Fine silt or clay won’t bear a structural load; the full 5300 psi at that depth will be borne by the structure of the habitat.
If a leak develops, the clay will extrude into the habitat through the leak just like an ultra-high-pressure Play-Doh Fun Factory.
Sure they do. Fish in the abyssopelagic and bathypelagic zones may not be as abundant nor as sprightly as fish near the surface, but they do exist, and they are quite numerous and diverse. The deepest dwelling fish ever found were discovered in 2008 in the Japan Trench, at a depth of over 25,000 feet. Researchers came upon a group of snailfish who were surprisingly active considering their environment. That said, I don’t think they’d present much of a threat to a structure that has the ability to withstand the immense pressure at 12,000 feet.
Also, I wanted to add a note about high pressure pumps. I found this company, which sells pumps for waterjets. Their highest capacity pump is capable of pressures up to 60,000 psi. It would be able to push 3 gph out of a sea-level atmosphere habitat placed on the bottom of a 135,700-foot deep ocean.
In fact, the high-pressure fuel pumps on modern direct-injection diesel engines must generate sufficient pressure to inject fuel into a cylinder where the combustion process has already begun. Needless to say, the working pressures are fairly high. The pump on the engine I’m most familiar with, which is essentially a Mercedes car engine, is capable of supplying 24 gallons per hour at 19,200 psi. These things are all over the place; you may very well have pulled up next to one the last time you were stopped at an intersection.
I’m fairly sure that’s not true. If you are able to place an unmoving circle of metal into a flowing stream of water, then you’re creating a vacuum behind it. Since it’s harder to establish a vacuum the greater the amount of pressure in your surroundings, the more effort it takes to keep your circle stable.
No?
Not unless it’s an extremely fast-flowing stream. Note “fast”, there, not “high-pressure”.
Bumped.
PBS’s American Experience will show a SeaLab documentary on Feb. 5 - check local listings: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/sealab/#part01
Question : what is the benefit of having your habitat all the way on the ocean floor?
Wouldn’t a habitat just a mere 100m or less under the surface be deep enough to be unaffected by storms and waves? You’d anchor it with cables to the seafloor.
Then, for the actual resource exploitation of the seafloor - assuming you want to do more than just live inside artificial caves with people - you use robots. It’s much more achievable to make robots resist the pressure because most of their components can just be directly exposed to the pressure, with equalizing membranes of oil. Very small armored housings would be needed for the sensors and things that need to be protected.
The thing is, if you had the habit on the seafloor, you’re going to only be able to send robots outside *anyway *- the pressure is much too high for human divers. Even hard suits that have an internal pressure sphere only have robotic waldos to manipulate the outside world.
As a side note, you could make your colony semi-submersible. You’d be able to surface with portions of it most of the time and enjoy the fresh air and sunlight and only would need to submerge for storms.
