The Challenger Deep

A few days ago, Sarah and i were talking about how we would love to see Jurassic Park again...mostly because we haven't watched it in years. It's a subject we bring up every few months or so...and it's one of those things that you always forget about when you're at the video store looking for somehthing to rent.
Last night, on a rare (honestly) evening of flipping through channels on our brand new directv system (the novelty has not worn off), Sarah and i chanced upon...what else? Jurassic Park! It had only been going for about a half hour...and we were just in time for the T-rex scene. The sfx are still spectacular. It was quite fun.

When the movie was over, we flipped back one channel and watched a special on the Nat'l Geographic station about ocean trenches and Tsunamis. The ocean has always held a mysterious, haunting fascination for my sister and i. The narrator said that only 10% of the worlds oceans have been explored...and the last attempt tp reach the bottom of the Mariana trench, the deepest in the ocean, was in 1960! Forget outer space...lets explore our own planet! Let's learn more about our very own alien life 7 miles below the surface!!

7 miles...i read somewhere that if you cut Mount Everest off at sea level and put it on the ocean bottom in the Mariana Trench, there would still be over a mile of water over the top of it. In the documentary, we learned that the pressure at the bottom is so intense (16,000lbs per sq inch!) that if the submersivle that was sent down had sprung even the tiniest leak, water would come through so fast it would have torn throught the mens bodies, killing them instantly.
And there are creatures LIVING down there...it's incredible. And we know next to nothing about them. Or rather, no human has ever even seen most of them before. Doesn't that stir something in you...??
The ocean is so terrifying and amazing...if i were smarter (and braver) i would go and explore it myself.