you to look at an interesting scale image of the Mariana Trench:
Diving to the bottom of the Mariana Trench
1960 was one of the most fruitful years in terms of research into the Mariana Trench. The research bathyscaphe Trieste made a record dive to a depth of 10,915 meters.
This is where something mysterious and inexplicable began. Special devices that record underwater sound began to transmit eerie noises to the surface, reminiscent of the grinding of a saw on metal.
The monitors registered mystical shadows that were shaped like fairy-tale dragons with several heads. For an hour, scientists tried to record as much data as possible, but then the situation began to get out of control.
It was decided to immediately raise the bathyscaphe to the surface, as there were reasonable fears that if we waited a little longer, the bathyscaphe would forever remain in the mysterious abyss of the Mariana Trench.
For more than 8 hours, specialists recovered from the bottom unique equipment made of heavy-duty materials.
Of course, all the instruments, and the bathyscaphe itself, were carefully placed on a special platform to study the surface.
Imagine the surprise of the scientists when it turned out that almost all the elements of the unique apparatus, made of the strongest metals at that time, were severely deformed and distorted.
The cable, 20 cm in diameter, lowering the bathyscaphe to the bottom of the Mariana Trench was half sawn through. Who tried to cut it and why remains a mystery to this day.
An interesting fact is that only in 1996 the American newspaper The New York Times published details of this unique study.
Lizard from the Mariana Trench
The German Haifish expedition also encountered the inexplicable mysteries of the Mariana Trench. While plunging the research apparatus to the bottom, the scientists faced unexpected difficulties.
Being at a depth of 7 kilometers under water, they decided to lift the equipment.
But the technology refused to obey. Then special infrared cameras were turned on to find out the cause of the failures. However, what they saw on the monitors plunged them into indescribable horror.
A fantastic giant-sized lizard was clearly visible on the screen, which was trying to chew the bathyscaphe like a squirrel nut.
Being in a state of shock, the hydronauts activated the so-called electric gun. Having received a powerful electric shock, the lizard disappeared into the abyss.
What it was, the fantasy of scientists obsessed with research, mass hypnosis, the delirium of people tired of colossal stress, or just someone’s joke is still unknown.
The deepest place in the Mariana Trench
On December 7, 2011, researchers at the University of New Hampshire sank a unique robot to the bottom of the trench under study.
Thanks to modern equipment, it was possible to record a depth of 10,994 m (+/- 40 m). This place was named after the first expedition (1875), about which we wrote above: “ Challenger Deep».
Inhabitants of the Mariana Trench
Of course, after these inexplicable and even mystical secrets, natural questions began to arise: what monsters live at the bottom of the Mariana Trench? After all, for a long time it was believed that below 6000 meters the existence of living beings is in principle impossible.
However, later studies of the Pacific Ocean in general, and the Mariana Trench in particular, confirmed the fact that at a much greater depth, in impenetrable darkness, under monstrous pressure and water temperature close to 0 degrees, a huge number of unprecedented creatures live.
Undoubtedly, without modern technology, made of the most durable materials and equipped with cameras unique in their properties, such research would simply be impossible.
Half-meter mutant octopus 
One and a half meter monster 
As a general summary, we can confidently say that at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, between 6,000 and 11,000 meters under water, the following were reliably discovered: worms (up to 1.5 meters in size), crayfish, a variety of crayfish, amphipods, gastropods, mutant octopuses, mysterious marine stars, unidentified soft-bodied creatures of two meters in size, etc.
These inhabitants feed mainly on bacteria and the so-called “corpse rain,” that is, dead organisms that slowly sink to the bottom.
Hardly anyone doubts that the Mariana Trench stores many more. However, people do not give up trying to explore this unique place on the planet.
Thus, the only people who dared to dive to the “bottom of the earth” were the American marine specialist Don Walsh and the Swiss scientist Jacques Picard. On the same bathyscaphe "Trieste" they reached the bottom on January 23, 1960, descending to a depth of 10915 meters.
However, on March 26, 2012, James Cameron, an American director, made a solo dive to the bottom of the deepest point of the World Ocean. The bathyscaphe collected all the necessary samples and took valuable photos and videos. Thus, we now know that only three people visited the Challenger Deep.
Did they manage to answer at least half of the questions? Of course not, since the Mariana Trench still hides much more mysterious and inexplicable things.
