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Marianas Trench Marine National Monument

The Marianas Trench is the deepest, darkest place on Earth. This 1,554-mile-long gash in the ocean floor, near the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, plunges nearly seven miles below the surface of the Pacific -- deep enough to submerge even Mount Everest.

Alongside the trench runs a series of 21 active, mud-spewing undersea volcanoes and hydrothermal vents, created by the same violent, undersea collision between two plates of the earth’s crust.

All of this geologic activity has created one of the most unique ecosystems on the planet. At one undersea volcano, scientists discovered a huge cauldron of molten sulfur -- a phenomenon seen on Jupiter’s moon Io but nowhere else on Earth. A vent dubbed “Champagne Vent” belches out almost pure liquid carbon dioxide.

In 2009, President Bush declared 95,222 square miles of this region -- including the trench, undersea volcanoes, the three northernmost Mariana Islands and their surrounding waters -- a marine national monument.

It may sound like an unlikely spot for a marine reserve, but sites like this could be the very source of the ocean’s bounty. Many scientists believe that extreme conditions like those in and around the trench could have been the first incubators of life on Earth. Indeed, some of the oldest known forms of life -- thick, colorful mats of bacteria -- are found near undersea vents, as well some of the weirder denizens of the deep, such as tubeworms and giant clams.

Outside the trench, the coral reefs surrounding the three northernmost Mariana islands are among the most pristine on the planet. This reef ecosystem is home to more than 300 kinds of stony corals, about 900 species of reef fish and vast numbers of sharks. Twenty-nine species of whales live here or pass through these waters.

Protecting these remote hotspots of ocean diversity could be a key solution to restoring the health of the world’s oceans.

last revised 8/26/2009