English version below
Es ist Zeit für die Maria S. Merian aufzubrechen zur Forschungsmission MSM129. Im ersten Teil dieser Mission überquert das Schiff den Atlantik – beginnend in Warnemünde – um nur knapp 10 Tage später St. John‘s in Kanada zu erreichen. Im zweiten Teil geht es dann von St. John‘s durch die Labradorsee zur Spitze von Grönland und von dann bis nach Reykjavik. Dieser Blog soll das Forschungsschiff und seine Bewohner die ganze Reise über begleiten und euch einen Einblick in die Forschung und das Leben an Bord geben.
Also fangen wir doch gleich mit dem ersten Teil der Fahrt an und der Frage danach, was das Ziel dieser Forschungsreise ist.
Auf jeder Forschungsfahrt bringen die jeweiligen Forschungsgruppen ihre eigenen Messgeräte mit, die sie für ihre Projekte brauchen. Gleichzeitig gibt es aber auch Messgeräte die permanent auf dem Schiff installiert sind. Fest installierte Sensoren sammeln Informationen über oberflächennahe Wassertemperatur, Salzgehalt und Chlorophyll oder auch Strömungsgeschwindigkeit. Die Deutsche Allianz Meeresforschung (DAM) hat es sich zur Aufgabe gemacht diese Unterwegsdaten (so genannt, weil sie während der Fahrt – also unterwegs – gemessen werden) langfristig und nachhaltig für Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft zu erhalten und nutzbar zu machen. Dazu gehört, unter anderem, die Qualitätskontrolle und die Bereitstellung in annähernder Echtzeit der Daten.
Bei dieser Ausfahrt stehen diese Unterwegsdaten im Fokus und werden zum eigentlichen Grund der Forschungsfahrt. Das besondere dabei: es treffen die Mitarbeiter*innen aus dem Datenmanagement, die normalerweise von Land aus arbeiten, mit den Wissenschaftler*innen vor Ort zusammen. Ziel der Ausfahrt soll es sein die Verarbeitung und Bereitstellung der Unterwegsdaten zu optimieren. An dieser Aufgabe beteiligen sich gleich mehrere Institute: das MARUM in Bremen, Alfred-Wegner-Institut in Bremerhaven, das Institut für Ostseeforschung in Warnemünde, das Institut für Chemie und Biologie des Meeres Wilhelmshaven und der Uni Oldenburg sowie das GEOMAR Helmholtz Zentrum in Kiel.
(Foto: Stefanie Brechtelsbauer)
Den Hafen von Warnemünde haben wir bereits am 25.05 bei bestem Wetter verlassen. Inzwischen befinden wir uns schon etwas weiter entfernt von der Küste und haben die ersten Gewitter erlebt. Es sind noch nicht alle Messgeräte eingeschaltet – einige dürfen nicht immer und überall genutzt werden, denn auch auf dem Wasser müssen Ländergrenzen beachtet werden. Auf unserem Weg durch Kattegat, Skagerrak und an der Ostküste Großbritanniens vorbei kreuzen wir einige nationale Gewässer. Erst in internationalen Gewässern haben wir die Erlaubnis alle Messgeräte dauerhaft anzuschalten.
The journey begins
It’s time for the Maria S. Merian to embark on the research mission MSM129. In the first part of this mission, the ship will cross the Atlantic—starting in Warnemünde and reaching St. John’s in Canada around 10 days later. In the second part, it will travel from St. John’s through the Labrador Sea to the tip of Greenland and then on to Reykjavik. This blog will accompany the research ship and its inhabitants throughout the journey, providing you with insights into the research and life on board.
So let’s start with the first part of the journey and the question of what the goal of this research trip is.
On every research trip, the respective research groups bring their own measuring devices that they need for their projects. At the same time, there are also devices permanently installed on the ship. Fixed sensors collect information about surface water temperature, salinity, and chlorophyll, as well as current speed. The German Marine Research Alliance (DAM) has made it its mission to preserve and make these underway data (so-called because they are measured while underway) long-term and sustainably usable for science and society. This includes, among other things, quality control and the provision of the data in near real-time.
This expedition focuses on these underway data and has become the main reason for the research trip. The special aspect of this is that data management staff, who normally work from land, will join the scientists on site. The goal of the trip is to optimize the processing and provision of the underway data. Several institutes are involved in this task: MARUM in Bremen, Alfred Wegener Institute in Bremerhaven, the Institute for Baltic Sea Research in Warnemünde, the Institute for Chemistry and Biology of the Marine Environment in Wilhelmshaven and the University of Oldenburg, as well as the GEOMAR Helmholtz Center in Kiel.