By the way, James Cameron stated that after diving to the bottom he felt completely cut off from the human world. Moreover, he assured that no monsters simply exist at the bottom of the Mariana Trench.
But here we can recall the primitive Soviet statement, after a flight into space: “Gagarin flew into space - he did not see God.” From this the conclusion was drawn that there is no God.
Likewise here, we cannot say unequivocally that the giant lizard and other creatures that scientists saw during previous research were the result of someone’s sick imagination.
It is important to understand that the geographical object under study has a length of more than 1000 kilometers. Therefore, potential monsters, inhabitants of the Mariana Trench, could well be located many hundreds of kilometers from the research site.
However, these are just hypotheses.
Panorama of the Mariana Trench on Yandex Map
Another interesting fact may intrigue you. On April 1, 2012, the Yandex company published a comic panorama of the Mariana Trench. On it you can see a sunken ship, water drains and even the glowing eyes of a mysterious underwater monster.
Despite the humorous idea, this panorama is tied to a real place and is still available to users.
To view it, copy this code into the address bar of your browser:
https://yandex.ua/maps/-/CZX6401a
The Abyss knows how to keep its secrets, and our civilization has not yet reached such a development as to “hack” natural mysteries. However, who knows, maybe one of the readers of this article in the future will become the genius who will be able to solve this problem?
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Despite the fact that the oceans are closer to us than the distant planets of the solar system, people Only five percent of the ocean floor has been explored, which remains one of the greatest mysteries of our planet.
Here are other interesting facts about what you can find along the way and at the very bottom of the Mariana Trench.
Temperature at the bottom of the Mariana Trench
1. Very hot water
Going down to such depths, we expect it to be very cold. The temperature here reaches just above zero, varying 1 to 4 degrees Celsius.
However, at a depth of about 1.6 km from the surface of the Pacific Ocean there are hydrothermal vents called “black smokers”. They shoot water that heats up to 450 degrees Celsius.
This water is rich in minerals that help support life in the area. Despite the water temperature being hundreds of degrees above boiling point, she doesn't boil here due to incredible pressure, 155 times higher than on the surface.
Inhabitants of the Mariana Trench
2. Giant toxic amoebas
A few years ago, at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, giant 10-centimeter amoebas called xenophyophores.
These single-celled organisms likely became so large because of the environment they live in at a depth of 10.6 km. Cold temperatures, high pressure and lack of sunlight likely contributed to these amoebas have acquired enormous dimensions.
In addition, xenophyophores have incredible abilities. They are resistant to many elements and chemicals, including uranium, mercury and lead,which would kill other animals and people.
3. Shellfish
The intense water pressure in the Mariana Trench does not give any animal with a shell or bones a chance of survival. However, in 2012, shellfish were discovered in a trench near serpentine hydrothermal vents. Serpentine contains hydrogen and methane, which allows living organisms to form.
TO How did mollusks preserve their shells under such pressure?, remains unknown.
In addition, hydrothermal vents emit another gas, hydrogen sulfide, which is lethal to shellfish. However, they learned to bind the sulfur compound into a safe protein, which allowed the population of these mollusks to survive.
At the bottom of the Mariana Trench
4. Pure liquid carbon dioxide
Hydrothermal source of Champagne The Mariana Trench, which lies outside the Okinawa Trench near Taiwan, is the only known underwater area where liquid carbon dioxide can be found. The spring, discovered in 2005, was named after the bubbles that turned out to be carbon dioxide.
Many believe these springs, called "white smokers" due to their lower temperatures, may be the source of life. It was in the depths of the oceans, with low temperatures and an abundance of chemicals and energy, that life could begin.
5. Slime
If we had the opportunity to swim to the very depths of the Mariana Trench, we would feel that it covered with a layer of viscous mucus. Sand, in its familiar form, does not exist there.
The bottom of the depression mainly consists of crushed shells and plankton remains that have accumulated at the bottom of the depression for many years. Due to the incredible water pressure, almost everything there turns into fine grayish-yellow thick mud.
Mariana Trench
6. Liquid sulfur
Daikoku Volcano, which lies at a depth of about 414 meters on the way to the Mariana Trench, is the source of one of the rarest phenomena on our planet. Here is lake of pure molten sulfur. The only place where liquid sulfur can be found is Jupiter's moon Io.
