The World in the Hadal Deep

The World in the Hadal Deep 

Painting by Dr Abe V Rotor

Hadal Deep in acrylic, twin paintings depicting life at the deepest bottom

 of the sea in Marianas Trench and Philippine Deep, by AVRotor 2021

The hadal zone is full of life, seat of rich biodiversity, real and imagined, a world of Jules Verne*, and Jacques-Yves Cousteau**, novelist and scientist, respectively.

The hadal deep is beyond reach of the sun, the prime mover of life through photosynthesis as we know, but here the life-giving process is chemosynthesis.***

The hadal deep, thinnest layer of the earth's crust, sits on the Ring of Fire studded with submarine volcanos and vents that continuously emit heat, gases, lava and other debris needed in chemosynthesis.

The hadal deep, is self-sustaining, self-generating, like any ecological system we know; it forms a biome - aggrupation of ecosystems, likened to our forests and coral reefs. 

The hadal deep biome, the least understood of the biomes we know, operates on the principles of energy flow governing food chains, food web, ecological pyramid, and other forms of inter-relationships. 

The hadal deep settled down after the earth's turbulent geologic past, although still dependent on continental drift, tectonic movement, and other phenomena,   

The hadal deep, to the imagination of the enlightened, is a paradise in its own kind, a refuge from the busy world, where in darkness blooms a unique, beautiful scenery as shown in this painting. ~

• The hadal zone, also known as the hadopelagic zone, is the deepest region of the ocean, lying within oceanic trenches. The hadal zone is found from a depth of around 6,000 to 11,000 meters, and exists in long but narrow topographic V-shaped depressions. Wikipedia

• Dr AV Rotor is a former professor of Marine Ecology at the graduate schools of UST and DLSU-D 

*   Fiction writer, among his futuristic novels is Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea.

** Jacques-Yves Cousteau, AC was a French naval officer, explorer, conservationist, filmmaker, scientist, photographer, author and researcher who studied the sea and all forms of life in water.

***Chemosynthesis is a process by which food (glucose) is made by bacteria using chemicals as the energy source, rather than sunlight. Chemosynthesis occurs around hydrothermal vents and methane seeps in the deep sea where sunlight is absent.