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00:00Imagine you're going down to the bottom of the Mariana Trench in a full military-grade diving suit.
00:06You might think all you'd see are some tiny creatures or just straight darkness,
00:10but what would actually happen is your lungs would implode before you even reach the bottom.
00:15You're cooked.
00:16The pressure in the Mariana Trench is the highest in the entire world,
00:21more than a thousand times the pressure at the surface,
00:23and even the most advanced military-grade diving suit would have zero chance of saving you from
00:29collapsing in on yourself.
00:30And so, only logically, there should be essentially nothing capable of surviving here, right?
00:36Well, if you know anything about the horrors of the deep ocean,
00:40you'd already know this isn't what happens.
00:42In fact, most of the deep ocean doesn't just have life.
00:46It has some of the most gigantic life on Earth.
00:49You have massive sharks that have been alive at the same time Isaac Newton was,
00:53squids bigger than buses,
00:55and all the other real-life gigantism horrors you could imagine.
00:59But the Mariana Trench isn't just the deep ocean.
01:02It's the deepest point on the entire Earth.
01:05So what actually exists all the way down there?
01:08To understand the Mariana Trench,
01:10we first have to take a look at where it even starts.
01:14The Mariana Trench is around 10,984 meters deep,
01:19but this is measured from the ocean's surface.
01:22The actual trench starts about 5,000 meters below sea level,
01:25which is the upper rim of the trench.
01:27Everything above the Mariana Trench is actually super normal,
01:31which would make sense since it's just the open ocean above.
01:34In fact, anything floating there, whether it's a fish or a human,
01:38wouldn't even know they're above the deeper spot in the entire world.
01:42The trench is so deep that if you took Mount Everest
01:44and plunged it upside down into the middle of the ocean,
01:47its tip would still fall about 7,000 feet short of the trench's bottom,
01:51called the Challenger Deep.
01:53And this place is so impossibly remote
01:55that only 22 people in all of human history have ever reached it.
02:00Which, to put in comparison, even more people have flown to the moon.
02:03So what would it take to get to the bottom?
02:06Well, to get there, you'd have to pass through every layer of the ocean.
02:10Unfortunately, the epipelagic zone is the first layer,
02:13and the only zone you could even make it into.
02:16It's about 200 meters, and you could survive the top part of it
02:19since that extends towards the surface.
02:21But even getting to the bottom of the zone is close to impossible.
02:25After about 200 meters, you'd reach the mesopelagic zone,
02:28the same depth where the deepest freedive record ever was set
02:32at 214 meters with a wetsuit.
02:34This is only the top of the mesopelagic zone, though,
02:37and no human freediving would ever be capable of reaching the bottom of the zone,
02:41which goes to around 1,000 meters.
02:43The pressure here is around 100 times heavier than at the surface,
02:47and you'd probably die instantly.
02:49Kinda scary, since this is only the second zone,
02:52but I guess that's a deep ocean for you.
02:55Below there is the bathopelagic zone,
02:57starting around 1,000 meters and stretching down to about 4,000.
03:01Ignoring the pressure that would have crushed you long ago,
03:04if you were somehow alive down here, you'd be completely blind,
03:07since effectively zero light can reach,
03:10and you'd also probably freeze to death,
03:12and the pressure is enough to crush steel.
03:14So you're probably wondering, how can this get even worse?
03:18Well, as I mentioned before,
03:20the Mariana Trench only actually starts at about 5,000 meters below sea level.
03:25We haven't even reached it yet.
03:27Past the bathopelagic zone is the abyssopelagic zone,
03:30which spans from about 4,000 to 6,000 meters deep.
03:33This is actually my favorite zone in the whole ocean,
03:36not only because the abyss sounds really cool,
03:39but also because it has some of the freakiest animals possible.
03:43This zone should actually be the bottom of the ocean,
03:46because for almost all of the ocean, this is the bottom.
03:49But unfortunately for those afraid of the deep sea,
03:52this zone is only where the trench begins.
03:54At this point, the pressure is over 600 times what it was at the surface.
03:59Not that that really makes any difference to you,
04:01since you've already been crushed thousands of meters ago.
04:04At the top of this zone, you might find the Stygium medusa gigantea,
04:08which if you couldn't tell by the name, is gigantea.
04:11This is a massive species of jellyfish,
04:14specifically created by deep sea gigantism.
04:16It's over 10 meters across,
04:18including its strange tentacles that look like ribbons.
04:21There's only been about 100 sightings in the past 100 years of this giant phantom jelly.
04:26And because of that,
04:27we don't know much about their average weights or upper limits,
04:30but it's estimated to be around 150 pounds.
04:33They're definitely large,
04:34but as most jellyfish go,
04:36they're not too heavy,
04:38at least compared to other giant creatures.
04:40Oddly enough, they don't sting either.
04:42They use the ribbon tentacles to slowly trap prey for small things that swim by.
04:47It's kind of like fly tape,
04:49but just the deep sea gigantism version of it.
