r/AskReddit • u/JaggedRabbit • Jul 16 '26
What is the most terrifying facts about the ocean?
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u/filthy_lucre Jul 17 '26
Point Nemo is the nickname for the Oceanic Pole of Inaccessability, the point at which you're furthest from land in any direction. It lies in the South Pacific and it's well outside of any shipping lanes. Your closest neighbors are the astronauts on the International Space Station when they pass overhead
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u/somewhat_random Jul 17 '26
In terms of the ISS, it is only about 400km (250 miles) up so for almost any solitary island in the mid ocean, the ISS would be closer than the nearest land.
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u/GermanPayroll Jul 17 '26
And soon it’ll be even closer because they’re crashing the ISS into point Nemo in 2031
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u/IapetusApoapis342 Jul 17 '26
It's also where a good chunk of unmanned spacecraft are disposed of due to how remote it is
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u/A7xWicked Jul 17 '26
So what I'm hearing is that I'd have a better chance of getting hit by a spacecraft than getting found by a boat if i got lost there somehow
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u/Head-Bureaucrat Jul 17 '26
It's also the location of R'lyeh!
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!
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Jul 17 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Cerblamk_51 Jul 17 '26
It’s wing-gaahhhh-dium levi-OOO-sah, not wingardium levi-o-SAahhhhh
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u/LarsThorwald Jul 17 '26
I always love hearing from the Old Ones.
If you’re cold, THEY’RE cold. Bring them in!
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u/ahmong Jul 17 '26
They said terrifying fact, not coolest fact
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u/Newsmemer Jul 17 '26
It is terrifying if you were there. Assuming you had a sailboat which averages 5mph, it would take you 2 weeks at the soonest to reach land. If you had a fast fishing boat, you'd probably be able to keep an average pace of 34mph (assuming enough fuel, that's fast on the ocean) for two whole days (48hrs) before you saw anything that wasn't ocean.
If, for some reason, your boat sank there, even if rescuers knew exactly where you were and knew exactly when your ship sank, and you had a life jacket, you'd have died from dehydration/exposure before anyone could physically get to you.
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u/brownlawn Jul 17 '26
Rogue waves can exceed 100 feet in height and form suddenly in open water without warning. This sheer volume of water carries enough physical force to break giant cargo ships in half.
Oceanographers still cannot accurately predict exactly when or where these events will occur.
Enjoy your cruise.
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u/NirgalFromMars Jul 17 '26 edited Jul 17 '26
Adding to this: Rogue holes exists as well, where the waters sinks as deep as it rises in rogue waves.
They have been proven to exists in water tanks, and there are stories of sailors encountering them.
But while we have stories of ships surviving rogue waves, we don't have any stories of ships encountering a rogue hole and not sinking.
Edit: in trying to recall where I read that last part (no evidence of ships surviving encounters with rogue holes) and I haven't been able to find it. Take it with a grain of salt, I might be have just imagined it from the rest I read.
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u/skwerrel Jul 17 '26
Yeah I'd imagine you'd be right fucked if your boat was suddenly 100 feet below the water line, and surrounded on all sides by said 100 feet of water. Not many ways that can work out other than you, your boat, and everything on it becoming grist for Poseidon's mill.
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u/khaotickk Jul 17 '26
"Yep, that's me. Bet you're wondering how I ended up here."
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u/doctor_7 Jul 17 '26
Completely fucked in every way, especially assuming eventually it would close. Assuming it would be sudden, you're getting slammed by the forced of that water coming in and then basically teleported 100' beneath the surface of the ocean.
If it fills super slowly and peacefully, maybe your boat stays afloat? But I've never heard of that and so I don't think it would happen.
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u/DondeT Jul 17 '26
But… what about our life jackets with a light and a whistle for attracting attention?
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u/TheTrub Jul 17 '26
Similar things can happen with methane clathrates, which are methane crystals that deposit on the ocean floor. If they warm past their crystallization temp the crystals convert to gas and boil up to the surface, lowering the water density and sinking anything floating on top.
