Our transcription: It's not too surprising that humans have not actually walked on the floor of the deep ocean when we consider the extreme conditions that exist in that environment.
Here on the Earth's surface we live in sunlight and warmth, but the deep sea floor is in absolute darkness with temperatures close to freezing.
A person standing on the floor of the open ocean would also be exposed to the tremendous weight of the overlying water.
This column of water which is over three and a half kilometers high exerts a pressure hundreds of times greater than atmospheric pressure here on Earth.
A person my size, for example, would be exposed to a total force of about 9 million kilograms.
That's about a hundred times the weight of this entire ship.
A force like that would instantly crush my body to a lump about the size of a soccer ball, but the fact that scientists don't actually walk on the floor of the deep ocean doesn't mean we know nothing about it.
Using research submersibles, which are specially designed to withstand the tremendous pressures, scientists have examined portions of the deep ocean floor in person by peering through windows one-half meter in thickness.
Each window is made of a single flawless quartz crystal.It is mounted in a titanium metal pressure hull one meter thick.
|
