Menu Close

What would happen if you dive to the bottom of the ocean?

What would happen if you dive to the bottom of the ocean?

A: It’s a form of decompression sickness initially observed in deep sea divers. At great depths under water the excess pressure causes nitrogen gas to be absorbed into the blood. If the diver surfaces too quickly the nitrogen forms bubbles in the blood which raise havoc in the body.

Why is there pressure at the bottom of the ocean?

At any depth in the ocean, the weight of the water above pushes on any object below it. With every foot an object descends into the ocean, more water is pushing down and against it, and more pressure is exerted upon that object.

What is the pressure of the bottom of the ocean floor compared to?

HISTORIC DIVE The water pressure at the bottom of the trench is a crushing eight tons per square inch—or about a thousand times the standard atmospheric pressure at sea level. Pressure increases with depth.

How does pressure impact animals in the ocean?

The impacts of pressure at ocean depth are less for organisms lacking gas-filled spaces like lungs or swim bladders. That’s a lot of pressure! Most organisms with gas-filled spaces (like humans) would be crushed by the pressures that other deep-sea life experience.

How does the pressure in the ocean work?

In the ocean, pressure works the same way, but instead of just having a column of air over you, you also have the weight of all the water above you, pressing down on your lungs. And water is much heavier than air. For every 10 meters you go below the surface, the pressure increases by one atmosphere.

What happens if you are at the bottom of the ocean?

(3) The water pressure is very high. The pressure from the water would push in on the person’s body, causing any space that’s filled with air to collapse. (The air would be compressed.) So, the lungs would collapse.

What is the pressure of water at sea level?

If you are at sea level, each square inch of your surface is subjected to a force of 14.6 pounds. The pressure increases about one atmosphere for every 10 meters of water depth.

How much water is moved in the ocean every second?

Overturning moves massive amounts of water. An estimated 35 million to 45 million cubic meters (between 1.2 billion and 1.6 billion cubic feet) of water per second are continually moved from the ocean bottom to the surface. The Antarctic Circumpolar Current and overturning make the waters around Antarctica an ideal habitat for many marine mammals.