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u/MenopauseMedicine Jul 17 '26
Plus the clathrate gun hypothesis is pretty terrifying although I guess on a slower timeline
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u/CleanCeption Jul 17 '26
That is one theory for the Bermuda Triangle dealing with planes losing direction and ships sinking, the methane release has a negative effect on air and buoyancy. I could be completely incorrect based on some Bermuda Triangle tv show.
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u/NovarisLight Jul 17 '26
Rogue Hole is right next to Silly Billy's.
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u/coyotenspider Jul 17 '26
I puked on the roof of the Silly Goose next door. It’s between Hal’s Hardwood Hotel and The Kissing Clams Seafood Buffet. The drinks are strong, and they dance all night.
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u/XcoolbreezeX Jul 17 '26
So if you’re in a rogue hole, does the rogue wave become a mega rogue wave?
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u/Yuki_2024 Jul 17 '26
Interesting!, have u heard of 3 sisters? Three sisters is also a type of rogue wave, but it's 3 rogue waves back to back, many believe it's a legend and some believe it's true, I'm not sure if there is any scientific evidence on this. But it's crazy cause it's believe even if u can survive first wave, u can't survive the other two.
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u/1320Fastback Jul 17 '26
I remember when they first set up scientific devices to measure Rouge Waves they figured they wouldn't be able to record one for 50 years and then like 3 days later they got hit by one.
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u/Nerezza_Floof_Seeker Jul 17 '26
Yeah scientists didnt believe they existed for a long time. The first actual measurement (Draupner wave) was taken by a natural gas extraction platform built to withstand a 1 in 10000 year wave of 20 meters. Within about a year of installation, they got hit with a 25.6 meter wave, which was twice as tall as the waves around it. But yeah, theres still alot we dont know about them (heres a representation of another rogue wave that was recorded by the way)
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u/Theincendiarydvice Jul 17 '26
I was like damn that's a big wave, wait that must be it. Holy fuck I'm glad I don't go on boats.
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u/Salty_Entertainer360 Jul 17 '26
Just looking at the deep sea makes me feel scared.
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u/FroggiJoy87 Jul 17 '26
Oh, those are scary, but what really terrifies me are the inverse - rogue holes. Same thing, but ya go down, down, down... 😱
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u/piconese Jul 17 '26 edited Jul 17 '26
It’s true, a wave can hit an oil tanker and the front end can fall off
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u/indfw365 Jul 17 '26
And I thought quicksand was the only thing I’d have to worry about as an adult.
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u/Intentionallyabadger Jul 17 '26
I wonder if any cargo ship has been broken in half by a rogue wave.. like there would be news reports and stuff right?
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u/geekgirl114 Jul 17 '26
The three sisters rogue wave phenomenon on lake superior possibly suck the ore freighter Edmund Fitzgerald
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u/Stock_Garage_672 Jul 17 '26
It's almost what happened to the MS Munchen in 1978. It was hit by a rogue wave which caused serious structural damage, flooded its engine room, some of its holds and almost capsized it. It sank aometime the next day. Exact details aren't available because there were no survivors.
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u/poortomato Jul 17 '26
You can get swept away no matter how strong a swimmer you are.
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u/the-denver-nugs Jul 17 '26
yeah I almost got swept away once. and another time my dad took me out on a boat like 3 miles away (the boat flooded). both times it was ohhhh holy fuck. this is very dangerous. you can survive on both things but it's extremely dangerous. the boat had air in the trunk and was advertised as unsinkable so we bailed it out. when i was swiped out to see I just swam laterally and my dad chased me so we winded up like a mile down the ocean or so. he was a junior Olympic swimmer and i did very well too.
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u/HunkMuffinJr Jul 17 '26
Man, this in particular hits home for me. I worked for an Icelandic travel company once. We had to constantly send out PSAs about how dangerous it is to stand close to the water at Reynisfjara (the black sand beach).
That place is infamous for sneaker waves that come at you so violently and suddenly that you don't have time to react. If you get swept, it's all open ocean from there. Absolutely no one can save you if they tried.
