The Deep Blue Sea: Whats down there?

I have heard many stories of sea monsters and strange fish, so I came to wonder, what if some of them were true?

I have recently been told that around about 5% of all the ocean on the world as been discovered so far. So this could leave a huge margin of strange new species or fish or so called monsters.

It just makes me wonder what is really hidden down in the depths where humans just cannot go.

Just makes me think that these 'sea monsters' could be real. But this is just my opinion, i would like to hear more.

Thanks, Opulisum

[edit on 11-4-2007 by Opulisum]

Originally posted by Opulisum
I have recently been told that around about 5% of all the ocean on the world as been discovered so far.

Actually it is more like 100% of the ocean on the world as been discovered so far! In fact it IS 100%...

But, I see where your coming from. Heck, just the new(ish) species they are find now are staggering. Giant tube worms living on volcanic vents 2 miles deep with no sunlight and such.

True cryptids are getting rarer and rarer arent they. Wasn't the giant squid considered a cryptid within the last 50 years? The best discovery would be some kind of mega shark, but what's to eat down there? From what I have seen in nature shows and such, there is almost nothing to eat down there! The basic food unit is marine "snow" which is detrious and such from everything higher up filtering down. It can take some snow as long as 3 months to make it to the floor!

Anyway you make a good point we don't know the lay of the land that well and new flora and fauna can pop up like crazy down deep (just like in the deep rainforest). They even just rediscovered a type of Marlin they thought extinct, it turned out to just look an awful lot like another type of Marlin and everone is straightend out now.

Well thanks for the comment anyway.

I think I ment that 5% of all the ocenas have been explored, but now i look like a fool

Anyways good to get my first comment.

So what do you mean by explored? They have all been mapped... If you mean human eyes have been there, then I can understand the 5% thingy.

I wasn't out to make you the fool btw... Just prod out the clarification.

Anyway there is a Nat Geo show "Blue Planet" where they go all over the place and show various ecosystems. I caught the deep see one (because I like those weird fish down there) and what they showed was desolate! Little islands of life surrounding the vents and such but the rest was utter desolation! Then again, they only went a few places, but hard to argue the lack of life where the sun never reaches. Yes stuff does live there but its on a subsistance basis and much of the critters conserve their precious calories until they are sure to get a meal and make movement worth it!

You ever see a vampire squid? Their tenacles are covered in spikes, and they can fake eyes all over themselves to fool predators!

Originally posted by whargoul
[Actually it is more like 100% of the ocean on the world as been discovered so far! In fact it IS 100%...

We haven't been to the depest depths of the ocean. No.. I don't know where you heard or read that but it's inaccurate.

[edit on 11-4-2007 by SpeakerofTruth]

There are many depths in the world's oceans and seas that man has yet to plunge. Even with our most cutting edge technologies, we haven't been able to create unmaned mini subs that can handle the pressure of the darkest depths. There is group that acoustically monitors the seas and oceans, and have come accross several unkown sounds that have crept up from these depths. Very interesting.

heres the link to listen

ACOUSTIC MOITORING: UNIDENTIFIED SOUNDS OF THE DEEP

Those sounds were pretty cool. I had read about the "Bloop" here before and was under the impresion that is was pretty regularly occuring (just not known what it was or where exactly it was).

www.abovetopsecret.com...

nice sounds link! very interesting! No doubt there are things in the ocean vwery deep that we have no idea about. New fish are being discovered all the time.

I think we have put bathospheres down on the sea bed with men in them in the marianas trench something like 35,810 feet down. So we can go to the deepest parts of any ocean and see whats down there. The Trieste the sphere that did it was way back in 1953 so it can easily be repeated with newer tech, although maybe not worth while.

I too want there to be some cool giant sea going creatures, but so far there isn't any evidence of it.

The strange sounds could be a whole lot of things that the scientists aren't thinking about. US Naval Subs almost always do active sonar (I know they usually run passive, but they have all sorts of reasons to broadcast sounds outside their boats now) pings using wierd sounds, imitated biological sounds, techtonic sounds, or really just about any sound they want to make. Active Sonar equipment basically is a giant sound synthesiser (I'm pretty sure the military invented the additive synthesiser for just this purpose) and can broadcast any sound on earth it wants to. So there is always the possibility the scientists have recorded one of our own boats. The real leviathans out there are the various militaries around the worlds secret submarine projects. Check out the story of the NR1.

Originally posted by BASSPLYR
I think we have put bathospheres down on the sea bed with men in them in the marianas trench something like 35,810 feet down. So we can go to the deepest parts of any ocean and see whats down there. The Trieste the sphere that did it was way back in 1953 so it can easily be repeated with newer tech, although maybe not worth while.

We have been to the bottom of the ocean,yes. However, do not equate the bottom with the deepest because it's not the same thing. Not at all. We have not been at the deepest depths of the ocean. No.

[edit on 11-4-2007 by SpeakerofTruth]

Originally posted by SpeakerofTruth
We have been to the bottom of the ocean,yes. However, do not equate the bottom with the deepest because it's not the same thing. Not at all. We have not been at the deepest depths of the ocean. No.
[edit on 11-4-2007 by SpeakerofTruth]

Actually we more or less have been within 500ft of the deepest record depth. Here's a link:

www.wired.com...

