Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-08-18

u
of the Pacific Ocean, between
japan and Guam This deep is interesting to
science because 1t probably is a mother OF
earthquakes.
Early in June the Carnegie Institutions nom
magnetic survey yacht Carnegie after taking
soundings on the floor Of the Pacific, reported
that an ocean deep hitherto unknown had
been found In latitude 23.8 degrees north and
longitude l441 degrees east, lonely part Of
the ocean about / 400 miles to the southeast
of Toxic According to wireless messages from
the Carnegie, the deep measures 2S,S8O feet
and is about nine miles wide
The changing readings of an interesting
instrument on beard the vessel were indicating
the first story of the presence Of this inverted
mountain range under the sea. The sonic
depth finder measures the length of time it
takes sound to travel from the surface of the
water to the bottom and the return of its
echo to the surface. From this time interval
the depth of the water may be determined
the longer the time the deeper the water.
AS the ship moved up the Pacific, some
1,4O0 miles from Japan on its course from
Guam, the instrument had shown the ocean
bottom to be $4,000 feet below for a distance
of 100 miles. Then the floor of the ocean
dropped to $4,000 feet for a distance of At
miles Again it dropped to 26400 feet for
a distance of 20 miles, and finally to % $50
feet for distance of miles.
That meant a tremendous hole in the sea,
into which the highest mountain peak in the
United States, Mount Whitney, in California,
could be tumbled and even then lie submerged
more than two and a half miles beneath the
surface of the ocean.
Famed Mount Mckinley the highest noun
tain on the North American continent, would
lie mile and a half down beneath the surface
of the abyss. Even mighty Everest itself, the
highest mountain on the globe, would be only
prOtruding from the surface of the Pacific to
a height of 761 feet!
The new deep was named in honor of John
A. Fleming assistant director of the depart
ment of terrestrial magnetism of the Carnegie
Institution of Washington, by Capt. Ault Of
the Carnegie, following the custom of naming
such deepS after scientists.
OWE do not yet know a great deal about
the new Deep" Mr. Fleming said. las
we have not received the detailed report of
the soundings Nor has any one had time to
study the deep in its relationship to the
epicenters of previously recorded earthquakes.
We do know that the deep is fault
or crack in the earth's crust along which
stresses and strains cause adjustments of the
crust which manifest themselves as earth
quakes."
Down in this region of perpetual night, where
the only light is the ghostlike CLEANS of fish
who carry their own lanterns, where the tenn
perature always hovers around freezing point
and the pressure is so great that it would
crush a steel safe as fiat as a founder, the
earth'S crust is folded in ridges as it is in
the mountain ranges on land. Such deep folds
mean that the rocks in the crust are faulted
or broken and from time to time because of
the great pressure, the broken faces of the
rocks shift.
When the earth beneath the sea does slip
OF slide, the vibrations 1t sets up cast down
the cities of men on the mainland of Asia or in
the islands of the Pacific.
WHAT do these great troughs in the ocean
Nv look like?
We have only the description of them as it
is written by the depth-finder and fragmen-
tary bits of information about the bottom and
the life that exists there told by dredging
operations along the ocean bottom The
deeps are huge burrows, sometimes long. some
times comparatively short and relatively mar
row The area in the Pacific to the east of
Japan must look like huge corrugations along
the ocean bottom.
The pressure under the weight of a column
OF water five or six miles deep is of course
enormous. It is said to amount roughly to
about a ton on the square inch for every 900
fathoms, or 5000 feet. Therefore the pres
sure at the bottom of the new Fleming Deep
will be almost five tons to the square inch or
about 100 times as great as the Is pounds to
the square inch we are accustomed to at sea
level
chemist once Theoretically sealed a thick
glass tube and wrapped it in flannel and in
closed it in a wide copper tube with perforated
ends and lowered it down to depth of 10000
feet. When he drew it to the surface again
the copper tube was smashed fiat, and the
glass tube inside its flannel covering had been
reduced to a white, snow-like powder.
The cold water from the Northern oceans