In this pit, called the "cauldron", there is a bubbling black emulsion boils at 187 degrees Celsius. Although scientists have not been able to explore this site in detail, it is possible that even more liquid sulfur is contained deeper. It may reveal the secret of the origin of life on Earth.
According to the Gaia hypothesis, our planet is one self-governing organism in which everything living and nonliving is connected to support its life. If this hypothesis is correct, then a number of signals can be observed in the natural cycles and systems of the Earth. So the sulfur compounds created by organisms in the ocean must be stable enough in the water to allow them to move into the air and return to land.
7. Bridges
At the end of 2011, it was discovered in the Mariana Trench four stone bridges, which extended from one end to the other for 69 km. They appear to have formed at the junction of the Pacific and Philippine tectonic plates.
One of the bridges Dutton Ridge, which was discovered back in the 1980s, turned out to be incredibly high, like a small mountain. At the highest point the ridge reaches 2.5 km over the Challenger Deep.
Like many aspects of the Mariana Trench, the purpose of these bridges remains unclear. However, the very fact that these formations were discovered in one of the most mysterious and unexplored places is surprising.
8. James Cameron's Dive into the Mariana Trench
Since opening the deepest part of the Mariana Trench - the Challenger Deep in 1875, only three people visited here. The first were American Lieutenant Don Walsh and researcher Jacques Picard, who dived on January 23, 1960 on the ship Trieste.
52 years later, another person dared to dive here - a famous film director. James Cameron. So On March 26, 2012, Cameron sank to the bottom and took some photos.
There are many more places on earth about which we know less than about the vast expanses of space. We are talking primarily about unconquerable water depths. According to scientists, science has not yet actually begun to study the mysterious life at the bottom of the oceans; all research is at the beginning of the journey.
From year to year there are more and more daredevils who are ready to perform a new record-breaking deep-sea dive. In the presented material I would like to talk about swims without equipment, with scuba gear and with the help of bathyscaphes, which have gone down in history.
Deepest human dive
For a long time, the French athlete Loïc Leferme held the record for freediving. In 2002, he managed to make a deep-sea dive to 162 meters. Many divers tried to improve this indicator, but died in the depths of the sea. In 2004, Leferm himself became a victim of his own vanity. During a training swim in the oceanic trench of Villefranche-sur-Mer, he dived to 171 meters. However, the athlete failed to rise to the surface.
The latest record-breaking deep-sea dive was made by Austrian freediver Herbert Nitzsch. He managed to descend to 214 meters without an oxygen tank. Thus, the achievement of Loïc Leferme is a thing of the past.
Record deep-sea dive for women
French athlete Audrey Mestre set several records among women. On May 29, 1997, she dived as much as 80 meters on a single breath-hold, without an air tank. A year later, Audrey broke her own record, descending 115 meters into the depths of the sea. In 2001, the athlete dived as much as 130 meters. This record, which has world status among women, is assigned to Audrey to this day.
On October 12, 2002, Mestre made her last attempt in life, diving without equipment to 171 meters off the coast of the Dominican Republic. The athlete used only a special load, without oxygen cylinders. The lift was to be carried out using an air dome. However, the latter turned out to be unfilled. 8 minutes after the deep-sea dive started, Audrey's body was brought to the surface by scuba divers. The official cause of death of the athlete was noted as problems with the equipment for lifting to the surface.
Record scuba dive
Now let's talk about deep-sea scuba diving. The most significant of them was carried out by the French diver Pascal Bernabe. In the summer of 2005, he managed to descend 330 meters into the depths of the sea. Although it was initially planned to conquer a depth of 320 meters. Such a significant record was achieved as a result of a small incident. During the descent, Pascal's rope stretched, which allowed him to swim an extra 10 meters in depth.
The diver managed to successfully rise to the surface. The ascent lasted a long 9 hours. The reason for such a slow rise was the high risk of development, which could lead to respiratory arrest and damage to blood vessels. It is worth noting that to set the record, Pascal Bernabe had to spend 3 whole years in constant training.
Record dive in a submersible
On January 23, 1960, scientists Donald Walsh and Jacques Piccard set a record for diving to the bottom of the ocean in a manned vehicle. While aboard the small submarine Trieste, the researchers reached the bottom at a depth of 10,898 meters.