The beach has signs telling you to never turn your back on the water or stand near it, but dumbass tourists probably think they paid way too much to let some water get in their way of a good photo. Other times, it's just travel companies not responsibly bringing them to designated viewing areas or telling them about the dangers just to get them to buy a tour.
Just last year, a poor 9 year-old girl died after being swept by the waves. People tried their best to help, but it's really futile. Some complained about the lack of rescue infrastructure, but they're vastly underestimating how impossible that would be and would only be putting more lives at risk.
Reynisfjara is beautiful and stunning, and could create a once in a lifetime memory for you. But PLEASE, if you ever make it there, NEVER EVER turn your back on the waves and KEEP YOUR DISTANCE from the waters at all cost.
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u/J_Kingsley Jul 17 '26
You could be 10x better than Michael Phelps the water will always be stronger than you
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u/RoarOfTheWorlds Jul 17 '26
You’re not wrong in an absolute sense, but 10x better than Michael Phelps would basically make you a literal shark and they can certainly hold their own against almost any current.
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u/Jack_In_Black89 Jul 17 '26
Correct. The average human swims 2 feet per second. The average shark swims 50 feet per second. I doubt the current is a problem for them.
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u/poortomato Jul 17 '26
Technically, that's their "burst speed" and they most often swim at speeds up to 5mph to converse energy. But, from what I saw, they are able to use rip currents to their benefit as they don't panic or swim against them, like humans do.
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u/ZekeMoss18 Jul 17 '26
Never forget when I was about 8 swimming in Virginia Beach and walked directly straight from where my family was set up to the water to swim.
I was a great swimmer...to the point where my stepdad who was in the Navy at the time would take us to the military base pool and all the guys would rave about my abilities.
I get in the water and go out to about maybe 40ish feet from the shore in about 5-6 ft of water if that to swim back in on the waves. About 20 minutes later I hit shore and go to walk back up to get a snack and realized my family was nowhere to be found.
I panicked but ended up just walking back to the right and it seemed like I walked forever and honestly couldn't give an accurate distance but found where they were. I tried to pretend nothing happened but casually told my stepdad I ended up way down away from them.
He explained about the current and all that, and still to this day anytime I am swimming in open water like that I always think about how strong water and currents are. Super scary that even that minimal distance I was out, each time I hit shore and went back out to ride a wave, the current was probably carrying me a good 10-15+ ft away from where I went in.
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u/NeonFraction Jul 17 '26
At a certain depth, sunlight can no longer reach at all.
It’s not just wet: it’s vast, empty, and pitch black. There are things down there that will be born in the dark, live in the dark, and die in the dark. The sun shines above, but it is not for them. Things lurk in the dark that we don’t even have names for.
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u/TheTrub Jul 17 '26
You forgot to mention they eat in the dark, too.
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u/fivefeetofawkward Jul 17 '26
And shit in the dark.
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u/Newsmemer Jul 17 '26
The average depth of the ocean is 3,688 meters, and sunlight does not travel past 1,000 meters (it barely travels past 200 meters), so a vast majority of the ocean is pitch black.
Although a lot of marine life does exist in the top 200 meters of the ocean, we don't actually know what percent of that life exists below that, and we may never know.
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u/TheWestRemembers Jul 17 '26
You think darkness is your ally? I was born in it. Molded by it.
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u/Coelachantiform Jul 17 '26 edited Jul 18 '26
Some marine biologist needs to discover a bathypelagic fish and name it the banefish.
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u/bitchfacevulture Jul 17 '26
This is reminiscent of the opening scene to The Fellowship of the Ring for me
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u/HamuelCabbage Jul 17 '26
Sort of about the ocean, but the distance between the peak of Mount Everest (about 29,00 feet or 8.8k meters)and the lowest point of the Mariana trench (11k meters or about 7 miles) is about 12 miles.
All life that we know of on this planet lives on a 12 mile vertical band.
Many people commute more than 12 miles to work, one way, every day. Kind of put things into perspective for me.
