Extreme Adventure? You Bet!
What imagination, and curiosity, the stuff that explorers are made of. In a sense it is peculiar that so much time, funding and experimental engineering went into the exploration of space, before all the interstices of the Earth itself had been explored. The Mariana Trench is a real dip in the ocean floor, the lowest point on the surface of the Earth's crust.
At the time it was first breached in 1960 with an underwater submersible, no one had any idea that there were living organisms there, so deep, so far from the life-enhancing reach of the sun. The lowest point of the Trench is the Challenger Deep, and this is where the underwater soil was found to contain all manner of unexpected organisms, soft-walled and single-celled primitive life forms.
To get there to begin with it should be understood that the descent is a perilous one, for who can guarantee that once having touched bottom, they will safely ascend back to the top again to tell of the fantastic voyage they had undertaken and what marvels they had seen? It's an immense leap of faith to lower oneself to descend to that depth.
Imagine, a 36,000 ft-deep chasm, in the Pacific Ocean's Mariana Trench where water pressure is 15,000 pounds per square inch - imagine 8,000 elephants standing atop a Smart Car; somewhat like angels dancing on the head of a pin. The engineering required to build a device capable of withstanding that kind of pressure, maintaining life for those within, is beyond comprehension.
But there are those adventurous enough to respond to what they see as a challenge, to close that 50-year gap between the last descent and the present. When Jacques Piccard and retired U.S. navy captain Don Walsh voyaged below inside their bathyscaphe Trieste in 1960, they encountered another world entirely; foraminifera; single-celled protists that construct cells.
They discovered 432 different types of foraminifera in the dirt of the Challenger Deep, including algae and slime molds. Scientists believed that at such an incredible depth there would be no living organisms. Science now knows that all manner of life forms can be found living in the most extreme of environments, from worms living within icefields, to bacteria in ice-covered Antarctic lakes.
In the next short while, two men are preparing to set off for their unique underwater adventure, along with their separate crews. Each is preparing to descend in their own engineered devices, submarine vessels to carry them to the lowest depth of the world's oceanic geology. One is Sir Richard Branson, the other the film director James Cameron.
May their adventure be a satisfying one, and may they return to tell the tale.
At the time it was first breached in 1960 with an underwater submersible, no one had any idea that there were living organisms there, so deep, so far from the life-enhancing reach of the sun. The lowest point of the Trench is the Challenger Deep, and this is where the underwater soil was found to contain all manner of unexpected organisms, soft-walled and single-celled primitive life forms.
To get there to begin with it should be understood that the descent is a perilous one, for who can guarantee that once having touched bottom, they will safely ascend back to the top again to tell of the fantastic voyage they had undertaken and what marvels they had seen? It's an immense leap of faith to lower oneself to descend to that depth.
Imagine, a 36,000 ft-deep chasm, in the Pacific Ocean's Mariana Trench where water pressure is 15,000 pounds per square inch - imagine 8,000 elephants standing atop a Smart Car; somewhat like angels dancing on the head of a pin. The engineering required to build a device capable of withstanding that kind of pressure, maintaining life for those within, is beyond comprehension.
But there are those adventurous enough to respond to what they see as a challenge, to close that 50-year gap between the last descent and the present. When Jacques Piccard and retired U.S. navy captain Don Walsh voyaged below inside their bathyscaphe Trieste in 1960, they encountered another world entirely; foraminifera; single-celled protists that construct cells.
They discovered 432 different types of foraminifera in the dirt of the Challenger Deep, including algae and slime molds. Scientists believed that at such an incredible depth there would be no living organisms. Science now knows that all manner of life forms can be found living in the most extreme of environments, from worms living within icefields, to bacteria in ice-covered Antarctic lakes.
In the next short while, two men are preparing to set off for their unique underwater adventure, along with their separate crews. Each is preparing to descend in their own engineered devices, submarine vessels to carry them to the lowest depth of the world's oceanic geology. One is Sir Richard Branson, the other the film director James Cameron.
May their adventure be a satisfying one, and may they return to tell the tale.
Labels: Adventure, Environment, Nature
posted by Pieface @ 6:29 PM
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