11 Kilometres Down: Life Without Sunlight in the Mariana Trench

A slow, calm dive from the sunlit surface of the Pacific to the floor of the Challenger Deep, almost 11 kilometres down, in this 62-minute ocean documentary. Zone by zone, we meet what lives at every depth: the twilight zone's glowing fish, anglerfish and whale falls in the midnight zone, sea pigs and ten-thousand-year-old sponges in the abyss, the deepest fish in the world, and the amphipods and microbes of the trench floor. Then the volcanoes and vents of the Mariana arc, the people and machines that went down, and what we have sent after them. A depth card in the corner marks each zone. Made for relaxing, studying or falling asleep. CHAPTERS 0:00 The deepest place on Earth 1:53 The ship and the rope 7:22 The sunlit zone (0–200 m) 11:48 The twilight zone (200–1,000 m) 17:00 The midnight zone (1,000–4,000 m) 22:36 The abyss (4,000–6,000 m) 29:11 Into the trench (hadal zone) 34:28 The deepest fish 38:40 What lives at the bottom 44:18 The people who went down 50:04 Volcanoes and vents 55:30 What we have sent down 58:58 The return SOURCES & CREDITS Video: NOAA Ocean Exploration (NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer, ROV Deep Discoverer; public domain). NOAA does not endorse this channel. Photographs: Wikimedia Commons contributors under public domain, CC0, CC BY and CC BY-SA licences, U.S. Navy, NASA, NOAA, JAMSTEC. Diagrams (ocean zones, pressure, temperature, light, subduction, map, timeline, depth limits): drawn by Inside How. Facts follow published research and NOAA/expedition reports; where the science is uncertain, the narration says so. Narration is a synthetic voice. Script, diagrams and editing by Inside How. Wikimedia Commons files used: 330-ps-9873--428-gx-usn-10446612 15357890721 o.jpg — unknown author (Public domain); Aerial view of Naval Base Guam during Multi-Sail 2016 160305-N-OG363-001.jpg — Jeffrey Landis (Public domain); Argyropelecus gigas.jpg — NOAA's Fisheries Collection (Public domain); Bathymetric map of Guam.jpg — National Centers for Environmental Information, NOAA (Public domain); Bathynomus giganteus hi-res.jpg — NOAA (Public domain); Bathynomus kensleyi and Bathynomus doederleinii NMMBA.jpg — Tiouraren (Y.-C. Tsai) (CC BY-SA 4.0); Bathynomus maxeyorum.jpg — Tom Kennedy (CC BY 4.0); Bathyscaphe Trieste.jpg — Unknown authorUnknown author (Public domain); Bathyscaphe Trieste with USS Lewis (DE-535) over the Marianas Trench on 23 January 1960 (USN 710619).jpg — unknown author (Public domain); Black smoker rocks (sulfidic wad) (Helen Iron-Formation, Neoarchean, 2696-2749 Ma; Sir James Pit, Eleanor Iron Range, Ontario, Canada) 26 (48069926873).jpg — James St. John (CC BY 2.0); Burgess Shale reconstruction.jpg — PaleoEquii (CC BY-SA 4.0); Challenger H2017 82 2.jpg — Herbert Swire (Public domain); Cyclothone acclinidens.tif — FishesAreFriends1982 (CC BY 4.0); DSV Bakunawa descending underwater.jpg — Inkfish LLC (CC BY-SA 4.0); DSV Bakunawa on deck 2.jpg — Inkfish LLC (CC BY-SA 4.0); DSV Bakunawa on seafloor.jpg — Inkfish LLC (CC BY-SA 4.0); DSV Bakunawa on surface.jpg — Inkfish LLC (CC BY-SA 4.0); Deepsea Challenger Batteries.jpg — Z22 (CC BY-SA 4.0); Giant Isopod (18443864634).jpg — Eric Kilby from Somerville, MA, USA (CC BY-SA 2.0); Hal - Malacosteus niger - 1.jpg — Emőke Dénes (CC BY-SA 4.0); Hal - Malacosteus niger - 2.jpg — Emőke Dénes (CC BY-SA 4.0); Hal - Melanocetus johnsonii - 3.jpg — Emőke Dénes (CC BY-SA 4.0); Hal - Melanocetus johnsonii - 4.jpg — Emőke Dénes (CC BY-SA 4.0) #ocean #documentary #marianatrench