The deepest dive in a manned submersible was achieved thanks to the construction of the Deepsea Challenger, which took the designers 8 long years. This mini-submarine is a streamlined capsule weighing more than 10 tons and with a wall thickness of 6.4 cm. It is noteworthy that before being put into operation, the bathyscaphe was tested several times with a pressure of 1160 atmospheres, which is higher than the pressure that was supposed to affect the walls of the device on the ocean floor .
In 2012, the famous American film director James Cameron, piloting the mini-submarine Deepsea Challenger, conquered the previous record set by the Trieste device, and even improved it by plunging 11 km into the Mariinsky Trench.
We live on a planet of water, but we know the Earth's oceans less well than some cosmic bodies. More than half of the surface of Mars has been mapped with a resolution of about 20 m - and only 10-15% of the ocean floor has been studied with a resolution of at least 100 m. 12 people have been on the Moon, three have been to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, and all of them did not dare to stick their nose out of the heavy-duty bathyscaphes.
Let's dive in
The main difficulty in the development of the World Ocean is pressure: for every 10 m of depth it increases by another atmosphere. When the count reaches thousands of meters and hundreds of atmospheres, everything changes. Liquids flow differently, gases behave unusually... Devices capable of withstanding these conditions remain piecemeal products, and even the most modern submarines are not designed for such pressure. The maximum diving depth of the latest Project 955 Borei nuclear submarines is only 480 m.
Divers descending hundreds of meters are respectfully called aquanauts, comparing them with space explorers. But the abyss of the seas is in its own way more dangerous than the vacuum of space. If something happens, the crew working on the ISS will be able to transfer to the docked ship and in a few hours will be on the surface of the Earth. This route is closed to divers: it may take weeks to evacuate from the depths. And this period cannot be shortened under any circumstances.
However, there is an alternative route to depth. Instead of creating ever more durable hulls, you can send there... living divers. The record of pressure endured by testers in the laboratory is almost double the capabilities of submarines. There is nothing incredible here: the cells of all living organisms are filled with the same water, which freely transfers pressure in all directions.
The cells do not resist the water column, like the solid hulls of submarines; they compensate for external pressure with internal ones. It is not for nothing that the inhabitants of “black smokers”, including roundworms and shrimp, feel great at many kilometers deep in the ocean floor. Some types of bacteria can withstand even thousands of atmospheres quite well. Man is no exception here - the only difference is that he needs air.
Beneath the surface
Oxygen Breathing tubes made of reeds were known to the Mohicans of Fenimore Cooper. Today, hollow plant stems have been replaced by plastic tubes, “anatomically shaped” and with comfortable mouthpieces. However, this did not make them more effective: the laws of physics and biology interfere.
Already at a meter depth, the pressure on the chest rises to 1.1 atm - 0.1 atm of water column is added to the air itself. Breathing here requires a noticeable effort of the intercostal muscles, and only trained athletes can cope with this. At the same time, even their strength will not last long and at a maximum of 4-5 m depth, and beginners have difficulty breathing even at half a meter. In addition, the longer the tube, the more air it contains. The “working” tidal volume of the lungs is on average 500 ml, and after each exhalation, part of the exhaust air remains in the tube. Each breath brings less oxygen and more carbon dioxide.
Forced ventilation is required to deliver fresh air. By pumping gas under increased pressure, you can ease the work of the chest muscles. This approach has been used for more than a century. Hand pumps have been known to divers since the 17th century, and in the middle of the 19th century, English builders who erected underwater foundations for bridge supports already worked for a long time in an atmosphere of compressed air. For the work, thick-walled, open-bottom underwater chambers were used, in which high pressure was maintained. That is, caissons.
Deeper than 10 m
Nitrogen No problems arose during work in the caissons themselves. But upon returning to the surface, construction workers often developed symptoms that French physiologists Paul and Vattel described in 1854 as On ne paie qu'en sortant - "payback at the exit." It could be severe itching of the skin or dizziness, pain in the joints and muscles. In the most severe cases, paralysis developed, loss of consciousness occurred, and then death.
To go to the depths without any difficulties associated with extreme pressure, you can use heavy-duty spacesuits. These are extremely complex systems that can withstand immersion of hundreds of meters and maintain a comfortable pressure of 1 atm inside. True, they are very expensive: for example, the price of a recently introduced spacesuit from the Canadian company Nuytco Research Ltd. EXOSUIT is about a million dollars.
