Though the Bee Gees may have famously asked us about the depths of our love, there's an even more pressing question they forgot to pose: How deep is our fear? Yet unlike the fleeting, undefinable nature of love, this question comes with a much more concrete answer — 36,000 feet, or the deepest point in the Mariana Trench.
Since its discovery in 1875, the pits of the Mariana Trench have proven to be as creepy as they are deep, serving as a home to eerie species like zombie worms, a whole lot of radioactivity, and after reading these facts, nearly all of our nightmares.
From blood-bearing sculptures to nearly disastrous dives, here are 20 deeply creepy facts about the depths of the Mariana Trench.
1
“91% of all the dives to the bottom of the Mariana Trench occurred in the past 4 years. Before that, the only visitors were the original explorers in 1960, and James Cameron in 2012.”
2
“A hidden ecosystem seems to lurk six miles below the Mariana Trench, offering clues for finding life across the solar system.”
3
“In 2015 scientist dropped a microphone 6 miles down into the Mariana Trench, the results where a surprise, instead of quiet, they heard sounds of earthquakes, ships, the distinct moans of baleen whales and the overwhelming clamor of a category 4 typhoon that just happened to pass overhead.”
4
"During the first dive to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, one of the outer window panes on the bathysphere cracked. They opted to continue, and successfully reached the bottom.”
5
“In 2019 an expedition that descended to the Mariana Trench, the deepest area in the world's oceans, found a plastic bag and sweet wrappers at the bottom of the Trench.”
6
“Commercial airlines fly at a lower altitude than the depth of the [Mariana Trench’s] deepest point. It’s also 1,500 miles long and an average of 43 miles wide.”
7
“Only four people have been at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, called the Challenger Deep (about 11000 meters or 36000ft down). For reference, 12 people have walked on the Moon.”
8
“It was once proposed to bury nuclear waste at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, with the theory that tectonic plate subduction would eventually push it down into the Earth's mantle.”
9
“While researchers gathered the deepest rock samples ever taken from the Mariana Trench, they accidentally discovered the deepest fish ever seen - at a depth of over 8,100 meters (5 miles).”
10
“Hornsleth Deep Storage Project, an art sculpture containing human blood and DNA was lowered into the Marianas trench.”
11
“There is a community of 4 inch long amoebas that live in the Marianas trench. They are the largest single celled organisms in the world and are incredibly toxic.”
12
The Mariana Trench is home to the world’s deepest fish, known as the Mariana Snailfish.
13
“The Mariana Trench is so deep that 100 liters of water on the surface is compressed to 95 liters at the bottom.”
14
“Scientists discovered a species of virus that infects a bacteria found on the surface sediment of the Mariana Trench at 8,900m.”
15
Animals who live in the deep sea — including locations like the Mariana Trench — are sometimes much larger than their shallow-water counterparts due to “deep-sea gigantism.”
16
In 2019, a radioactive isotope known as carbon-14 was found in bodies of sea creatures living in the Mariana Trench, the Scientific American reported. This is due to nuclear bomb testing.
17
Hydrothermal vents in the Mariana Trench expels water that’s roughly 700 degrees Fahrenheit.
18
The Mariana Trench is home to a species of “zombie worms” that crave bone and eat whale carcasses and other Dead Sea creatures.
19
The Mariana Trench was named a United States national monument in 2009.
20
The Mariana Trench is deeper than Mount Everest is tall. If Mount Everest were submerged in its depths, its peak would still be over a mile below surface,