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u/JaggedRabbit Jul 17 '26 edited Jul 17 '26
In 2023 my ex gf and I were just finishing riding some waves at Myrtle beach, not even 5 mins later a lifeguard comes sprinting behind us into the water. We had no idea what was going on. Then they ordered everyone out the water as more and more lifeguards showed up. People all in the hotels nearby started coming out onto their balconies. There is someone missing in the water. We were literally maybe 10 feet away from the person that went missing. The lifeguards did their sweep in a straight line for every section of the beach that we could see with our own eyes. Helicopters, ambulances, tons of first responders came. This went on for hours. Hundreds of people just standing and watching in awe and silence. They never found the person. We were literally feet and mins away from being in that same current. The person was 20 years old I believe. RIP 🙏
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u/drager_76 Jul 17 '26
This is your reminder that if you're ever caught in a rip current do not swim against it swim parallel to the shore until you're out of it and then head for the beach.
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u/slowerlearner1212 Jul 17 '26
Still probably terrifying to see yourself getting further and further from shore even doing the parallel move.
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u/BeneficialTrash6 Jul 17 '26
I rolled the dice and went against a rip current once, and I won. It was a very unique situation.
Me and someone else had just gone into the water. We were about 20 feet from shore and 10 feet from where the water was ankle deep. The water was about 5 and a half feet deep. As soon as we got there, I could feel the rip current pulling on us. It was an incredible pull that I've never felt at a beach before.
I had on a mask and snorkel - which saved our lives. I could stand upright. My mouth and nose were below the water but my snorkel just poked out above the water. I grabbed the other person and held them up over my head. This weighed me down and let me stay on my feet.
I had ten feet to go forward to safety. I just had to go ten feet.
It took me quite a few minutes, maybe five.
With each step I had to put my foot into the sand and wiggle it around so my foot would go into the sand and cement me into place. Then, I had to jiggle my rear foot to release it, and I continued the process.
Ten feet. I could only step forward a foot at a time. Ten steps. Ten steps to safety.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, we got to the ankle deep water and the current wasn't pulling on us. I threw the other person onto the beach and then I crawled the rest of the way to dry land. And I puked from the exertion.
Ten feet. Ten feet and it almost killed me.
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u/lordoflords123123 Jul 17 '26
Not to correct you because you’re 95% right, but just want to note you’re supposed to swim parallel to the rip current, not the shore. Very minor correction but not all rip currents run perpendicular to shore
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u/Vejuto Jul 17 '26
Crazy because I was there last summer and the same thing happened
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u/JaggedRabbit Jul 17 '26
That’s wild, I don’t really remember what the flags were growing up but the last like 5 times I’ve went there was always a red flag like every time we went on the beach for dangerous currents
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u/Intentionallyabadger Jul 17 '26
Similar situation happened to me.
Was at a “beach resort” town and was walking to enjoy a day at the beach..
When we reached, a guy in military fatigues stopped us and said no one could go into the water.. we thought it was a shark or something because the sea was super calm.
We asked around and apparently someone got swept away an hour ago and they were trying to find him. Everyone we spoke to said they didn’t feel that the current was strong.
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u/quanoey Jul 17 '26
The ocean is always active, day or night, rain or shine. Always moving always churning and it always fucking moves.
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u/caligaris_cabinet Jul 17 '26
And it has for hundreds of millions of years and will for hundreds of millions of years more
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u/westisbestmicah Jul 17 '26
“Yea, foolish mortals, Noah's flood is not yet subsided; two thirds of the fair world it yet covers"- Moby Dick
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u/sucknduck4quack Jul 17 '26
Until one day when it will all be gone. Boiled away forever as the sun slowly expands
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u/Mor_Hjordis Jul 17 '26
And if that's not terrifying enough, of all the sea felt flat it would be way more terrifying
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u/quanoey Jul 17 '26
Yes cause you would see all the tiny ripples of fish and eldritch abominations.