The problem is that the amount of gas dissolved in a liquid directly depends on the pressure above it. This also applies to air, which contains about 21% oxygen and 78% nitrogen (other gases - carbon dioxide, neon, helium, methane, hydrogen, etc. - can be neglected: their content does not exceed 1%). If oxygen is quickly absorbed, then nitrogen simply saturates the blood and other tissues: with an increase in pressure by 1 atm, an additional 1 liter of nitrogen dissolves in the body.
With a rapid decrease in pressure, excess gas begins to be released rapidly, sometimes foaming, like an opened bottle of champagne. The resulting bubbles can physically deform tissues, block blood vessels and deprive them of blood supply, leading to a wide variety of and often severe symptoms. Fortunately, physiologists figured out this mechanism quite quickly, and already in the 1890s, decompression sickness could be prevented by using a gradual and careful decrease in pressure to normal - so that nitrogen leaves the body gradually, and blood and other fluids do not “boil” .
At the beginning of the twentieth century, English researcher John Haldane compiled detailed tables with recommendations on the optimal modes of descent and ascent, compression and decompression. Through experiments with animals and then with people - including himself and his loved ones - Haldane found that the maximum safe depth without requiring decompression was about 10 m, and even less for a long dive. Returning from the depths should be done gradually and slowly to give the nitrogen time to be released, but it is better to descend rather quickly, reducing the time for excess gas to enter the body tissues. New limits of depth were revealed to people.
Deeper than 40 m
Helium The fight against depth is like an arms race. Having found a way to overcome the next obstacle, people took a few more steps - and met a new obstacle. So, after decompression sickness, a scourge appeared, which divers almost lovingly call “nitrogen squirrel”. The fact is that under hyperbaric conditions this inert gas begins to act no worse than strong alcohol. In the 1940s, the intoxicating effect of nitrogen was studied by another John Haldane, the son of “the one.” His father’s dangerous experiments did not bother him at all, and he continued harsh experiments on himself and his colleagues. “One of our subjects suffered a lung rupture,” the scientist wrote in the journal, “but he is now recovering.”
Despite all the research, the mechanism of nitrogen intoxication has not been established in detail - however, the same can be said about the effect of ordinary alcohol. Both disrupt normal signal transmission at the synapses of nerve cells, and perhaps even change the permeability of cell membranes, turning ion exchange processes on the surfaces of neurons into complete chaos. Outwardly, both manifest themselves in similar ways. A diver who “caught a nitrogen squirrel” loses control of himself. He may panic and cut the hoses, or, conversely, get carried away by telling jokes to a school of cheerful sharks.
Other inert gases also have a narcotic effect, and the heavier their molecules, the less pressure is required for this effect to manifest itself. For example, xenon anesthetizes under normal conditions, but lighter argon only anesthetizes under several atmospheres. However, these manifestations are deeply individual, and some people, when diving, feel nitrogen intoxication much earlier than others.
You can get rid of the anesthetic effect of nitrogen by reducing its intake into the body. This is how nitrox breathing mixtures work, containing an increased (sometimes up to 36%) proportion of oxygen and, accordingly, a reduced amount of nitrogen. It would be even more tempting to switch to pure oxygen. After all, this would make it possible to quadruple the volume of breathing cylinders or quadruple the time of working with them. However, oxygen is an active element, and with prolonged inhalation it is toxic, especially under pressure.
Pure oxygen causes intoxication and euphoria, and leads to membrane damage in the cells of the respiratory tract. At the same time, the lack of free (reduced) hemoglobin makes it difficult to remove carbon dioxide, leads to hypercapnia and metabolic acidosis, triggering physiological reactions of hypoxia. A person suffocates, despite the fact that his body has enough oxygen. As the same Haldane Jr. established, even at a pressure of 7 atm, you can breathe pure oxygen for no longer than a few minutes, after which breathing disorders, convulsions begin - everything that in diving slang is called the short word “blackout”.
Liquid breathing
The still semi-fantastic approach to conquering depth is to use substances that can take over the delivery of gases instead of air - for example, the blood plasma substitute perftoran. In theory, the lungs can be filled with this bluish liquid and, saturating it with oxygen, pump it through pumps, providing breathing without any gas mixture at all. However, this method remains deeply experimental; many experts consider it a dead end, and, for example, in the USA the use of perftoran is officially prohibited.
