Deepest Place on Earth Contains 'Extraordinary' Pollution Levels
One of the most remote places on Earth isn't immune to pollution that likely came from industrialized areas nearby.
In a surprise finding, scientists say the amount of pollutants in the Pacific Ocean’s Mariana Trench—one of the most remote locations on Earth—is so high that it outpaces the amounts found in a heavily polluted Chinese river.
Crustaceans that live in the trench, which extends 36,000 feet (11,000 meters) below sea level, were captured by a robotic submarine. In the journal Nature, Ecology & Evolution, scientists reported that they found 50 times more pollutants in those crustaceans than in crabs from paddy fields fed by the Liaohe River, one of the most polluted rivers in China.
The chemicals discovered by scientists include two persistent organic pollutants, or POPs, produced between the 1930s and 1970s. The study reports that about 1.3
