The Ocean Depths

Recently some very strange animals were found in an abyss which covers one third of Australia’s territory. One of the things which was found is just a tubular animal with a small knob for a head at one end. It is called a peanut worm and when it is threatened it shrinks to a much smaller size. The abyss itself is extremely deep and goes down about 4000 meters and is hard to explore because of the tremendous pressure which eliminates dives to that depth by ordinary submersibles and submarines. The Australians have so far brought up over a thousand different species of animals and of that thousand, one third were never seen before.

One thing which upsets the scientists very much is the fact down at that extreme depth they found trash littering the ocean floor. They described it as 200 years of rubbish. It’s only recently, comparatively speaking, we have been able to explore at these extreme depths. Also, there are not very many vehicles which are capable of going down that deep. One type is called a ROV which stands for Remotely Operated Vehicle. These types of vehicles are not capable of taking passengers aboard and they are outfitted with cameras and other scientific instruments. The advantage of an ROV is you are not risking somebody’s life when you send it down into the depths, but you are certainly risking losing a very expensive piece of equipment if you can’t get it back up. One ROV is named Hercules and is rated at being capable to dive the 4000 meters needed to get to the bottom of the abyss. It is packed with cameras and bright lights. It also contains sonars, sensors and sampling tools.

Another ROV which can dive even deeper is the Argus which can go down and astounding 6000 meters. It is mostly used as a tow behind vehicle, but it can be used in other ways. It contains cameras, lighting, sonars along with a SeeKing bottom profiler which is a type of sonar. Other sonar instruments are also aboard.

Most of the manned deep sea diving vehicles cannot dive as deep as the ROVs. When we talk about them, we are usually talking about vehicles which can only dive a few hundred feet at the most, but there are a few exceptions. The ICTINEU3 is a deep type submersible built in Spain. It has preformed deep dives as far down as 1000 meters. While impressive, this is far from enough to get into the abyss. Most of the dives which were performed using this vehicle were only a very few hundred meters. The company named SEAmagine Hydrospace Corporation has manufactured several models of deep-sea diving vehicles and some have reached a depth of 1500 meters.

The Mariana trench is considered the deepest part of the ocean and yet two manned dives were made into the trench. Only one device has reached the bottom of the trench in all of history which carried people. It carried Jacques Picard and Don Walsh in 1960. This vehicle no longer exists for diving. These two people went to a place where no humans have ever been before or since. It must’ve felt similar to when the first man walked on the moon.

There are some pretty strange creatures at those depths and one has to wonder why some of them are so different looking from the ones we normally see? We have finally discovered huge squids which we used to think only existed in old sailor’s tales and horror movies. Whether they ever brought down a ship we may never know, but some of them look like they are big enough to drag down a small boat. One fish was brought up from an incredible depth. It didn’t look too different from the common fish we are used to seeing, but there was a very big difference in it. When the fish was brought to the surface and onto a boat, the fish melted into goo. Apparently, the tremendous pressure at the bottom of the ocean was stopping this from happening and when the pressure was removed this was the result.

There are fish in the ocean which just looked terrifying. Long fanged creatures which look like they belong on another planet. Some have thorns sticking out of their bodies. Others look more like birds than fish. They fly through the ocean the same way as a bird would fly to the air. Here is the million-dollar question, could there be intelligent life somewhere in the ocean? Since we know so little about what is at the bottom, it is hard to eliminate the chance we might find intelligent life. Most people don’t think we ever will, but it is a possibility and so much so scientists at NASA are looking at liquid on other planets as a possible place for life. When I say liquid am talking about places that have oceans and lakes.

There is a fish, or should I say there is see life which looks very much like a bat. It has been named the vampire squid and for good reason. This creature is blood red and usually eats dead plankton. One of the really strange things about this creature is even though it is a squid it does not eject Ink, but instead produces a bioluminescent substance which confuses predators.

It has long been a dream of the militaries to be able to build submersibles which would be capable of going into the deepest part of oceans to hide. What has stopped this from happening is the incredible pressure they would be under. So far, we have not been able to figure out a way to make conventional submarines capable of such dives. It is said a nuclear submarine could have a depth capability anywhere from 809 to  3000 feet.