Scouting the Territory

 After some consideration and outside opinions, I have decided on writing my paper on the Mariana Trench. I had just watched a video that showed how deep the ocean really is, and it compared the varying depths to structures such as the Eiffel Tower and even Mount Everest. Coincidentally, I saw the comments left on my first blog post by Professor Goeller, and he also suggested the Mariana Trench as a possible topic. When I googled “Mariana Trench”, the first thing that came up was a link to an article by National Geographic that gives a brief overview of the dives and expeditions that were done to reach the bottom of the trench. When I looked on Wikipedia, the thing that caught my eye the most was the section titled “Pollution” which talks about the extremely concentrated levels of PCBs found in crustacean scavengers and sediment in the trench. PCBs are chemical toxins that were banned in the 1970s due to their harm to the environment. Plastic bags and candy wrappers were also found in the trench in 2019. There was also a section that spoke about how in 1972, the trench was a proposed site for nuclear waste disposal. When I searched Mariana Trench on Google Scholar, many different articles came up. The ones that stitch out to me the most were ones that spoke about igneous rocks and volcanic rocks that were found, as well as ones that spoke about the various bacteria found. Two articles I read wrote about studies done on bacterias found in the trench that was not able to survive under pressures that were below the ones at the bottom of the trench. I thought that writing about the various living organisms that live in the Mariana Trench that cannot survive in lower pressure levels than ones down there, such as the blobfish, or the psychrolutes marcidus. I also looked on amazon and various different documentaries and books about the ocean and deep-diving came up. When I looked on Google News, an article called “The mystery of Mariana Trench: World's deepest, darkest crevice with 'alien' life” came up, and with the inclusion of the phrase “alien life” I thought it might be fitting for this class. One line from the article that really stuck out to me was “Bone crushing pressure and a landscape often described as 'lunar-like'”. It was one of the first sentences of the article and it describes the Mariana Trench. The article describes the formation of the trench, the expeditions done, as well as the pollution found in the trench. It was a very interesting article to read and I think it was useful in helping me learn more of the general information of my topic. I also found another article by BBC Future that describes the voyage of the HSM Challenger titled “The Quest that Found Thousands of New Species”. It talks in-depth about the three and a half year journey done by John Murray in which he explored the deepest parts of the oceans and discovered various new species. This article was helpful to me because it helped me realize that by learning more in-depth about this voyage, I could also find more information about the species living at the bottom of the trench and find more information to include in my paper. The only controversies I found during my search of the Mariana trench were ones that spoke about the pollution found in the waters as well as nuclear waste that was found as well. Overall, throughout my exploration through Google and the Mariana Trench, I was able to find a more specific topic and idea to focus my research on. I also decided to include a picture that shows how deep the Mariana Trench really is just because I found it so interesting as well as surprising.

Links:

The Mystery of Mariana Trench: 

    https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/rest-of-world/the-mystery-of-mariana-trench-worlds-deepest-darkest-crevice-with-alien-life/articleshow/80231460.cms

BBC Article: 

    https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210204-the-quest-that-discovered-thousands-of-new-species