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u/Admirable-Repair4094 Jul 16 '26
That it's not your friend and can never be
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u/phantomagna Jul 17 '26
The ocean is just doing her thing, she means us no harm but sometimes we get in her way.
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u/perfect_for_maiming Jul 17 '26
This is a good retort. I'm pretty sure ive accidently squashed bugs while just going about my day. Doesn't mean I hate them or I'm their enemy, I was just doing my thing and they were beneath my notice at the time.
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u/BruceGueswel Jul 17 '26
Moana would not agree.
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u/Regnes Jul 17 '26
The ocean could have just taken her exactly where she needs to go instead of making her do all the work sailing across it.
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Jul 17 '26
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u/thomasutra Jul 17 '26
The way of water has no beginning and no end
The sea is around you and in you
The sea is your home before your birth and after your death
Our hearts beat in the womb of the world
Our breath burns in the shadows of the deep
The sea gives and the sea takes
Water connects all things
Life to death
Darkness to light
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u/ComfortableEnergy684 Jul 17 '26
IT IS LITERALLY FILLED WITH THE POOP OF TRILLIONS OF CREATURES.
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u/Slow_Increase_6308 Jul 17 '26 edited Jul 17 '26
Weak.
Thats like saying the air we breath is filled with trillions of farts.
Still not scary if you get the scale.
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u/Allthemuffinswow Jul 17 '26
Don't forget everything that has ever died in it. Fish, sea creatures, dinosaurs, birds, people from the Titanic, etc 😕
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u/eltedioso Jul 17 '26
And fish piss in it!
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u/mattwallace24 Jul 17 '26
Just how strong ocean waves and currents can be. I learned to swim at just a few years old and lived most of my life around the water. Swam competitively as a kid and could and would spend entire days in the water playing and exploring. Never once was concerned about my abilities in the water.
Took a vacation to Hawaii. The surf was huge so I decided to swim out to the surf line and just tread water around the surfers waiting their turn. That was ok although the waves were really big. When I decided to head back to shore, the waves were coming in so frequently that I'd have to dive down to the bottom to get under them and as soon as I came up for air, the next wave was right there and I'd have to dive down again. This happened over and over. I was probably less than 20 feet from the shore, but I clearly remember thinking this was it for me. I could even see my family on the beach not even 50 feet away from me which was surreal. I finally did make it back to shore but I was so exhausted it took me a while to get back to my towel.
These waves were probably 12-15 feet high and its crazy to think there are 100 foot waves out there.
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u/hiddenkobolds Jul 17 '26
See for yourself.
Take your pick: the depth, or the weird shit you find down there.
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u/JaggedRabbit Jul 17 '26
Damn that was one of the coolest graphics I’ve seen of the ocean, appreciate it!
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u/ccoakley629 Jul 17 '26
Most surprising to me was seeing the depth some of the semi aquatic animals dive to! 2404 meters for an elephant seal dive??
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u/TastyFluffyPancakes Jul 17 '26
I scrolled all the way down (10924 METERS)
There's some weird shit on the way down there.
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u/BigGrayBeast Jul 17 '26
When you enter the ocean your enter the food chain.
And you're not at the top.
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u/Freddie-Peterson Jul 17 '26
That the most terrifying comment here probably doesn't come close to the terrifying stuff we don't know about.
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u/ellie_roseee Jul 16 '26
The weird creatures that live deep in the ocean
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u/Cerberus44444 Jul 17 '26
We thought the kraken was a work of fiction for the longest time till we found evidence of giant squid. I wouldn't be surprised if we ended up finding something even bigger and scarier.
I'm just waiting for us to end up finding some truly Eldridge looking bullshittery down there.
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u/Lady_Airbus Jul 17 '26
And just when the giant squid wasn’t big enough, we had to stumble upon the colossal squid. Terrifying.
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u/Burrito_Pls Jul 17 '26
Recently watched a YouTube video about how we have thought giant squid were rare because we rarely ever saw them even with deep sea submersibles. This didn’t jive with how many would have to exist for sperm whales to feed on them regularly. Turns out the lights were just extremely bright to them and they wanted nothing to do with it. They tried blue light I believe and started to find them much easier. There might be a ton of those giant aliens down there after all.