Vas

How deep we go is irrelevant, since we can only a see a couple of meters from that position. How large is the ocean? larger

I read an article by Amitakh Stanford about a race of aliens, Lamurians who
created an underwater, domed city to escape being destroyed by another, more powerful alien race?

Well, a team of British scientists are, as we speak, investigating a 300 square mile area under the Atlantic ocean where the earth's crust is missing. They saw it by satilite.

I have been following their daily progress, because of course, I was hoping that they had inadvertidly found the Lamurian underwater world.

Here's the kicker: on Monday, April 2nd they posted a rather interesting log in their daily journal. They had begun dredging the area, and guess what they found... diamonds where they shouldn't be. Perfect diamonds.

Well, of course my ears perked up, because the Lamurians, being a highly advanced race, would have known how to construct an underwater dome out of the hardest substance on earth right? You can go look at the diamonds for yourselves at this link:

www.classroomatsea.net...

Click the link on the left that says, "Live on The Web" drilling Mid-atlantic ridge, then click Daily Diary, and then click April 2nd. This will explain in detail about the diamonds.

Also, here's the link to Amitakh Stanford, and...

www.xeeatwelve.net...

her explanation about the Lamurians. It's great reading. She talks about how they are affecting the warming of the planet by trying to free their mother ships from under the artic ice with mirco wave devices.

The melting under the ice is a fact of course, here's a great article:

www.npr.org...

Another interesting thing about this article: "60 Min" recently did a story about the mysterious 70 percent drop in artic seals - well, the micro wave device used by the Lamurians to melt the ice, creates a poison.

Another interesting thing, they haven't made another diary entry since April 2nd.

Hey, I'm just putting it out there for your intertainment, and edification



[edit on 12-4-2007 by eyespy2]

My understanding is that we have not been to the ultimate depths. The places that we have been to however, is the equivalent of setting a candle in the middle of the grand canyon from a several mile long rope. we can only see about 3 feet (meter) because of the extreme darkness. You can imagine if you were to drop a candle attached to a rope and drop it into the grand canyon what you might expect to see, maybe an ant or bug if you are lucky. Rest assured there are creatures thriving down there that can only be imagined.

A few things:

The deepest part of the ocean is the Marianas Trench. Its deepest point is 10,923 meters (35,838 ft.). It was surveyed fully in 1951 by the British naval vessel Chellenger II. They gave the deepest section of the trench the name "Challenger Deep".

In 1960 the Trieste, manned by two men, successfully reached the bottom of the trench (and yes, it reached the floor in the deepest part of the trench: Challenger Deep). The vessels' onboard systems indicated the depth at being aroud, after the numbers were fixed for accuracy, 35,798 ft. In their seven minutes at that depth they observed various small soles and flounder (proving that vertibrates can withstand the extreme preasure of the ocean depths). They also found diatomaceous, a type of phytoplankton.

Source

In fact: less then 10% of the ocean has been explored. That is less then 10% of the planets largest 'living space' (the ocean is 99% of the Earth's living space). The figure of 'less then 10%' is actually quite a liberal one. If I wanted to go with the popular number I would be hitting around less then 5%; as the OP stated.

Source

Source

Source

Not all of this unexplored area is of the 19,000 feet and deeper variety. And life seems to thrive at all levels of the ocean. From the thousands of species that have been discovered 10,000 feet and below to the life that is still being discovered at the very bottom...there is life. Sometimes is startles us (the flounders and soles) and much is left to be discovered.

What is found may not be 'monsterous' as there are only so many giant squid type creatures, but new life is always exciting...as big or as small as it may be.

i have the blue planet on DVD, i absolutely love deep sea investigations
OP if you haven't already seen it i suggest going to www.youtube.com where you can watch the entire deep sea episode of the blue planet for free.
i must admit that even though i watch alot of these programs, i never realised that the marianas trench had been fully explored! i saw a BBC documentary made last year i believe, that merely skirted the row of 'mountains' either side of the trench and assumed (yes i know, bad skeptic! naughty skeptic!) that being as they had the latest technologies they would have gone as far as they could.

another thing that fascinates me, is the amount of water as yet unexplored in the amazon. as we all know, the amazon is one of the biggest unexplored regions in the world. i actually watched yet another documentary on this subject, where a team of divers attempted to study life in the waterways. aside from the danger of crocs, hippos and piranhas, the water itself is thick with silt due to the amount of rain the area gets. the study yielded some interesting results, including freshwater dolphins and new species of fish. but overall the whole expedition was unhappy.

welcome to ATS, OP

Yes we have explored 100% of the oceans SURFACE but below the surface we havent even explored up to 1% yet. David Attenborough said so! YOU CANT ARGUE WITH HIM!! lol

This kinda reminds me of cloverfield the movie, its got me thinking -imagine if something alien dropped from the sky and some how adapted to ocean conditions only to become something monsterous... Who knows....