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Asked by dizzyg12 to Simon, Susan on 22 Nov 2013.
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Simon Langley-Evans answered on 22 Nov 2013:
As ever a great question Dizzy.
We know very little about the very deep ocean, other than that it is a very alien world that is going to be a massive challenge to work in due to the massive pressure caused by the weight of the water. It is impossible to say what might be found down there and it will be one of the great challenges of the next 100 years to map it out and plan how to get at any resources that might be useful. In many ways working in space is easier than working on the ocean floor.
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Susan Skelton answered on 22 Nov 2013:
Hey dizzy,
That’s a really good question!
We still don’t know exactly. Despite all the marvels of modern technology, we’ve still only seen a little under 5% of the ocean that covers 70% of our planet. We know more about the surface of Mars and Venus and the back side of the moon than we know about the seafloor!I think it is likely that there are loads of species of marine life living down there that we didn’t discover yet. These creatures probably look very different to anything we could imagine as the conditions at the bottom of the ocean are very harsh – it is completely dark, and the weight of the ocean would squash you in an instant!
Scientists recently discovered a new animal living at the bottom of the ocean which they called a ‘spaghetti worm’ because they are found in a big tangle and it’s so difficult to make out where one ends and another begins, just like spaghetti!
As well as lots of new animals, which could probably tell us a lot about evolution, I think there are lots of interesting geological features that could tell us loads about the processes that were responsible for shaping the Earth’s surface. Like dry land, the ocean floor isn’t flat: there are deep trenches, so deep that a mountain like Everest would just disappear inside them, and there are even millions of volcanoes down there!
In fact, there are more than one million underwater volcanoes in the Pacific Ocean alone! At the moment, less than 1% of these volcanoes have been studied. So that means that less than 1% of the Earth’s sea floor has been mapped!
It’s very difficult to study these underwater volcanoes, because as well as the darkness and weight of the ocean, these volcanoes are spewing out lava, just like other volcanoes! The amount of lava produced by underwater volcanoes in 1 year is enough to cover an area the size of Europe with more than half a metre of lava! This lava creates a really interesting ecosystem and most of the fauna living in the deepest waters are not familiar even to scientists. But scientists do believe that these deep-sea ecosystems can even rival that of the tropical rainforests.
Lets hope we can get there soon to find out!
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