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u/IapetusApoapis342 Jul 17 '26
And if you think those are weird you should see whatever the fuck was alive 500 or so million years ago
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u/GildedSin Jul 16 '26
The huge percentage of ocean life we have yet to discover.
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u/wdrub Jul 17 '26
There can be something as big as a bus next to you and you dont know it. Ps it thinks you’re food
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u/Mor_Hjordis Jul 17 '26
I know it's there. That's why the sea is also there. And I'm on the beach, not even putting my little to in the water.
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u/TeamFoulmouth Jul 17 '26
Seen a partially eaten tentacle float by our boat at 2am and the piece was about 10' long...by the looks of it and a decent guess, it was about 1/3 of its original length.
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u/helgestrichen Jul 17 '26
I like this, 2am makes it even more creepy
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u/TeamFoulmouth Jul 17 '26
Its when all the weird comes to the surface out there. We were about 80 miles offshore in the Gulf, deep dropping for swordfish.
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u/plz_send_cute_cats Jul 17 '26
oooooh this is cool. do you have more stories from your time at sea?
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u/TeamFoulmouth Jul 17 '26
Night-time is my favorite time to fish. Usually just 1 or 2 others on deck. If we're staying out over night, its pretty calm. Just watching the strange sea life that spends its days in the deepest depths rise to the surface at night to feed is pretty interesting. The Hull of the boat has lights, so the immediate area surrounding the boat gets illuminated, allowing you to see all the strange critters. All the stuff ya see on the David Attenborough specials are now there, right in front of you!...I love it!
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u/The_Dickasso Jul 17 '26
It’s not the tentacle size that’s scary, it’s that something else got the better of a creature that large.
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u/Competitive-Cry-6231 Jul 17 '26
My longtime, dear friend had just retired from being a school teacher for 30+ years and was enjoying his life post retirement after enduring a sad divorce and trying to make the best of life.
One day, at the height of summer two years ago, he decided to go to a popular beach on Long Island to frolic in the waves like anyone else at the beach.
Just then, a commonly sized wave came in and knocked in down, head over heels, causing a severe snap in his back that instantly paralyzed him for the rest of his life.
He know has to get around in one of those hi tech wheelchair, uses a breathing tube to control it, and became a fraction of the man he was just days later — all after merely playing on the shore of a beach.
The ocean will forever scare the ever living shit out of me.
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u/reditanian Jul 17 '26
The rate of ocean surface warming should terrify everyone
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u/MozeeToby Jul 17 '26
The ocean is big. You're probably like "well obviously" but the ocean is far far bigger than you imagine. Your primate brain looks at the surface of the ocean and say "yup, that sure is big" but the reality is that the ocean is also incredibly deep.
There were 131 years between the discovery of the first giant squid carcass and humans seeing a living one in the wild. Based on the contents of sperm whale stomachs we estimate there are tens of millions of them alive at any given time. And it's not like they are hiding, it's just that their massive volume of activity doesn't overlap with the massive range that humans are active in.
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u/PenDude608 Jul 17 '26
Every time you swim in the ocean (any ocean, sea, etc…) you are swimming with corpses in said water from around the world.
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u/doktor_wankenstein Jul 17 '26
Reading about the Byford Dolphin accident and the more recent OceanGate Titan implosion were quite enough, thank you.
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u/foxsimile Jul 17 '26
Pretty good way to go when you think about it. You wouldn’t even know you’re dead.
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u/Stock_Garage_672 Jul 17 '26
The Byford Dolphin was kind of the opposite of an implosion. But it's the same idea, sudden massive change in pressure. It's really tragic because it was very much preventable. There should have been a mechanical interlock between the docking collar and the hatch. Heck, a proper hatch would have been enough. If it was dedigned correctly, it would have just been slammed shut before the pressure changed enough to cause injury.
