tonga trench is the second deepest ocean in the world.
what is the second deepest ocean in the world?
tonga trench
the eastern boundaries of the tonga and kermadec plates constitute the subduction zone of the pacific plate, characterized by a trench about 2,000 km in length. the trench is continuous, but has different names for different sections: hikurangi trench, the kermadec trench and the tonga trench. the tonga trench is the second deepest trench in the world at about 10,800 m, with the deepest point, horizon deep, being the deepest point in the southern hemisphere and the second deepest point in the world, after the challenger deep in the mariana trench. the eastern boundary of the kermadec plate is also the site of the kermadec trench, which is the fifth deepest trench in the world at about 10,000 m. the eastern boundary of the tonga plate is one of the fastest subduction zones with a rate of up to 24 cm/yr.
kermadec-tonga subduction zone
in 2012 a story began to circulate online and in some british newspapers (in which dorian pritchard the conservation officer for the bibba and president of sicamm was interviewed and quoted) that the old british black bee (a strain of "a. m. mellifera") was not extinct and had been discovered in the rafters of a church in northumberland, there were numerous inaccuracies in the story, including: 1) the old "british black" bee was "wiped out by a strain of spanish flu in 1919"; the spanish flu only affected humans, it was the isle of wight disease between 1904 through to 1945 that wiped out the "original" old british (and irish) black bees of the british isles: 2) "the spanish flu which wiped out...every single bee in the uk", no beekeepers at the time made this claim, what was claimed was that the original pure "a. m. mellifera" of the british isles was wiped out, hybrids with other non-"a. m. mellifera" bees often survived, notably the "a. m. ligustica" and later the "buckfast bee" bred by brother adam of buckfast abbey, also continental "a. m. mellifera", imported in subsequent years to repopulate the country, showed stronger resistance to the "isle of wight disease": 3) "the british black bee is different from other bees ...ideally suited to the british climate...more so than the european black bee", this suggests that the "british black bee" found in the church is a different subspecie than the "european black bee" the "a. m. mellifera", while in fact they are the same subspecie, as acknowledged by philip denwood writing in sicamm's ("international association for the protection of the european dark bee") magazine "mellifera.ch " in 2014 (as a member of bkka and the bibba) "...in the last decade dna studies... have conclusively shown that modern specimens of dark bees from the uk and ireland fit into the genetic specification of "apis mellifera melifera" (the european dark / black bee)".
european dark bee