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View Full Version : BBC Science..Mariana Trench: Deepest ocean 'teems with microbes' // Exploring Beyond the Abyss: The Deep Sea Challenge Expedition



Cidersomerset
18th March 2013, 21:39
Its often quoted we know more about space than the deep ocean floors
another interresting subject.......



BBC ONLINE......18 March 2013 Last updated at 01:39

There are a couple of small vids on link....
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21806406

Mariana Trench: Deepest ocean 'teems with microbes'By Rebecca Morelle

Science reporter, BBC World Service

The deepest place in the ocean is teeming with microscopic life, a study suggests.

An international team of scientists found that the very bottom of the Mariana Trench,
which lies almost 11km (7 miles) down in the Pacific Ocean, had high levels of microbial
activity. The research is published in the journal Nature Geoscience. The underwater
canyon was once thought to be too hostile an environment for life to exist.But this study
adds to a growing body of evidence that a range of creatures can cope with the near-
freezing temperatures, immense pressures and complete darkness.Dr Robert
Turnewitsch, one of the authors of the paper from the Scottish Association for Marine
Science, said: "The deepest parts of the deep sea are certainly not dead zones."

Carbon sink

In 2010, the scientists sent an unmanned submersible down into the vast underwater
canyon, where it collected samples of the murky sediment that cakes the sea floor.
An analysis of the levels of oxygen in the sample revealed the presence of a large
number of microbes.Dr Turnewitsch explained: "These microbes, they respire as we do.
And this oxygen consumption is an indirect measurement of the activity of the
community."Surprisingly, these primitive, single-celled organisms were twice as active
at the bottom of the trench than they were at a nearby 6km-deep (four miles) site.

Continue reading the main story
What lurks in the deep?

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/59130000/jpg/_59130303__58942793_angler_464x261.jpg


Ocean trench: Scroll 11,000m down

They were feasting on a plentiful supply of dead plants and creatures that had drifted
down from the sea surface, the decomposing matter becoming trapped within the steep
walls of the trench.

"The amount of food down there and also the relative freshness of the material is
surprisingly high - it seems to be surprisingly nutritious," said Dr Turnewitsch.

The level of material found at the bottom of the trench was so high that it suggests the
Mariana Trench - which is in an area of the ocean known as the Hadal zone - could play
a key part in the carbon cycle and therefore in regulating the planet's climate.
Dr Richard Turnewitsch said: "The fact that large amounts of organic matter that
contain the carbon accumulate and are focused in these trenches also means they play
an important role in the removal of carbon from the ocean and the overlying
atmosphere.

"The Hadal trenches may play a more important role in the global marine carbon cycle
than was previously thought."

http://www.examiner.com/sites/default/files/styles/large_lightbox/hash/1363453857_9181_Marianatrenchmap.png?itok=rAmdCNg4

http://media.tumblr.com/d8bb18cedb2c5cc7ec3f0a01d762e775/tumblr_inline_mju3v6zbk21qz4rgp.jpg



“The Hadal trenches may play a more important role in the global marine carbon cycle
than was previously thought.”

— You know, we forget. This life is all about the microbes. Always.

18 hours ago

http://madasamarinebiologist.com/post/45642666635/its-all-about-the-microbes-in-the-marianas


http://media.tumblr.com/9bd5d65802908d830263230f3b9b2b61/tumblr_inline_mju3wy1Vqm1qz4rgp.jpg



http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/wiredscience/2011/01/mariana-trench-diagram-wikipedia-vanessa-ezekowitz.jpg

http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/10i.html

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Exploring Beyond the Abyss: The Deep Sea Challenge Expedition

HX_oN_1stBY

Published on 17 Jan 2013


(Visit: http://www.uctv.tv/) In spring 2012, the Deep Sea Challenge Expedition with
film director and National Geographic Explorer in Residence James Cameron conducted
submersible operations in the deepest point on Earth, the Mariana Trench. Join Scripps
scientist Doug Bartlett, a leading expert in microbial life in the planet's most remote and
extreme places, as he describes what it was like to serve as chief scientist on this
headline expedition. Find out how Bartlett's research is providing greater insight into
how organisms thrive in such extreme depths of the ocean.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Deepest dive

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-uEA9L9m0B5g/T2-SwkpyFlI/AAAAAAAAN_w/A8rT_FI9swY/s1600/cameron-sub-trench-592x337.jpg

Further insight into the Mariana Trench has recently been provided by Hollywood
director James Cameron.In 2012, he made the dive to the bottom in a one-man-
submarine, becoming the first person to have visited this deep spot for 50 years.
Speaking to the BBC straight after his solo plunge, he said that the floor of the trench
was an alien and barren terrain.He recently released some of the first scientific results
of his dive at the 2012 American Geophysical Union Fall meeting.Working with scientists
from the Scripps Institute, the team found giant amoeba and shrimp-like creatures
called amphipods.

Footage of his dive will be released as 3D National Geographic documentary.


previous thread...

http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?42957-Into-The-ABYSS-James-Cameron-s-sub-reaches-deepest-point-of-the-ocean

Cidersomerset
19th March 2013, 00:08
They say space is a vaccum that cannot support life. Yet they have filmed fish,
crabs & microbes walking/swimming on molton sulphur ponds deep under
the sea.So the Question of 'Space Critters' should not be dismissed by mainstream
science imo !



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Cidersomerset
19th March 2013, 01:00
I'm still exploring under the sea, i used to love the Jaque Cousteau films as
a boy , but have not seen many recently.I've been more interested in the
oceans of space..LOL....This film combines the both James Cameron takes
NASA personal to explore the Aliens beneath the waves ! Also speculates
on NASA's planned expedition to the Jovian moons, and possible life on
Europa in possible oceans under the ice and life similar to the deep vent
colonies here may exist?

Also Mars and a possible future manned expedition, comparing the similar
conditions of operating under the sea and on the Martian surface.

Ok I know on here we believe there is already human colonies on Mars
but thats another story..LOL...


NASA's planned Jupitor Icy moon orbitor
http://static.ddmcdn.com/gif/storymaker-canceled-nasa-space-missions3-514x388.jpg


Aliens of the Deep

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Published on 13 Dec 2012


James Cameron journeys to some of the Earth's deepest, most extreme and
unknown environments in search of the strange and alien creatures that live there.
Joining him is a team of young NASA scientists and marine biologists who consider
how these life forms represent life we may one day find in outer space not only on
distant planets orbiting distant stars, but also within our own solar system. Aliens
of the Deep is the result of expeditions to several hydrothermal vent sites in the
Atlantic and the Pacific. These are violent volcanic regions where new planet is
literally being born and where the interaction between ocean and molten rock
creates plumes of super-heated, chemically-charged water that serve as oases for
animals unlike anything ever discovered. Six-foot tall worms with blood-red plumes
and no stomach, blind white crabs, and a biomass of shrimp capable of "seeing"
heat all compete to find just the right location in the flow of the super-heated, life-
giving water or to fry trying. Not dependent on sunlight (like all other life on earth),
these ecosystems are as close to alien as anything ever imagined and provide one
possible blueprint for the life that might exist beyond our world.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Published on 2 Aug 2012


Nadia Yegorova-Johnstone talks to Professor Andrew Coates, Deputy Director and
Head of Planetry Science at MSSL about the Jupiter Icy Moon Explorer


Europa Jupiter System Mission [

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