Deep sea life, just HOW do they withstand the water pressure???

I've been looking at a couple of threads about deep sea life...

www.abovetopsecret.com...
www.abovetopsecret.com...

...and I have never understood, after a long time of admiring these animals, just how in the deep blue sea they not only don't get crushed by the amount of weight of water bearing down on them but how can they be so delicate looking while surviving? Man needs massive metal inventions to go down into these depths, and even then, if there was the least bit of pressure loss, the enclosures they go down in would crush like a tin can.

How can these creatures even move, swim (sideways or upwards), or lift a delicate tendril in the water - water which weighs I-have-no-idea how much per square whatever measurement is used in your country.

Since I don't know, I haven't researched it elsewhere but wanted to ask the ATS community if anyone here knows. Does anyone anywhere know? I'll do some research now and try to find out....yet until someone comes along who knows, thanks. The ats links above have some of the most amazing pictures of the most delicate-looking creatures on the planet.

I'll just post one picture from the second thread as an example. Three questions about this picture: How much weight is pressing down on each part of this animal at any given time? How can it move one of its tendrils upwards against that weight? And how in all that's holy, unholy, and existing in the hole in-between can it not be crushed in a millisecond of a nanosecond?

I'm not scientist, I'm not even that smart.
Maybe it has something to do with mass? We are a lot bigger. Or it could be their physical anatomy, like the bones of a bird.

reply to post by Aleister


I think it's because they are mostly made of water and don't contain gases like surface animals.
But I'll check that to make sure, I don't know if it's totally right.

Here is a quick explanation from a general information site:

They have ways of keeping their internal pressure the same as the water around them. Many of the deep-sea fish do not have any excess body cavities like swim bladders, they have reduced skeletal structure, and are usually soft and flabby.
Deep sea organisms have proteins with special confirmations that are not de-polymerized under high pressure. They are also thought to have special osmolytes help to keep cell volume constant.

Wiki Answers

AnteBellum
reply to post by Aleister

 

I think it's because they are mostly made of water and don't contain gases like we do.

Yup, they contain no "bubbles" that could expand or implode.

I bet there's a baby fish way down in the ocean asking it's momma how humans live that far up without exploding.

And yet all sorts of other organisms thrive at high pressure. Some of them are even air-breathing surface dwellers like us. Weddell seals and elephant seals can dive up to a mile (sperm whales go much deeper than that). All these animals seem to share the same secret: Instead of fighting the pressure, they let it collapse their lungs completely. Some oxygen remains in their lungs, but they mostly store it in their muscles, where it's needed; their muscle tissue contains much higher concentrations of oxygen-binding myoglobin than ours does.

The Physics of . . . Deep-sea Animals

Other sea creatures does not have air pockets are soft, small and not too bony to withstand the pressure.

People can dive to a certain point and dont die either, they just need to decompress for long periods of time to avoid nitrogen bubbles, i dont know how deep can you go without equipment but the pressure dont seem to be the problem with the right gas mix, is the cold.

double post, i blame ATS

rangerdanger
I'm not scientist, I'm not even that smart.
Maybe it has something to do with mass? We are a lot bigger. Or it could be their physical anatomy, like the bones of a bird.

edit on 7-4-2014 by rangerdanger because: grammar

It is likely that animals which evolve in the upper atmosphere, if there are any, would not understand how humans and the birds are not instantly crushed under the weight of the atmosphere, the air itself. That's another question, how much weight is pressing down on us at sea level? Is it at all equivalent to what the deep sea life forms are contending with (not even contending, they don't seem to mind it or let it effect their movement whatsoever, they just can't rise near the top of the water or they themselves die).

Without searching, my guess is that they have a way of equalizing pressure either through, skin, fat or flesh. A way of expanding or contracting air pockets.

IMO

Peace

reply to post by Aleister

That's another question, how much weight is pressing down on us at sea level? - See more at: www.abovetopsecret.com...

1 Atmosphere at sea level, less as you go up.

AnteBellum
reply to post by Aleister

 

I think it's because they are mostly made of water and don't contain gases like surface animals.

But I'll check that to make sure, I don't know if it's totally right.

Here is a quick explanation from a general information site:

They have ways of keeping their internal pressure the same as the water around them. Many of the deep-sea fish do not have any excess body cavities like swim bladders, they have reduced skeletal structure, and are usually soft and flabby.
Deep sea organisms have proteins with special confirmations that are not de-polymerized under high pressure. They are also thought to have special osmolytes help to keep cell volume constant.