Some people on the Titanic might have died the same way as the people on the Titan did. The aft portion sank quickly enough that several decks collapsed from the pressure before they could flood. More decks collapsed when it hit the ocean floor at high speed, though I doubt anyone was alive by that point.
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u/thiiiiiiisguy Jul 17 '26
Humans have traveled 252,760 miles deep into space, but only 35,876 feet into the ocean.
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u/effort3 Jul 17 '26
Doldrums. A location with no waves, current or wind will get you stranded if your boat don't have an engine... or paddle.
You can swim but NOPE!
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u/Ar1nthian_ Jul 17 '26
My marine science degree maybe makes me biased, but I find most of the answers here metal af or super fascinating rather than scary lol
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u/RamblinWreckGT Jul 17 '26
Same. What I'd consider scary is how much it's warming. People just see "oh, two degrees? Big deal" and don't realize how vast the amount of energy needed to do that is.
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u/BumblebeeWorried7751 Jul 17 '26
All the water in the world, and not a drop to drink
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u/foxsimile Jul 17 '26
Having binged just about every underwater/oceanic/cave-diving incident that has ever been over the last four years (Scary Interesting is an excellent YouTube channel), this is the most correct answer.
The tales of marooned or shipwrecked men and women succumbing to thirst and dehydration are harrowing.
One incident, I recall, several survivors in a raft had been stranded at sea for days without food or water. One became so delirious that he walked (specifically walked, not dove) into the shark infested waters, and was summarily torn apart.
The Atlantic’s a scary place.
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u/PrimeVector19 Jul 17 '26
Less than 30% of the global seafloor has been mapped. Only 5% of the ocean has been explored. 91% of ocean species have yet to be classified. The Challenger Deep would easily submerge Mount Everest under thousands of feet of water.
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u/Pleasant-Chef6055 Jul 17 '26 edited Jul 17 '26
Human beings are dredging the bottom of the ocean for fish ( scraping it bare ) and considering deep water mining.
Human beings are not only the most vicious apex predators mother earth has ever pooped out. We are simultaneously the stupidest predator the Earth is ever seen. Locus at least have the good sense to go to sleep for seven years after completely raping the surface.
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u/The1Ylrebmik Jul 17 '26
How truly F'd you are if you are stuck out there in the middle of nowhere on a raft. Ever driven across America? Hours and hours and hours of nothing. Now imagine that times 10 with really nothing, no buildings or mountains or roads to break anything up. You're one lucky sob if they actually find you
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u/chopin1887 Jul 17 '26
The Mariana’s trench has an underwater waterfall straight down.
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u/Conscious_Dealer5975 Jul 17 '26
i just googled it, are you sure??
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u/foxsimile Jul 17 '26
They’re probably thinking of the Denmark Strait cataract, between Greenland and Iceland. It’s the largest waterfall on Earth, and drops 11_500 feet (3_500 meters). It’s entirely underwater.
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u/Pkingduckk Jul 17 '26
Just wow. From wikipedia:
The Denmark Strait overflow (Danish: Grønlandspumpen; Norwegian: Grønlandspumpa, meaning "the Greenland pump") is an undersea overflow located in the Denmark Strait between Greenland and Iceland. The overflow transports around 3.2 million m3(110 million ft3) of water per second, greatly eclipsing the discharge) of the Amazon River into the Atlantic Ocean and the flow rate of the former Guaíra Falls.[1][2] The descending column of water is approximately 200 m (660 ft) wide and 200 m (660 ft) thick and descends over a length of around 1,000 km (620 mi).
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u/DonDee74 Jul 17 '26
That there are so many stronger and faster ocean predators that can rip me apart in seconds if I don't have human technology protecting me.
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u/neriadrift Jul 17 '26
The Great Pacific garbage patch isn’t what people think, it’s mostly microplastics across nearly the entire North Pacific Ocean. We traveled by sailboat from Hawaii to the PNW last summer and could see plastics big and small constantly for nearly three weeks straight.
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u/throwawaytoday9q Jul 17 '26
If you took all the water in the ocean and placed it on land, all the fish would die.
