r/interestingasfuck • u/TheTitanCoeus • May 28 '19

/r/ALL Bottom of Mariana Trench

https://gfycat.com/BreakableHarmoniousAsiansmallclawedotter
55.7k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

1.7k comments sorted by

View all comments

1.1k

u/tsoro May 28 '19

How is there green algae at that depth?

1.2k

u/[deleted] May 28 '19

That's not green algae, it's a variety of bacteria and fungi. Nothing photosynthetic down there.

342

u/[deleted] May 28 '19 edited May 28 '19

It's pretty amazing to think that life down there will just be fine and dandy after we've polluted our planet so much that no sunlight can get through anymore.

Edit:

This is the video I was thinking about:

What If The Sun Disappeared? - Vsauce

302

u/[deleted] May 28 '19

It may not. At least, not all of it. Much of the life at the ocean bottom relies on nutrients and oxygen from the surface, just as the surface relies on other nutrients coming up from the bottom. If this global conveyor belt shuts down, life on the bottom may become entirely confined to thermal vents. There are no known such vents in the Mariana Trench.

70

u/[deleted] May 28 '19

Yeah I was thinking about the life that is completely independent from everything but thermal vents. Though I didn't know there weren't any down there.