Wiki Answers

edit on 4/7/2014 by AnteBellum because: (no reason given)

So as you and the poster after you said, they don't have air bubbles so they don't get crushed, and their internal pressure is set at the same astounded volume of weight? As simple (or as complicated) as that? So the weight of the water on top of them is nothing, nothing at all, they just lift move through it with ease even though it weighs XXX amount crushing down on them at every moment. Amazing if true, and I haven't wrapped my atmospheric-weighted down head around it yet. Thanks everyone for pointing out what to many is the obvious but to me seems very counter-intuitive. I guess I have my envelope and knowledge level stretched a bit more today, thanks.

Don't think of water pressure as weight.
Water pressure pushes from all directions thus equalizing the force.

Indigent
reply to post by Aleister

 

That's another question, how much weight is pressing down on us at sea level? - See more at: www.abovetopsecret.com...

1 Atmosphere at sea level, less as you go up.

(EDIT: It's 14.7 pounds of pressure per square inch)


Thanks, and lol. I read the entire Wikipedia page you linked and it's so complicated that it doesn't tell anywhere - at least to me and the terms I understand - how much weight is atop us from earth's atmosphere. That's a wiki page that could use a couple of more sentences in its lead. Maybe in the talk pages!

reply to post by Indigent


Thanks. This is one of those questions I knew I could have found the answers to if I search-engine'd around, and checked out Wikipedia, but I wanted to share the question and answers with ats in case anyone else is as much in the state of "Huh?" as I still am, even knowing some of the answer. From your source, Discover magazine, from 2001:

Yayanos, Somero, and others have discovered a few of the adaptations that permit deep-sea bacteria— and the cells of higher organisms— to thrive under high pressure. For one thing, deep-sea creatures make their cell membranes of squishier stuff. Cell membranes are layers of lipids (fats) penetrated by proteins that, among other functions, channel nutrients, wastes, and signaling molecules in and out of the cell. If the lipids are too rigid, the channels close up— and high pressure, like low temperature, makes any kind of fat more rigid. "So deep-sea animals and bacteria tend to build their membranes with relatively fluid lipids," says Somero. "Instead of butter they use something more akin to vegetable oil." That is, compared with surface-dwelling organisms, they use more unsaturated and less saturated fat.

reply to post by Aleister


its not really weight, remember the media its also supporting the weight so its not like putting all the atmosphere in a bag and them the bag on top of your head, that would crush you, but because you are inside the bag you feel a difference that distribute all over your surface. its hard for me to put this at simple words, think of it as an arch.

AnteBellum
reply to post by Aleister

 

I think it's because they are mostly made of water and don't contain gases like surface animals.
But I'll check that to make sure, I don't know if it's totally right.

Here is a quick explanation from a general information site:

They have ways of keeping their internal pressure the same as the water around them. Many of the deep-sea fish do not have any excess body cavities like swim bladders, they have reduced skeletal structure, and are usually soft and flabby.
Deep sea organisms have proteins with special confirmations that are not de-polymerized under high pressure. They are also thought to have special osmolytes help to keep cell volume constant.

Wiki Answers

edit on 4/7/2014 by AnteBellum because: (no reason given)

Awesome answer, Antebellum. We were actually discussing this the other night and came to the conclusion that it might be that they are null to the water pressure because of the way they are set up internally. An open space would crush, but a space filled with water wouldn't. Toss in the other aspects that you mentioned and there it is. Thanks!

Indigent
reply to post by Aleister

 

its not really weight, remember the media its also supporting the weight so its not like putting all the atmosphere in a bag and them the bag on top of your head, that would crush you, but because you are inside the bag you feel a difference that distribute all over your surface. its hard for me to put this at simple words, think of it as an arch.

An arch sounds good but my head, she no wrap around. I'll continue to think on it. Yes, even at the "light" weight of 14.7 pounds atop every square inch of our body, lifting our arms over our head would constitute lifting hundreds if not thousands of pounds everytime we move. So the deep sea creatures, like Ariel, move without noticing the non-bone crushing weight they "endure", and "think" nothing of it. Amazing.

reply to post by Aleister


but the force comes from all directions in the same magnitude so it "neutralize" each other as the air on top is also compressing the air below and ... i cant do more i need someone smarter to explain this.

in the end all the force that you need to overcome in order to move is gravity + friction

reply to post by Indigent


I think it all sounds nuts, but it must work. What if the creature is on the ocean floor, there is no force working under it except for gravity, so with all the weight on all sides of it.....bah, I should have stayed awake more in my Deep Sea Creatures 101 class. thanks everyone, again, for trying to explain the counter-intuitive-unexplainable-howcanitbe? explanation.

reply to post by Aleister