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The Mariana Trench To Scale
- novum 17y agoOceans are the new undiscovered country. Star Trek IV was on to something.
- ErrantX 17y agoIt was actually quite creepy scrolling down the page - especially as the blues switched from "there is clearly a little light here" to "black!".
- InclinedPlane 17y agoThat's actually an artistic effect. The black should properly start at 3280ft (1km) of depth. Below 200m only about 1% of light penetrates, below 1000m it's pitch black (darker than the darkest dark most humans have ever experienced in their lives).
- dantheman 17y agoI assume it's as dark as being deep down in cave? It's much easier to experience that, and I'd say quite a few people have.
- InclinedPlane 17y agoYes. The only illumination would come from bio-luminescence or artificial light. Though a lot people have been in enclosed areas that are dark, very few people have completely turned off every source of illumination in such situations.
- yummyfajitas 17y agoVery few people have ever gone into a closet and closed the door?
- tsuraan 17y agoI obviously can't speak for anybody else's experiences, but every time I've gone into a cave, the group has spent several minutes in the pitch dark, being quiet. I can't really imagine anybody not doing that; going into a cave without experiencing the dark and the silence would be a much less interesting experience.
- dugmartin 17y agoSame for me on every cave trip. The fun part is that if you do it long enough your brain starts making up shadow images that you would swear are real.
- scott_s 17y agoOur minds are not adapted to sensory deprivation. Hence, prolonged sensory deprivation can induce hallucinations, and exceedingly long sensory deprivation (combined with restraints to prevent movement) can impact sanity.
- masomenos 17y agoI think you're underestimating the ubiquity of caves.
- ajross 17y agoOr a darkroom. Or just a closed closet in a dark house on a moonless night. Black is black, it's hardly beyond most of our experience to be sightless.
- nfnaaron 17y agoI had a very similar reaction as I scrolled down, somewhere between creepy and despair.
- akadien 17y agoThat's because the deeper you go, the closer you get to Hell, which everybody knows is at the exact center of the Earth: http://www.orthodoxengland.org.uk/demonsscr.htm http://www.orthodoxengland.org.uk/demonsscr.htm
- logicalmind 17y agoWasn't the earth considered flat when hell became a concept? How could it have a center?
- akadien 17y agoI don't know. The Greeks figured out the earth was spherical, but maybe everyone before them thought is was flat. Go ask the voices in the hole in Kola.
- jodrellblank 17y agohttp://www.snopes.com/religion/wellhell.asp http://www.snopes.com/religion/wellhell.asp
- akadien 17y agoThank you for pointing out the obvious with a reference to Snopes.
- tsally 17y agoAnd here's the depth of the ocean scaled to width (via Reddit): http://i.imgur.com/1oLog.png http://i.imgur.com/1oLog.png. Seems a bit shallow when you show it like that.
- metamemetics 17y agoSure it scales, but completely vertically. Talk about an expensive server.
- johndoe77 17y agoThis is kind of related but the National Geographic special "Drain the Ocean" is a great watch. http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/episode/drain-the-ocean-3639/Overview http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/episode/drain-the-ocea...
- dhume 17y agoExtended: http://i.imgur.com/Behcf.jpg http://i.imgur.com/Behcf.jpg
- chasingsparks 17y agoThe Seaquest DSV could take it.
- far33d 17y agoCall me crazy, but I read this as "The Marijuana Trench To Scale"
- protomyth 17y ago"Sperm whales are believed to be able to reach 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) and remain submerged for 90 minutes." - that's a lot of darkness for an air breathing mammal to go through. (quote from wikipedia)
- ajross 17y agoWhich is why toothed whales evolved echolocation. On a related subject: why is the blue whale referenced on the chart? It's big, but doesn't dive particularly deeply. It eats krill, which themselves are tied to photosynthesizing plankton which are tied to the surface waters. There's no reason for it to be interested in diving beyond there.
- protomyth 17y agoPerhaps because it is the biggest? That is really the only explanation I can think of. Unless you wanted to show where the plankton feeders hunt to illustrate light penetration.