![]() ![]() The result was a spherical, pressurized aluminum gondola capable of ascending to great heights, without the use of a pressure suit. In the early 1930s, Swiss physicist, inventor and explorer Auguste Piccard experimented with high altitude balloons to explore the upper atmosphere. The modern American Sea Wolf class of nuclear submarine is said to have a crush depth, of 2,400 feet. WW2 era German submarines collapsed between 660 and 900 feet, with the loss of all hands. The problems with reaching such a depth are enormous. ![]() The pressure in Challenger Deep is equal to 1,150 atmospheres. The bite force of an American Grizzly is 1,200 psi. To consider the crushing weight of all that water, consider this. A column of salt water exerts the same pressure at 10 meters, or 33 feet. It’s pressing down on you right now but you don’t feel it, because your internal fluid pressures, push back. The air around us is a liquid with a ‘weight’ or barometric pressure at sea level, of 14.696 pounds per square inch. Everest by the roots and sink the thing in Challenger Deep, (this is the largest mountain on the planet we’re talking about), you would still have swim down 1.2 miles, to get to the summit. The average depth is 36,037, ± 82 feet, dropping off to a maximum depth of 35,856 feet to a small valley at the south end of the trench, called Challenger Deep. One plate moves under another and down into the mantle forming deep oceanic ridges, the deepest of which is the Mariana Trench, near Guam. Far deeper than those are the Pacific subduction zones where forces equal and opposite to those forming the mid-Atlantic ridge, collide. The Atlantic basin features deep trenches as well, sites of tectonic fracture and divergence. The longest mountain range in the world as an example, runs roughly down the center of the Atlantic ocean. Over millions of years these plates move apart along constructive boundaries, where oceanic plates form mid-oceanic ridges. Beyond that, lies the abyss.įar below that the earth’s mantle is quite elastic, broken into seven or eight major pieces and several minor bits called Tectonic Plates. Temperatures descend as salinity increases while the weight of all that water above, increases. The mesopelagic or “twilight zone” receives a scant 1% of all sunlight. 95 percent of all photosynthesis in the oceans occur in the epiplagic or photic zone. Here, phytoplankton convert sunlight to energy forming the first step in a food chain, supporting some 90 percent of all life in the oceans. The top or epiplagic Zone descends from 50 to 656 feet, depending on clarity of the water. Maurice Fargues prepares for what would prove to be, his final diveįor oceanographers, all that water is divided into slices. The man had barely scratched the surface. His final signature on the last tablet, at 390 feet. Maurice Fargues, a diver so accomplished he had literally saved the life of Jacques Cousteau only a year earlier, was the first diver to die using an aqualung. At the three minute mark, the line showed no sign of movement. Descending down a weighted line, Fargues signed his name on slates placed at ten meter intervals. On September 17, 1947, French Navy diver Maurice Fargues attempted a new depth record, off the coast of Toulon. The oxygen we rely on for life literally becomes toxic, around 190 feet. Dives beyond 130 feet enter the world of “technical” diving involving specialized training, sophisticated gas mixtures and extended decompression timetables. Divers have been known to remove their own mouthpiece and offer it to fish, with tragic if not predictable results. A weird form of intoxication sets in called nitrogen narcosis, around 30 meters (98 feet). Covering 70 percent and more of the planet and taken together, the oceans contain 97% of all the water on planet earth.Īnd yet the exploration of all that water has never added up to more than 20 percent.įor most dive organizations, the recommended maximum for novice divers is 20 meters (65 feet). ![]() The global ocean divided into five major basins: the Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Southern, and Arctic. Most of us experience the ocean as a day at the beach, a boat ride, or a moment spent on one end of a fishing line. ![]()
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