The earth is a beautiful planet, divided into land and ocean. It is the existence of the vast ocean that makes the earth a beautiful ecological planet and gradually evolves into a planet of life. According to the research of scientists, the total area of the ocean is about 360 million square kilometers, accounting for about 71% of the entire earth’s surface, while the land area accounts for only 29%, of which one third is desert.
The ocean is very important for the formation and stability of the earth’s ecology, and the earliest primitive life on the earth was born in the ocean 3.8 billion years ago. In the early days, there were no terrestrial organisms on the earth. Later, after marine organisms developed to a certain stage, some marine organisms became amphibians and began to advance to land before gradually evolving into terrestrial organisms.
Therefore, in essence, all living things on land originated from the ocean. After entering the age of science and technology, human beings have begun to explore the land and sea with the help of science and technology. After continuous exploration and research, we currently have a good understanding of 90% of the land area, but for the vast ocean, we currently know less than 10%.
The most difficult area to explore in the ocean is naturally the deep ocean. The average depth of the earth’s ocean is about 3,795 meters, and the deepest place can reach 11,000 meters. It is the Mariana Trench that we all know. Mariana Trench, also known as Mariana Trench, is located at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean near the Mariana Islands in the northeast of the Philippines, starting from Iwo Jima in the north and near Yap Island in the southwest, with a total length of about 2550 kilometers.
According to the research of scientists, this trench has been formed for 60 million years. This time point is very close to the time point of the extinction of dinosaurs, so we guess that its formation may be related to the fifth mass extinction. It may be that the impact of the asteroid caused the earth’s plates to shake a lot, and with the continuous extinction of the dinosaurs, the Mariana Trench was formed.
The Mariana Trench is a very unstable area. Various earthquakes often occur here. So what are the secrets hidden in such a deep ocean? As the deepest ocean location on earth, the Mariana Trench naturally attracts unlimited interest from scientists. Perhaps uncovering the mystery here can give us a deeper understanding of the ocean.
When exploring the Mariana Trench, what scientists most want to understand is whether there will be life here. We must know that according to the cognition of past scientists, it is difficult for life to survive in the very deep sea, and through the understanding of marine life, life is basically concentrated in an area above 1,000 meters.
Once the water depth exceeds 1,000 meters, as the depth continues to increase, the types and numbers of marine life are also declining, especially after reaching the water layer below 7,000 meters, it is basically difficult to see organisms. Scientists once discovered a new fish species measuring 18 cm in the 8,000-meter water layer. It can be seen that the depth of the sea is not entirely a forbidden zone for life, and there is still life there.
Scientists found a fish on the 8145-meter seabed of the Mariana Trench, which is nearly 500 meters deeper than the previous record. So in deeper areas or even the deepest 11,000 meters of Mariana, will there be life? It has not been discovered yet. Of course, it does not appear that there is no life at this depth. It is just that human technology wants to explore the entire Mariana Trench, which is currently difficult to do, and the pressure there is too strong.
Although scientists did not find life in the deepest part of the Mariana Trench, they found something unexpected. These things are also things that once made scientists very worried, and now they have finally appeared. For humans, the discovery of these things is not good news. So what is it that worries scientists?
In fact, the things that appear in the Mariana Trench are ubiquitous in our daily lives. They are ubiquitous plastic waste, also known as white pollution. Plastic products have become an indispensable daily necessities in the current human society. It does not need to be daily shopping or other daily necessities. Many of them are inseparable from plastics. They are the most important thing for mankind.
Plastic is a kind of high molecular polymer. It is very difficult to degrade in nature. When we throw plastic out of the wild, it can still exist even after hundreds of years. Therefore, white pollution has become the most influential type of human pollution, and it has an increasing impact on human life.
Plastics are difficult to decompose, and recycling is also very difficult for collective disposal. Therefore, a large amount of plastic waste is either buried underground or poured into the ocean gradually with the waves. There is an “island” made of plastic waste in the Pacific Ocean, covering an area of 140 square kilometers, and it continues to expand outward at a very fast rate.
This garbage island is formed by the aggregation of plastic waste from all over the world under the action of ocean currents, and we call it the “Eighth Continent”. Large pieces of plastic garbage have no terrible impact on humans, because we can see them and will not eat them by mistake. However, microplastics are hard to see. They can hide in animals and enter the human body after being eaten by humans.
Scientists found that the content of microplastics was 2.06-13.51/L in the bottom seawater of the 2673-10908m of the Mariana Trench, and the content of microplastics was 200-2200/L in the surface sediments of the 5108-10908m of the Mariana Trench. This is significantly higher than the content in most deep-sea sediments.
Plastics have been found in the depths of the Mariana Trench, which shows that the entire ocean is currently becoming more and more polluted by plastics. The ocean not only plays an important role in regulating the ecology of the land, it is also the source of a large amount of human seafood, and a large part of the seafood that people eat every year comes from the ocean.
The ocean is polluted by plastics, so a large amount of microplastics will enter the body of marine organisms, and enter the human body as humans eat seafood. Scientists have found that the content of microplastics in the human body is also increasing. This is one report. Humans have developed plastics and put them in large quantities in nature. Nature eventually returns these plastics to humans. Brings a threat to our health.