(Photo: Stefanie Brechtelsbauer)
(Photo: Gregor Börner)
We left the port of Warnemünde on May 25th in the best weather. By now, we are already a bit further away from the coast and have experienced the first thunderstorms. Not all measuring devices are switched on yet—some cannot be used all the time and everywhere because, even on the water, national borders must be respected. On our way through the Kattegat, Skagerrak, and along the east coast of Great Britain, we cross several national waters. Only in international waters are we allowed to turn on all the measuring devices permanently.
Our ocean is an incredibly vast and mysterious place. And there is no place where that is more evident than the deepest ocean area in the world: the legendary Mariana Trench. Located east of the Philippines, the Mariana Trench lies in the Mariana Archipelago in the western portion of the North Pacific. The greater area of the Mariana Trench Marine National Monument is made up of more than 95,000 square miles of ocean. Beneath these waters lie incredibly complex aggregations of submerged islands and volcanoes … and of course, an astoundingly massive trench.
Dive in with us to have your biggest questions answered about the famed Mariana Trench.
How deep is the Mariana Trench?
The deepest part of the Mariana Trench, known as Challenger Deep, is almost 36,000 feet below the ocean’s surface. For context, Mount Everest is about 29,000 feet above sea level, so the Mariana Trench is about 7,000 feet deeper than Mount Everest is tall. For one more comparison, the RMS Titanic lies at a depth of about 12,500 feet below sea level. The Challenger Deep is in waters nearly three times deeper than this ship’s final resting place.
Due to its enormous size, the Mariana Trench has at times been affectionately nicknamed the Grand Canyon of the ocean. This is certainly a picturesque image, but don’t let the mammoth size of this U.S. national terrestrial park fool you into thinking the Mariana Trench matches its size. The trench’s footprint is estimated to be 120 times larger than the Grand Canyon’s, and to reach the bottom of Challenger Deep, you’d need to descend through almost six Grand Canyons stacked on top of each other before you’d reach the seafloor.
Oh … and did we mention it’s five times wider than it is deep? It’s about 43 miles wide!
What is Challenger Deep, and how long would it take to reach it?
Challenger Deep is the deepest point of the Mariana Trench. Fewer than 30 people have ever journeyed to this area. The trek below the surface is long, dark and time-consuming, and it’s not an expedition considered lightly by scientists and explorers.
The first people to descend into the depths of this area in 1960 were oceanographers Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh, and it took them close to five hours to reach Challenger Deep. Since then, more advanced submersibles have been created, but it still takes two to four hours for modern vessels to reach such depths. For example, explorer and filmmaker James Cameron reached the seafloor in a little more than 2.5 hours in the first documented solo submarine dive to the area, and it took oceanographer Dr. Dawn Wright about four hours in 2022. It is crucial that these submersibles descend slowly and steadily beneath the surface, as the immense water pressure compounds with every mile a submersible descends. Speaking of pressure …
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What is the water pressure at the bottom of the Mariana Trench?
If you thought the depth of the Mariana Trench was its only jaw-dropping feature, think again. Water pressure is one of the most important factors affecting deep-sea life. In the ocean, pressure increases by one atmosphere for every 33 feet (10 meters) of depth. One atmosphere (a unit of measurement for pressure equivalent to average air pressure at sea level) is equal to about 14.7 pounds per square inch (PSI), which is the approximate standard atmospheric pressure at sea level. If you were to convert atmospheric pressure into weight, one atmosphere is about the weight of a bowling ball. Stay with me, friends.
If a vessel were to dive 2,000 feet below the surface, the pressure would equal that of 60 bowling balls stacked atop every square inch of that submersible. But 60 bowling balls is simply nothing compared to the pressure in the Mariana Trench. The atmospheric pressure at the depths of Challenger Deep is equal to about 16,000 PSI. That pressure is about the same as the weight of an entire full-grown elephant on every square inch of a submersible!
Need a more extreme comparison? If a human were to be placed at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the pressure would be equal to that of 50 jumbo jets piled on top of a person!
Do any animals live in the Mariana Trench?