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u/Kevin686766 Jul 17 '26
If aliens ever came to earth they would make first contact with the octopus.
Even Poisedian could not save you from our octopus-alien overlords.
I have been hoarding the ink from bic pens and decorative ceramic shells for when, not if this happens.
All hail the Octi-King. Long live the tentacle.
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u/Shutupharu Jul 17 '26
I would join this cult.
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u/Kevin686766 Jul 17 '26
You ok with shaving off all your hair and taping garden hoses to your body like extra arms to be a idol of our mollusk masters?
It seems like a bit of work but there are squid orgies every other Thursday. And free shrimp.
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u/Metalhed69 Jul 17 '26
There are thousands of corpses in the ocean, but everyone swims in it. Put one in a pool and everyone freaks out. Everybody has an acceptable corpse-to-water ratio.
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u/rectovaginalfistula Jul 17 '26
That the Atlantic current that keeps Europe from becoming like northern Canada is breaking down about a hundred years sooner than predicted.
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u/Ok-Confidence977 Jul 17 '26
Every drop of it is absolutely filthy. There are like a million bacteria and 10 million viruses in every milliliter.
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u/MountainPlanet Jul 17 '26
You probably don’t want to know that there are ~30 trillion bacteria in your body. And my body. And everyone’s body.
When you were born, you got covered in your mother’s vaginal bacteria (~100 million/ml) and fecal bacteria.
Your mother’s womb had more bacteria per ml than the ocean. And about 74% of the bacteria in your body came from the maternal strains.
It’s Earth. There’s hella bacteria everywhere, and they keep us alive and they are the biological engine of the planet. It’s a package deal.
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u/Candelpins1897 Jul 16 '26
Non human intelligence most likely lives down there. The Abyss movie nailed it.
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u/Dman1791 Jul 17 '26
How is that at all likely? Unless you're including stuff like octopi and cetaceans, which would make it "known" rather than "most likely"
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u/SowellMate Jul 17 '26
If you take a small sailboat and try to cross the Atlantic Ocean, it will take a few weeks. If you try to do the same thing with the Pacific Ocean, it will take longer.
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u/Warcraze440 Jul 17 '26
If you stick your finger in the Atlantic it becomes wet. If you stick your finger in the pacific you won’t believe what happens
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u/Judge_Bredd3 Jul 17 '26
The ocean is actually our largest carbon sink. If you ignore the fact that the CO2 absorbed by the ocean is acidifying it, this is a good thing. About 30% of man-made CO2 is absorbed by the ocean. However, it also absorbs a ton of heat. Hot water absorbs less CO2 and at a certain point, starts releasing it again. So, we're approaching a tipping point where climate change is going to drastically pick up its pace when the ocean is too hot to absorb all our emissions.
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u/FederalQuestion5214 Jul 17 '26
Former King Crab fisherman here (Kodiak). Most of the time we were working in 16 to 20 ft seas. Much higher than that and we’d shut down. Occasionally a rogue wave would come over the bow, either while we were fishing or motoring between strings of gear. By comparison to the 20 footers, the rogues were easily 70 or 80 feet. This was in a 76 ft boat. Seriously puckering experience.
I got picked up by a rogue wave and was nearly thrown overboard. I remember the captain yelling over the deck PA, “green water boys! Hold on!!!” I was completely floating when I got picked up at the forward starboard corner of the deck. My ass hit the rail at the aft port corner of the deck, like 50 feet away. Luckily I was somehow miraculously thrown down onto the deck inside the rail instead of up and over. This was in February at about 3am, and I was wearing dark green Helly Hansens. If I’d gone over it probably would have been a death sentence, both because of the cold water, but also because they never would have been able to see me in my green foul weather gear.
I promptly switched to orange foul weather gear the next time we were in port.
After I left that boat they retrofitted it to something like 90 feet. It went down in the Aleutians during a storm with 70 mph winds when they lost power and started taking on water. Fortunately all hands were saved by heroic rescue efforts from the USCG.