Therefore, the partial pressure of oxygen when breathing at depth is maintained even lower than usual, and nitrogen is replaced with a safe and non-euphoric gas. Light hydrogen would be better suited than others, if not for its explosiveness when mixed with oxygen. As a result, hydrogen is rarely used, and the second lightest gas, helium, has become a common substitute for nitrogen in the mixture. On its basis, oxygen-helium or oxygen-helium-nitrogen breathing mixtures are produced - helioxes and trimixes.
Deeper than 80 m
Complex mixtures It is worth saying here that compression and decompression at pressures of tens and hundreds of atmospheres takes a long time. So much so that it makes the work of industrial divers - for example, when servicing offshore oil platforms - ineffective. The time spent at depth becomes much shorter than long descents and ascents. Already half an hour at 60 m results in more than an hour of decompression. After half an hour at 160 m, it will take more than 25 hours to return - and yet divers have to go lower.
Therefore, deep-sea pressure chambers have been used for these purposes for several decades. People sometimes live in them for whole weeks, working in shifts and making excursions outside through the airlock compartment: the pressure of the respiratory mixture in the “dwelling” is maintained equal to the pressure of the aquatic environment around. And although decompression when ascending from 100 m takes about four days, and from 300 m - more than a week, a decent period of work at depth makes these losses of time completely justified.
Methods for prolonged exposure to high-pressure environments have been developed since the mid-twentieth century. Large hyperbaric complexes made it possible to create the required pressure in laboratory conditions, and the brave testers of that time set one record after another, gradually moving to the sea. In 1962, Robert Stenuis spent 26 hours at a depth of 61 m, becoming the first aquanaut, and three years later, six Frenchmen, breathing trimix, lived at a depth of 100 m for almost three weeks.
Here, new problems began to arise associated with people's prolonged stay in isolation and in a debilitatingly uncomfortable environment. Due to the high thermal conductivity of helium, divers lose heat with each exhalation of the gas mixture, and in their “home” they have to maintain a consistently hot atmosphere - about 30 ° C, and the water creates high humidity. In addition, the low density of helium changes the timbre of the voice, seriously complicating communication. But even all these difficulties taken together would not put a limit to our adventures in the hyperbaric world. There are more important restrictions.
Below 600 m
Limit In laboratory experiments, individual neurons growing “in vitro” do not tolerate extremely high pressure well, demonstrating erratic hyperexcitability. It seems that this significantly changes the properties of cell membrane lipids, so that these effects cannot be resisted. The result can also be observed in the human nervous system under enormous pressure. He begins to “switch off” every now and then, falling into short periods of sleep or stupor. Perception becomes difficult, the body is seized with tremors, panic begins: high-pressure nervous syndrome (HBP) develops, caused by the very physiology of neurons.
In addition to the lungs, there are other cavities in the body that contain air. But they communicate with the environment through very thin channels, and the pressure in them does not equalize instantly. For example, the middle ear cavities are connected to the nasopharynx only by a narrow Eustachian tube, which is also often clogged with mucus. The associated inconveniences are familiar to many airplane passengers who have to tightly close their nose and mouth and exhale sharply, equalizing the pressure of the ear and the external environment. Divers also use this kind of “blowing”, and when they have a runny nose they try not to dive at all.
Adding small (up to 9%) amounts of nitrogen to the oxygen-helium mixture allows these effects to be somewhat weakened. Therefore, record dives on heliox reach 200-250 m, and on nitrogen-containing trimix - about 450 m in the open sea and 600 m in a compression chamber. The French aquanauts became - and still remain - the legislators in this area. Alternating air, complex breathing mixtures, tricky diving and decompression modes back in the 1970s allowed divers to overcome the 700 m depth bar, and the COMEX company, created by students of Jacques Cousteau, made the world leader in diving maintenance of offshore oil platforms. The details of these operations remain a military and commercial secret, so researchers from other countries are trying to catch up with the French, moving in their own ways.
Trying to go deeper, Soviet physiologists studied the possibility of replacing helium with heavier gases, such as neon. Experiments to simulate a dive to 400 m in an oxygen-neon atmosphere were carried out in the hyperbaric complex of the Moscow Institute of Medical and Biological Problems (IMBP) of the Russian Academy of Sciences and in the secret “underwater” Research Institute-40 of the Ministry of Defense, as well as in the Research Institute of Oceanology named after. Shirshova. However, the heaviness of neon showed its downside.
