About the Mariana Trench - DEEPSEA CHALLENGE Expedition DEEPSEA CHALLENGE / The Expedition / The Mariana Trench The Mariana Trench While thousands of climbers have successfully scaled Mount Everest, the highest point on Earth, only two people have descended to the planet’s deepest point, the Challenger Deep in the Pacific Ocean’s Mariana Trench. Located in the western Pacific east of the Philippines and an average of approximately 124 miles (200 kilometers) east of the Mariana Islands, the Mariana Trench is a crescent-shaped scar in the Earth’s crust that measures more than 1,500 miles (2,550 kilometers) long and 43 miles (69 kilometers) wide on average. The distance between the surface of the ocean and the trench’s deepest point—the Challenger Deep, which lies about 200 miles (322 kilometers) southwest of the U.S. territory of Guam—is nearly 7 miles (11 kilometers). If Mount Everest were dropped into the Mariana Trench, its peak would still be more than a mile (1.6 kilometers) underwater.

The Mariana Trench is part of a global network of deep troughs that cut across the ocean floor. They form when two tectonic plates collide. At the collision point, one of the plates dives beneath the other into the Earth’s mantle, creating an ocean trench. The depths of the Mariana Trench were first plumbed in 1875 by the British ship H.M.S. Challenger as part of the first global oceanographic cruise. The Challenger scientists recorded a depth of 4,475 fathoms (about five miles, or eight kilometers) using a weighted sounding rope. In 1951, the British vessel H.M.S. Challenger II returned to the spot with an echo-sounder and measured a depth of nearly 7 miles (11 kilometers). The majority of the Mariana Trench is now a U.S. protected zone as part of the Marianas Trench Marine National Monument , established by President George W. Bush in 2009. Permits for research in the monument, including in the Sirena Deep, have been secured from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Permits for research in the Challenger Deep have been secured from the Federated States of Micronesia. HISTORIC DIVE Because of its extreme depth, the Mariana Trench is cloaked in perpetual darkness and the temperature is just a few degrees above freezing. The water pressure at the bottom of the trench is a crushing eight tons per square inch—or about a thousand times the standard atmospheric pressure at sea level. Pressure increases with depth. The first and only time humans descended into the Challenger Deep was more than 50 years ago. In 1960, Jacques Piccard and Navy Lt. Don Walsh reached this goal in a U.S. Navy submersible, a bathyscaphe called the Trieste. After a five-hour descent, the pair spent only a scant 20 minutes at the bottom and were unable to take any photographs due to clouds of silt stirred up by their passage. Until Piccard and Walsh’s historic dive, scientists had debated whether life could exist under such extreme pressure. But at the bottom, the Trieste‘s floodlight illuminated a creature that Piccard thought was a flatfish, a moment that Piccard would later describe with excitement in a book about his journey.

“Here, in an instant, was the answer that biologists had asked for the decades,” Piccard wrote. “Could life exist in the greatest depths of the ocean? It could!” WAITING IN THE DEEP While the Trieste expedition laid to rest any doubts that life could exist in the Mariana Trench, scientists still know very little about the types of organisms that reside there. In fact, some question whether Piccard’s fish was actually a form of sea cucumber. It is thought that the pressure is so great that calcium can’t exist except in solution, so the bones of vertebrates would literally dissolve. No bones, no fish. But nature has also proven scientists wrong many times in the past with its remarkable capacity for adaptation. So are there fish that deep? Nobody knows, and this is the whole point of the DEEPSEA CHALLENGE project, to find answers to such fundamental questions. In recent years, deep-ocean dredges and unmanned subs have glimpsed exotic organisms such as shrimp-like amphipods, and strange, translucent animals called holothurians. But scientists say there are many new species awaiting discovery and many unanswered questions about how animals can survive in these extreme conditions.

Scientists are particularly interested in microorganisms living in the trenches, which they say could lead to breakthroughs in biomedicine and biotechnology. The Mariana Trench’s microscopic inhabitants might even shed light on the emergence of life on Earth. Some researchers, such as Patricia Fryer et alat University of Hawaii, have speculated that serpentine mud volcanoes located near ocean trenches might have provided the right conditions for our planet’s first life-forms. Additionally, studying rocks from ocean trenches could lead to a better understanding of the earthquakes that create the powerful and devastating tsunamis seen around the Pacific Rim, geologists say. Mariana Trench: The Deepest Depths Mariana Trench: The Deepest Depths By Becky Oskin, Contributing Writer | October 8, 2014 09:40pm ET MORE This image of the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench, the deepest spot on Earth, was made using sound waves bounched off the sea floor. Darker blues represent deeper spots. Credit: NASA/UNH Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping/Joint Hydrographic Center The Mariana Trench is a crescent-shaped trench in the Western Pacific, just east of the Mariana Islands near Guam.