04:51But at the very bottom of the abyssal zone,
04:54it's one of the largest squids in the world.
04:56And while you probably think I'm talking about the famous giant squid,
04:59that I know I usually can't shut up about,
05:01you actually won't see them at all here.
05:04The abyssal zone is oddly enough,
05:06too deep for the giant squid,
05:07and they can only reach up to mid-bathaplegic waters.
05:10And while you might also think of the colossal squid,
05:13which do actually live in the upper abyssal zone,
05:15they wouldn't be in the Mariana Trench,
05:17since they stick to the Antarctic waters only.
05:20But what you would find here is something even stranger.
05:23The magma pinna,
05:24also known as the big fin squid.
05:26If you saw our video on the creepiest squids,
05:29you'd know that,
05:29at least in my opinion,
05:31this is by far the creepiest squid in the world.
05:34Well, that we currently know of.
05:35While it's unlikely to be as dangerous as an actual tank like a colossal squid,
05:39it's just plain unsettling to look at.
05:42I'm not fully sure why its tentacles are stretched like that,
05:45why it sometimes just hovers.
05:47And honestly,
05:48most marine biologists don't really know either.
05:51They're usually so deep and unbelievably rare that we can't even study them.
05:56Most of what we know is usually from juveniles.
05:58They stretch about 25 feet long with those weird elbowed arms that just hang.
06:03The most likely reason is that they're used to catching smaller things passing by.
06:08But we've never actually caught a live adult specimen.
06:11These squids live so deep that sometimes they even reach the upper haddle zone,
06:15which is so deep that it's usually too deadly for even most normal squids.
06:20And yes,
06:21this creature is another example of the deep sea gigantism effect.
06:25It doesn't just have to turn big things bigger though.
06:28It can also affect smaller things,
06:30like isopods.
06:31The giant isopod is the same family as normal pill bugs.
06:34But instead of being a few millimeters, they're closer to 20 inches across.
06:39Smaller than people, sure.
06:41But massive for isopods.
06:43They're usually near the upper abyssal though.
06:45And while you might think it could be possible for them to go deeper into the haddle zone,
06:49it's not super likely.
06:51Plus, it wouldn't benefit them either.
06:53Because the haddle zone is probably the worst place you could live on earth.
06:56This place is so remote that it doesn't even exist in most parts of the ocean,
07:01and only in deep ocean trenches.
07:03And of course, that includes the Mariana Trench.
07:06It stretches from 6,000 meters all the way down to 11,000.
07:11And the only reason it doesn't stretch more is because the Challenger Deep is already the deepest part of the
07:16ocean.
07:16The pressure is so deep that it's over 1,000 times the pressure at sea level.
07:21And I'd usually give some wacky comparison,
07:23but I don't really think you could actually imagine what it's like
07:26to have the entire weight of an adult African elephant
07:29standing on every single square inch of your body.
07:33Interestingly, you might expect there to be some of the craziest giants you've ever seen there.
07:37But that's not really the case.
07:39The haddle zone is so unbelievably hard to survive in
07:42that deep sea gigantism actually starts to reach its limit.
07:46Things get bigger and bigger, until they don't.
07:49The more body you have, the more pressure there is crushing every square inch of it.
07:54A small organism can handle that better because it has less surface area for the force to act on
07:58and fewer internal parts that can collapse or malfunction.
08:01As well as probably the more important issue,
08:04there's barely anything even here.
08:06Food is so limited that you literally can't even get enough at some point.
08:11It's strange to think, and most channels don't usually cover this
08:15because they like to play up the deep sea gigantism effect.
08:18But the haddle zone is basically the end of deep sea gigantism,
08:22and effectively where the deepest sea shrinking starts.
08:25Animals don't just get infinitely bigger,
08:28and while there may be some undiscovered squid bigger than a giant squid elsewhere in the ocean,
08:32it's extremely unlikely that it lives in the deeper haddle zone.
08:36It's just simply too deep.
08:38So, what actually lives here?
08:41One of the most well-known is the Mariana snailfish,
08:44the deepest living fish ever discovered.
08:46And no, it's not a snail, it's a fish.
08:49It's small, almost translucent, with no scales,
08:52and a body so soft it would collapse under normal pressure at the surface.
08:56But down here, that jelly-like body is perfect.
08:59It bends instead of breaking, letting it survive more than 8,000 meters deep.
09:04They're still about a foot long, too.
09:06There are amphipods, too,
09:08which are shrimp-like crustaceans that can survive all the way down to the Challenger Deep.
09:12Some of them have special proteins that stop their cell membranes from collapsing under pressure.
09:17Others even eat bits of plastic that have somehow made it this far down.
09:22There are also xenophiafors,
09:24which are giant single-celled organisms that live right on the trench floor.
09:28They can grow up to 4 inches wide,
09:30making them some of the largest single cells on Earth.
09:32Strangely, xenophiafors might actually be important for life down there.
09:37They create little microhabits out of sand and minerals,
09:40providing shelter for other small organisms in an otherwise barren wasteland.
