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Mariana's Trench

Photos of Mariana's Trench

       The Marianas Trench, is a scar on the earth’s surface, this scar was made by the process of tectonic plates. Tectonic Force is responsible for the Marianas Trench formation. How can when a plate is topped by an oceanic crus  is subducted beneath another plate, which that plate istopped by another oceanic crust. The Pacific plate dives in beneath the Mariana plate, this is where the subduction process. After it gets started it starts to sink down into the earth’s surface, Earth’s plates cause something this deep in the earth’s surface? The tectonic plate/Force occurs which is of course under water. The Marianas Trench is around 11,000 miles down into the earth. How did the Marianas Trench become the Earth's deepest point? We`ll this was due to heavy lava. Even today the pacific plate is still moving the earth’s crust from its beginning place, in the East Pacific Ridge, to where it is now. The Mariana’s Trench is 36,070 miles long below sea level, the deepest part of the ocean and earth. It is moving 3-inches a year; meaning that every 4 million years the pacific plate goes down by an area the size of the United States. Mariana’s Trench has been growing since it started forming and will keep on growing.

     When you think about James Cameron, you probably think about movies and Avatar, well James and his submersible are really well known when it comes to the Mariana’s Trench. He was the first person to go down in the deep trench after over 50 years. The first two people

that went down didn’t get a chance to get any pictures of the Mariana’s Trench because of

sediment being disturbed when they landed. Thanks to James Cameron, he made it possible for us to know what kind of organisms were down in the deep trench. He brought animal samples and bacterial samples.

     Tourism is not hurting the Mariana’s Trench, because no one is really able to take a tour in the trench. But there are certainly other things that are causing damages to Mariana’s Trench like ocean acidification, this is where the pH level decreases, caused by the increase of carbon

dioxide from the atmosphere. Ocean Acidification is harming organisms with shells, without

their shells how can they survive? Organisms without shells are also affected by this, causing them to slowly die.

     For the voyage James Cameron had to wear a breathable T-shirt and the bottom half of a fire-resistant suit. The sub that James was going to enter was like a capsule for an astronaut. The sub will descend about 500 ft. a minute. The voyage to the deepest trench on earth took about 6 hours, 2hrs. to get down there and 4hrs. to explore. While exploring the deep-sea plates, several new species and several new type of bacteria were seen and brought back to analyze. Some 20,000 microbes from the trench are being picked over and will be going into genetic analysis. James said “... abundant numbers of xenphyophores, a giant amoeba that is among the largest individual cells in existence.” Overall the voyage was a great success and a great experience for James Cameron.

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