36,000 Feet Into Darkness

If you placed Mount Everest at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, its peak would still be more than a mile underwater. The Challenger Deep, the lowest point on Earth, sits 36,070 feet below the surface of the western Pacific. The pressure there is over 1,000 times atmospheric pressure at sea level. It would crush most submarines like aluminum cans. Only three people have ever been to the bottom.

A World Without Light

Sunlight vanishes entirely below 3,300 feet. The hadal zone begins at 20,000 feet, named after Hades, the Greek god of the underworld. The temperature hovers just above freezing. The water is ancient, having circulated from the surface centuries ago. Yet this is not a dead zone. Bioluminescent jellyfish pulse with ghostly blue light. Anglerfish dangle living lanterns to lure prey. In the deepest reaches, translucent snailfish glide through the darkness, their bodies adapted to pressures that would liquefy human tissue.

Life That Feeds on the Planet Itself

Near hydrothermal vents on the trench floor, superheated water erupts from cracks in the Earth's crust at temperatures above 700 degrees Fahrenheit. These black smokers support entire ecosystems that run on chemosynthesis, not photosynthesis. Giant tube worms, ghostly white crabs, and shrimp with eyes adapted to detect the faint glow of superheated water cluster around the vents. They do not need the Sun. They feed on the chemistry of the planet itself. Some scientists believe this is how life on Earth may have begun.

We Know Less Than We Think

More people have walked on the Moon than have visited the bottom of the Mariana Trench. We have mapped the surface of Mars in greater detail than our own ocean floor. When Victor Vescovo reached the bottom in 2019, he found a plastic bag and candy wrappers. We have polluted a place we have barely explored. The deep ocean is the last true frontier on Earth. And we are running out of time to understand it before we change it forever.