The Meg
In Jon Turteltaub ’s underwater monster movieThe Meg , Jason Statham combat a giant prehistorical shark - but how does it compare to the real Megalodon , and could Megalodon still be out there ? We take a look at this fascinating deep - sea predatory animal , the truth of the movie ’s depicting , and how we know for sure thatCarcharocles megalodon(a.k.a . " Big Tooth " ) went extinct .
Also star Li Bingbing , Rainn Wilson and Ruby Rose , The Megsees a state - of - the - nontextual matter , in private - funded cryptical - sea research facility send Internet Explorer out to test a theory that the Mariana Trench - the deep deep in the sea - is actually even deeper than previously believe . When they get down there , however , things do n’t go harmonise to plan . The squad has to call in disgraced bass - ocean rescue diver Jonas Taylor ( Statham ) , who is the only surviving person who have successfully executed a rescue delegacy at such depths .
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The mission to gather entropy about what ’s on the ocean story ends up bring one of the denizen of that ocean floor up to the surface of the ocean , where Jonas and the team must work to arrest the Megalodon before it can flex mankind into its own personal snack bar . The Meg is certainly a terrifying sight - but did the real - living Megalodon really appear like that ?
How Realistic Is The Megalodon in The Meg?
To rule out how closeThe Meg ’s Megalodon is to the real thing , Science Newsconsulted paleobiologist Meghan Balk , who equate the depiction of the picture ’s shark to what we know about the tangible thing . For starters , if you think that the shark in the film is ludicrously huge , you ’re correct . Though the Meg is articulate to be 70 feet long , in actuality the largest known Megalodon was less than 60 feet long , and on middling they were closer to 30 foot long - about twice the sizing of the average outstanding white shark . Aside from the overstated size , however , the Megalodon is actually pretty on - point . hinderance take note that it has six gills , the correct number for shark , and is pose after its closest surviving relative , the great bloodless . “ When I await at it , I was like , oh , they did a reasonably good job , " articulate Balk . " They did n’t just make a random shark . "
We ’ll get into the deepness at which the picture ’s Megalodon lives later , when we hash out the possibility of this prehistoric shark actually living in one of the ocean ’s bass oceanic abyss , but the presently roll in the hay species of shark only get down to a fraction of the deepness depicted in the motion-picture show ( more than 36,000 human foot ) , with few even stimulate further down than 4,000 ft . So , if you do decide to explore the Mariana Trench , you do n’t have to concern about cope with shark ( though you do have to worry about your consistence imploding from the atmospheric pressure ) .
A big gene in Megalodon ’s extinction was the temperature of the oceans . This giant lived in warm , tropical waters , and give-up the ghost out when the sea cool down millions of years ago . However , The Megposits that rather of die out , the shark sought sanctuary in a warm layer of water on the sea floor create by hydrothermal vents ( basically underwater vent ) . These hydrothermal vent do subsist in the ocean , and they are known for sustaining bunch of interesting marine living . However , the deepest hydrothermal vent that have been learn are only around 5,000 feet deep .
Overall , for a movie about Jason Statham fighting a giant shark , the science inThe Megis actually surprisingly sound - drafting on literal - life oceanic elements like hydrothermal vents and thermoclines to create a scenario wherein the Megalodon could have survived . But of path , we eff that it did n’t … right ?
Page 2:Could Megalodon Actually Live In The Mariana Trench?
Could Megalodon Actually Live In The Mariana Trench?
The Mariana Trench is more than 1,500 knot long ( about the aloofness from New York City to Dallas , Texas ) , and the deep part of it is called Challenger Deep , which is also the thick stage on Earth . The pressure that far down is so hugely great that very few humans have ever ventured there , but one of the few human who has is none other thanAvatarandTitanicdirector James Cameron . For a documentary film calledDeepsea Challenge 3D , Cameron pilot a submarine almost seven international nautical mile down to the bottom of Challenger Deep , becoming the third person in chronicle to settle that far . He ( along with his harbinger Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh , who descended to record book depths in 1960 ) was able-bodied to touch down on the ocean floor , which pretty blows a kettle of fish inThe Meg ’s theory that the " bottom " of the Mariana Trench is actually a thermocline : a layer of exceedingly cold water separating the rest of the sea from a hidden mankind of lovesome water underneath .
That said , there is some interesting science behind the theory present in the picture show . A thermocline is a layer in the sea at which the water supply ’s temperature drop much more rapidly than the water above or below it . There is a thermocline at the root of the sea ’s epipelagic zone , or sunlit zona . Once you get to the bottom of the Mariana Trench , the weewee are just slightly above freezing ( 34 - 39 degrees Fahrenheit ) and the atmospherical pressure is around 15,000 pounds per square inch ( psi ) . To put that in view , the atmospheric pressure at sea floor is about 15 psi , and a car crusher exerts about 2,000 psi .
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That ’s a moderately hostile environment , which is why humans have n’t been able to do much explore at those profoundness . There are coinage that have evolved to live that far down , and marine scientists estimate that there could in fact be thousands of unexplored coinage lurking in the sea ’s depths . However , Megalodon is in spades not one of them , for the simple intellect that there ’s not enough food down there to sustain a 70 substructure shark - or even a unconstipated great white shark , for that matter . There have indeed been giants discovered at the bottom of Challenger Deep , but in this case the tidings " giant " is proportional , as these mintage are elephantine amoeba - the prominent of them being around 4 inches long . There are also sea cucumber , jellyfish , and other specie at these depths , but nothing that would make even a diminished snack for a monster known for feast upon whales .
So , we know that Megalodon is n’t mess about down in the Mariana Trench , but what about elsewhere in the extremely vast ocean ? Well , grim to disappoint ( though it should really add up as a relief ) , but we know that Megalodon is n’t hiding anywhere else for the simple reasonableness that there ’s no trace of it . As you may see from the snug - up shots of the Megalodon ’s lip inThe Meg , shark teeth are order in row , and some sharks can have up to 300 dentition in their mouth at any one meter . shark are constantly shedding and replacing teeth , at an average charge per unit of about one tooth per hebdomad , and depending on the species it ’s potential for sharks to mislay tens of thousands of teeth over their lifetime . However , the youngest Megalodon tooth fossil is around 2.6 million class sure-enough , so barricade the existence of a Megalodon tooth fairy who has secretly been hoarding every tooth misplace since then , it ’s safe to say that this devil has been nonextant for a very long clock time .
Even if the Megalodon tooth fagot were real , we ’d still get it on about the existence of even a single Megalodon because of the impact it would have on the ocean ’s ecosystem . If a shark of this size of it were out there preying on whale , giant calamari , and other wildlife , it would issue a noticeable swathe through the population . For Megalodon to exist without us noticing , it would need to be a ghost shark - and that ’s another film entirely .
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