It can be calculated that already at a pressure of 35 atm the density of the oxygen-neon mixture is equal to the density of the oxygen-helium mixture at approximately 150 atm. And then - more: our airways are simply not suitable for “pumping” such a thick environment. IBMP testers reported that when the lungs and bronchi work with such a dense mixture, a strange and heavy feeling arises, “as if you are not breathing, but drinking air.” While awake, experienced divers are still able to cope with this, but during periods of sleep - and it is impossible to reach such a depth without spending long days descending and ascending - they are constantly awakened by a panicky sensation of suffocation. And although the military aquanauts from NII-40 managed to reach the 450-meter bar and receive well-deserved medals of Heroes of the Soviet Union, this did not fundamentally solve the issue.
New diving records may still be set, but we have apparently reached the final frontier. The unbearable density of the respiratory mixture, on the one hand, and the nervous syndrome of high pressure, on the other, apparently put the final limit on human travel under extreme pressure.
There is a place on Earth about which we know much less than about distant space - mysterious ocean floor. It is believed that world science has not yet really even begun to study it.
On March 26, 2012, 50 years after the first dive, man again sank to the bottom of the deepest depression on Earth: the Deepsea Challenge bathyscaphe with Canadian director James Cameron sank to the bottom of the Mariana Trench. Cameron became the third person to reach the deepest point of the ocean and the first to do it alone.
Mariana Trench- the deepest trench on earth in the western Pacific Ocean. It stretches along the Mariana Islands for 2,500 km. The deepest point of the Mariana Trench is called "Challenger Deep". According to the latest surveys in 2011, its depth is 10,994 meters (±40 m) below sea level. By the way, the highest peak in the world, Everest, rises to a height of “only” 8,848 meters.
At the bottom of the Mariana Trench, water pressure reaches 1,072 atmospheres, i.e. 1,072 times normal atmospheric pressure. (Infographics ria.ru):
Half a century ago. Bathyscaphe "Trieste", designed by the Swiss scientist Auguste Picard, which made a record dive into the Mariana Trench in 1960:
On January 23, 1960, Jacques Piccard and US Navy Lieutenant Don Walsh dived into the Mariana Trench to a depth of 10,920 meters on the bathyscaphe Trieste. The dive took about 5 hours, and the time spent at the bottom was 12 minutes. This was an absolute depth record for manned and unmanned vehicles.
Two researchers then discovered at a terrible depth only 6 species of living creatures, including flat fish up to 30 cm in size:
Let's go back to the present day. This is the Deepsea Challenge Submersible, in which James Cameron sank to the bottom of the ocean. It was developed in an Australian laboratory, weighs 11 tons and is more than 7 meters long:
The dive began on March 26 at 05:15 am local time. James Cameron's last words were: "Lower, lower, lower."
When diving to the bottom of the ocean, the bathyscaphe turns over and sinks vertically:
This is a real vertical torpedo that glides through a huge layer of water at high speed:
The compartment in which Cameron was located during the dive is a metal sphere with a diameter of 109 cm with thick walls capable of withstanding pressure of more than 1,000 atmospheres:
In the photograph, to the left of the director, a hatch covering the sphere is visible:
HD video. Dive:
James Cameron spent more than 3 hours at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, during which he took photographs and videos of the underwater world. The result of this underwater journey will be a joint film with National Geographic. The photo shows manipulators with cameras:
At a depth of 11 kilometers:
3D camera:
However, the underwater expedition was not entirely successful. Due to a malfunction metal "hands", controlled by hydraulics, James Cameron was unable to take samples from the ocean floor that scientists need to study geology:
Many were tormented by the question of animals that live at such monstrous depths. “Probably everyone would like to hear that I saw some kind of sea monster, but it wasn’t there... There was nothing alive, more than 2-2.5 cm.”
A few hours after the dive, the Deepsea Challenge bathyscaphe with the 57-year-old director successfully returned from the bottom of the Mariana Trench.
Lifting the bathyscaphe:
James Cameron - the first person in the world to make a solo dive into the abyss- to the bottom of Mariana. In the coming weeks it will descend to depth 4 more times.
