[Infographic] Interesting Critters of the Marina Trench

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The Mariana Trench is the deepest part anywhere in the Earth’s oceans. The water pressure in the trench is nearly 1,000 times greater than at sea level.

The estimates vary a little, but at its blackest depths, a crease called the Challenger Deep, this abyss is close to 36,037 feet (10,984 meters), or about 6.8 miles (10.9 kilometers) deep.

The pressure is so high that it will crush nearly any creature (or manmade object), unless that animal or vessel is built specifically to withstand those extremes.

This particular area of the sea, then, is more than a little inhospitable. But these expanses are not lifeless.

A few manned and unmanned vehicles have parted the waters of the trench in recent years, proving that there are indeed organisms living and even thriving in this nearly alien environment. Fittingly, some of these critters are wonderfully strange.

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Source: Maritime Cyprus