When do trenches form

Piccard claimed to see a large flatfish that was about twelve inches long. Scientists have been doubtful about this claim and postulate that what Piccard saw was actually a sea cucumber.

A new species of snailfish was detected at feet m was found in December This was a record-breaking find as no other living fish has been found deeper than this. Recently there have been many discoveries, and the conclusion is the deep-sea trenches are teaming with life. Gigantism seems to affect life in the hadal zone.

All species seem much larger than their counterparts that exist at shallower ocean depths. Oceanic trenches have no light, and it is utterly dark in these depths.

Some animals have responded to the challenge by developing huge eyes to capture the faintest trace of light. An example of this is the Stout Blacksmelt fish. The vision of other animals has completely vanished, and they rely on vibrations and touch to move around and catch prey.

The tripod fish is an excellent example of this. Other animals have learned to make their own light, known as bioluminescence, as seen in the lanternfish. The lack of light does not allow for plant growth, and so food is limited. Animals in deep-sea trenches have adapted to eat scraps of dead organisms and detritus that filter down through the water. These scraps of organisms are known as marine snow. Sometimes dead whales are heavy enough to sink into the ocean trenches, which provides a feast for the animals that occupy the trench depths.

Normal body fat would solidify in these conditions. The animals have adapted by storing unsaturated fats, which remain liquid even in extreme temperatures.

The cells in deep-sea animals have been adapted to include a tiny organic molecule known as piezolytes. Piezolytes bind to the water and give the proteins space to expand and change shape as they function in the body. Proteins in normal cells would not be able to operate at such extreme temperatures and pressures.

Fish seem to live at a maximum-depths of 26 to 27 feet. Beyond that, there are other life forms, such as crustaceans known as amphipods. The amphipods grow to giant sizes in the deep cold water. Most normal amphipods are approximately an inch to two inches long, but they grow to more than a foot long in the trenches.

As they look like giant shrimp, it gives an impression of an alien world down in the depths. Single-cell organisms, similar to amoeba, known as foraminifera, have been found in giant sizes in ocean trenches. Huge sea cucumbers were also discovered inhabiting deep areas. Most of the animals found at great ocean depths do not have standard bone structure or air-filled spaces — the enormous pressure would shatter them if they did. Jellyfish and soft-bodied animals cope much better with the increased pressure.

Dumbo octopuses have been found at 32 feet m in the Mariana Trench. They do not look like the octopuses found closer to the surface. They have very deep-set eyes, with tiny tentacles and two ear-type appendages. Ping-Pong Tree Sponges look like transparent ping pong balls attached to a stalk. The ping pong ball sponges trap any creature that comes near and slowly consume it. These unusual creatures are found at the deepest levels in the trenches.

Frilled sharks have six or seven gills most normal sharks have five gills and more closely resemble eels than sharks. They live at depths of 16 feet m. The scariest feature of frilled sharks is their considerable number of teeth — three hundred teeth — not something anyone wants to face. Many bacteria inhabit the bottom of trenches, feeding off-gases. The bacteria provide food for organisms in ocean trenches by changing the gases from chemical compounds into organic nutrients.

The life forms that live in the trenches feed off the organic nutrients as well as marine snow. Scientists believe that studying these bacteria could significantly advance medical knowledge. Everest is said to be littered with rubbish that hikers have thrown down and left. He recently discovered that blue sharks use warm water ocean tunnels, or eddies, to dive to the ocean twilight zone, where they forage in nutrient-rich waters hundreds of meters down.

Born in New Zealand, Simon received his B. With much of his work in the South Pacific and Caribbean, Simon has been on many cruises, logging 1, hours of scuba diving and hours in tropical environs. He has been a scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution since Gregory Skomal is an accomplished marine biologist, underwater explorer, photographer, and author. He has been a fisheries scientist with the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries since and currently heads up the Massachusetts Shark Research Program.

For more than 30 years, Greg has been actively involved in the study of life history, ecology, and physiology of sharks. His shark research has spanned the globe from the frigid waters of the Arctic Circle to coral reefs in the tropical Central Pacific. Much of his current research centers on the use of acoustic telemetry and satellite-based tagging technology to study the ecology and behavior of sharks.

He has written dozens of scientific research papers and has appeared in a number of film and television documentaries, including programs for National Geographic, Discovery Channel, BBC, and numerous television networks. His most recent book, The Shark Handbook, is a must buy for all shark enthusiasts. Robert D. He served in the U. Navy for more than 30 years and continues to work with the Office of Naval Research. A pioneer in the development of deep-sea submersibles and remotely operated vehicle systems, he has taken part in more than deep-sea expeditions.

In , he discovered the RMS Titanic , and has succeeded in tracking down numerous other significant shipwrecks, including the German battleship Bismarck , the lost fleet of Guadalcanal, the U. He is known for his research on the ecology and evolution of fauna in deep-ocean hydrothermal, seamount, canyon and deep trench systems. He has conducted more than 60 scientific expeditions in the Arctic, Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans.

Sunita L. Her research explores how the larvae of seafloor invertebrates such as anemones and sea stars disperse to isolated, island-like habitats, how larvae settle and colonize new sites, and how their communities change over time. Kirstin also has ongoing projects in the Arctic and on coral reefs in Palau. Her work frequently takes her underwater using remotely operated vehicles and SCUBA and carries her to the far corners of the world. Seafloor showing different areas of the seafloor including a trench NOAA.

Mariana Trench Trenches form in some areas when two oceanic plates converge forming a subduction zone. The Pacific Plate is older and colder than the Mariana Plate.

The trench formed by these two oceanic plates is the deepest spot in the world's oceans and includes the Challenger Deep. Oceanic trench begins to subduct Ocean trenches form when a heavier and flexible oceanic plate begins its decent. The seaward side of the trench has a gentle slope of about 5 degrees because the plate must bend as it plunges downward.

Inner wall of the trench The continental side of most trenches forms the inner wall. The wall has a steeper slope which is usually between 10 and 16 degrees. The two plates slide past each other where they intersect at the bottom of the trench. Subduction zones persist for many millions of years, and the initiation period happened millions of years ago in most cases.

The location of the research into the crust of the Izu-Bonin-Mariana arc One way to understand subduction zone initiation is to drill a long borehole into the ocean crust on the overlying plate, to test the composition and age of the crust, and to see how it behaved in terms of sea level changes , before the subduction started.

The problem is that millions of years of time since the initiation has allowed kilometres of sediment to pile up on top and obscure the crust. This is an extinct ocean trench zone south of Japan, where the modern-day Mariana Trench initiated.

In our article in Nature Geoscience we report how we successfully collected 1.