The depths of the Mariana Trench come with immense pressure and extreme darkness, but somehow, life finds a way to survive. Organisms that live at an extreme depth, like that of Challenger Deep, have to be highly adapted to low temperatures (typically just above freezing), high pressure and virtually no light at all.
Species found in the depths of the Mariana Trench might look vastly different from animals from other ocean depths because their anatomy has been refined to thrive in harsh conditions. At such great depths, these animals typically depend on chemosynthesis (using nutrient-rich waters being pumped out of hydrothermal vents) or descending detritus (dead matter that has fallen from higher parts of the ocean) for food, such as whale falls. Just a handful of these animals include species of octopuses and squids, sea cucumbers, amphipods, sea jellies, shrimp, sea worms and some wild-looking fish!
In 2025, more than 7,000 new species were discovered in the Mariana Trench, including the hadal snailfish (Pseudoliparis swirei). This is the deepest-dwelling fish currently known to science. Now, the fish has been dubbed “the Mariana snailfish.”
How was the Mariana Trench formed?
The process by which the Mariana Trench was created is a geologically fascinating one known as subduction. On the Earth’s surface, there are thin plates that cover the planet’s mantle, which is made of molten rock. If two of these plates collide, one pushes down into the Earth’s mantle while the other is pushed over the bottom plate. When this happens, a trench is formed from the drag of the bottom plate. This process can sometimes create incredibly strong earthquakes. The plates that forged the Mariana Trench’s creation are estimated to be up to approximately 180 million years old.
This trench was unknown to scientists until 1875. It was then that a team of explorers on the HMS Challenger measured the depth of the sea by simply lowering a weighted rope into the water. They were baffled when they measured that first portion of the seafloor to be five miles below the surface. And so was born the origin of some of the most daring deep-sea explorations known to mankind to date.
Is the Mariana Trench protected?
The Mariana Trench is in waters off Guam and the Mariana Islands. The region is protected from some human activities under its status as a marine monument. The creation of the Mariana Trench Marine National Monument signified that international, national and local leaders all recognize the importance of protecting this area.
However, just because the region is protected does not mean it’s not vulnerable to modern threats to ocean health. Plastic bags have been spotted in the Mariana Trench during several expeditions, highlighting the far-reaching impact of the marine debris problem. No corner of our ocean is safe from the ever-present threat of plastic pollution. The reality of a changing climate makes the future well-being of wondrous places like the Mariana Trench uncertain. What’s more: More than 70% of the global ocean has yet to be mapped. And what we don’t yet know about, we cannot wisely work to protect.
It’s up to us to work together to defend our ocean, from the sandy shores of our favorite beaches to the deepest, darkest parts of the sea. Together, we can work to protect our ocean as a whole, which ultimately helps protect treasured places like Challenger Deep.
Find out how you can join Ocean Conservancy’s wave of momentum to secure a healthy ocean and a thriving planet, forever and for everyone!
The post The Mysteries of the Mariana Trench appeared first on Ocean Conservancy.
Intro
At the western tip of Luzon, which is the biggest island of the Philippines, lies the small coastal town of Bolinao. Tourists seldom find their way here as it takes around seven hours to get here by bus from Manila. Still, you can spot foreigners walking around every now and then, but they really stand out among the Filipinos. A reason for their presence is often that they study or work at the Bolinao Marine Laboratory (BML), which belongs to the University of the Philippines (UP). It is one of the seven research institutions participating in the GAME project 2026. Every year, GAME brings together Master’s students from all over the world to experience different cultures and conduct globally replicated experiments in marine ecology.
This year’s Team Philippines consists of Jona, a Filipino master student of Marine Biology at the University of the Philippines, and Konstantin, a German student who is enrolled in the Master programme „Ecology and Evolution“ at Freiburg University. As part of GAME 2026, we are currently staying at BML for 6 months to run experiments about the influence of underwater soundscapes on the colonization of marine hardbottoms.
Where are we?
At the BML, we live in a dormitory together with many other students and scientists mostly from the Philippines and a few international interns. At almost any time of the day there is someone in the kitchen to hang out with, eat together, or simply have a chat. It is easy to make friends in this little community. The way to work is just a short walk along a forest path, where we can pick mangos for a snack and spot butterflies, birds, or even wild macaques climbing through the trees. After crossing a street, we reach the institute. But instead of enjoying the cool temperatures of the laboratories, we spend most of our working days outside, doing fieldwork in or near the water.