09:45So even though they're single-celled,
09:47they kind of act like ecosystem builders for the deep trenches.
09:50Not really as epic as giant squids,
09:52but you don't get much better this deep.
09:55Besides that, there are worms, microbes,
09:57and other tiny scavengers that feed on marine snow,
10:00flakes of dead plankton, feces, and organic dust falling from above.
10:05Life in the Haddle Zone isn't really some cool zone
10:08of giant monsters battling each other beneath the water.
10:11It's basically just, you die or you barely survive.
10:15And that's why the Abyssal Zone is my favorite.
10:17More cool monsters are there.
10:18But where else does the Haddle Zone exist besides the Mariana Trench?
10:23Well, the Haddle Zone is usually created when the Abyssal Plane cracks open
10:27due to immense tectonic activities and forms ocean trenches,
10:31just like the Mariana Trench.
10:33There are about 20 major ocean trenches around the world,
10:36mostly found in the Pacific Ocean.
10:38The most famous ones are the Tonga Trench,
10:40the Philippine Trench,
10:41and of course, the Mariana Trench.
10:43But if it's basically a death sentence to even exist there,
10:47how do we know anything that's down there?
10:49Well, the short answer is, we barely do.
10:52The only reason we know anything about the Haddle Zone
10:54is because of a few extremely rare and insanely difficult missions.
10:58Missions with the most advanced submarines
11:00and people with the most advanced guts to actually get in one.
11:04Most submarines can't even come close to reaching the bottom of the Mariana Trench.
11:08Even advanced military subs like nuclear attack submarines max at 600 meters.
11:12You're not making it to 6,000, yet alone 11,000.
11:17Submarines here are designed basically to be a pressure-proof capsule and not much else.
11:21The first humans to ever make it all the way down
11:24were Jackie's Picard and Don Walsh in 1960,
11:27inside a submersible called the Tresel.
11:30Imagine being in a steel ball barely big enough for two people,
11:33lowered almost 11 kilometers into total darkness.
11:37Not even sure if the hole would hold, because it's 1960s tech.
11:40At around 10,900 meters deep, one of their outer windows cracked under the pressure,
11:46which personally would have made me pee myself, but somehow they made it.
11:49They stayed at the bottom for about 20 minutes before beginning the long,
11:53silent rise back to the surface, probably staring at that crack the entire time.
11:58After that, no one went back for more than 50 years,
12:01because who would honestly want to even go down there?
12:04The next major descent didn't happen until 2012,
12:07when James Cameron, the same dude who directed Titanic and Avatar,
12:11piloted a one-man sub called the Deep Sea Challenger.
12:14Not the most unique name, I guess,
12:16but he did become the first person to reach the Challenger Deep solo.
12:19His vessel was shaped like a tornado,
12:22covered in bright green plating, and specifically designed to just go deep.
12:26He described the bottom as a completely alien world,
12:29flat, desolate, and with fine sediment that looked like grey powder
12:33and no sign of big animals anywhere,
12:35which would line up with the end of deep sea gigantism that I just mentioned.
12:39In 2019, though, a guy named Victor Vescovo broke the depth record again
12:43with his sub-DSV limiting factor, reaching nearly 10,928 meters,
12:49which, granted, is only about 20 meters deeper than James Cameron did,
12:53but I guess he really wanted that record.
12:55Unlike earlier dives, his mission wasn't just to go down and come back up.
12:59It was to explore, and probably also to beat James Cameron's record,
13:03but he didn't say that.
13:04He spent hours mapping the seafloor
13:07and filming some of the most extreme creatures ever caught on camera.
13:10He again found plastic waste at the very bottom.
13:13Most of what we know today doesn't actually come from humans going down there, though.
13:17It comes from ROVs and landers.
13:19Scientists drop them into the trench,
13:21and they slowly sink for hours before finally reaching the bottom.
13:24These machines carry cameras, sensors, and bait traps,
13:28and sometimes even robotic arms that can collect samples.
13:31The pressure-resistant casings on these cameras are made from titanium and thick glass,
13:36and if they fail, they implode instantly.
13:39And even with all that tech, the success rate is low.
13:42The trenches are pitch black, freezing cold,
13:45and full of fine sediment that clouds up instantly when disturbed.
13:48Most of the footage we get is shaky, grainy, and lasts only minutes,
13:52but it's enough to reveal that the Haddle Zone isn't completely dead.
13:56Most new missions end up revealing something new,
13:59because it's just so hard to find things when you're down there.
14:02But so far, we haven't encountered any super giants down in the Haddle Zone,
14:06and sorry for any lovers of sea monsters, probably never will.
14:09Trenches like the Mariana Trench aren't really meant to be the deep ocean.
14:13They're the deepest parts of the ocean,
14:15places so inhospitable that they're only created by tectonics in the earth.
14:20They weren't even designed to store the monsters of the abyss.
14:23They just store anything that can endure.
14:25Thank you guys for watching,
14:26and if you do want to learn about how evolution made the real monsters of the abyss,
14:31check out this video here.
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