The region surrounding the trench is noteworthy for many unique environments. The Mariana Trench contains the deepest known points on Earth, vents bubbling up liquid sulfur and carbon dioxide, active mud volcanoes and marine life adapted to pressures 1,000 times that at sea level. The Challenger Deep, in the southern end of the Mariana Trench (sometimes called the Marianas Trench), is the deepest spot in the ocean. Its depth is difficult to measure from the surface, but modern estimates vary by less than 1,000 feet (305 meters). In 2010, the Challenger Deep was pegged at 36,070 feet (10,994 m), as measured with sounds pulses sent through the ocean during a 2010 survey by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). In 2012, film director and deep-sea explorer James Cameron descended to the bottom of Challenger Deep, briefly reaching 35,756 feet (10,898 m) during the 2012 expedition. But he could have gone a little deeper.

A high-resolution seafloor mapping survey published in 2014 by researchers from the University of New Hampshire said the Challenger Deep bottoms out at 36,037 feet (10,984 m). The ocean's second-deepest place is also in the Mariana Trench. The Sirena Deep, which lies 124 miles (200 kilometers) to the east of Challenger Deep, is a bruising 35,462 feet deep (10,809 m). By comparison, Mount Everest stands at 29,026 feet (8,848 m) above sea level, meaning the deepest part of the Mariana Trench is 7,044 feet (2,147 m) deeper than Everest is tall. Protected land The Mariana Trench is 1,580 miles (2,542 kilometers) long — more than five times the length of the Grand Canyon. However, the narrow trench averages only 43 miles (69 km) wide. Because Guam is a U.S. territory and the 15 Northern Mariana Islands are a U.S.

Commonwealth, the United States has jurisdiction over the Mariana Trench. In 2009, President George W. Bush established the Mariana Trench Marine National Monument, which created a protected marine reserve for the approximately 195,000 square miles (506,000 square km) of seafloor and waters surrounding the remote islands. It includes most of the Mariana Trench, 21 underwater volcanoes and areas around three islands. How the trench formed The Mariana Trench was created by the process that occurs in a subduction zone , where two massive slabs of oceanic crust collide. At a subduction zone, one piece of oceanic crust is pushed and pulled underneath the other, sinking into the Earth's mantle, the layer under the crust. Where the two pieces of crust intersect, a deep trench forms above the bend in the sinking crust. In this case, the Pacific Ocean crust is bending below the Philippine crust. [ Infographic: Tallest Mountain to Deepest Ocean Trench ] The Pacific crust, also called a tectonic plate, is about 180 million years old where it dives into the trench. The Philippine plate is younger and smaller than the Pacific plate.

"At subduction zones, the cold, dense crust sinks back into the mantle and is destroyed," said Nicholas van der Elst, a seismologist at Columbia University's Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, New York. As deep as the trench is, it is not the spot closest to the center of Earth. Because the planet bulges at the equator, the radius at the poles is about 16 miles (25 km) less than the radius at the equator. So, parts of the Arctic Ocean seabed are closer to the Earth's center than the Challenger Deep. The crushing water pressure on the floor of the trench is more than 8 tons per square inch (703 kilograms per square meter). This is more than 1,000 times the pressure felt at sea level, or the equivalent of having 50 jumbo jets piled on top of a person. Deepest Part of the Ocean - Deepest Ocean Trench Home » Records » Deepest Point in the Oceans Deepest Part of the Ocean The Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench is the deepest known location in Earth's oceans.

Mariana Trench map: Map showing the geographic location of the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean. Image from the CIA Factbook. Measuring the Greatest Ocean Depth The Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench is the deepest known point in Earth's oceans. In 2010 the United States Center for Coastal & Ocean Mapping measured the depth of the Challenger Deep at 10,994 meters (36,070 feet) below sea level with an estimated vertical accuracy of ± 40 meters. If Mount Everest, the highest mountain on Earth , were placed at this location it would be covered by over one mile of water. The first depth measurements in the Mariana Trench were made by the British survey ship HMS Challenger, which was used by the Royal Navy in 1875 to conduct research in the trench. The greatest depth that they recorded at that time was 8,184 meters (26,850 feet). In 1951, another Royal Navy vessel, also named the "HMS Challenger," returned to the area for additional measurements.

They discovered an even deeper location with a depth of 10,900 meters (35,760 feet) determined by echo sounding. The Challenger Deep was named after the Royal Navy vessel that made these measurements. In 2009, sonar mapping done by researchers aboard the RV Kilo Moana, operated by the University of Hawaii, determined the depth to be 10,971 meters (35,994 feet) with a potential error of ± 22 meters. The most recent measurement, done in 2010, is the 10,994 meter ( ± 40 meter accuracy) depth reported at the top of this article, measured by the United States Center for Coastal & Ocean Mapping. Challenger Deep map: Map showing the location of the Challenger Deep on the southern end of the Mariana Trench, south of Guam. NOAA image modified by Kmusser and used here under a GNU Free Document License . Exploring the Challenger Deep The Challenger Deep was first explored by humans when Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh descended in the Trieste bathyscaphe in 1960 .

They reached a depth of 10,916 meters (35,814 feet). In 2009 researchers from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution completed the deepest dive by an unmanned robotic vehicle in the Challenger Deep. Their Nereus robotic vehicle reached a depth of 10,902 meters. Why is the ocean so deep here? The Mariana Trench is located at a convergent plate boundary. Here two converging plates of oceanic lithosphere collide with one another. At this collision point, one of the plates descends into the mantle. At the line of contact between the two plates, the downward flexure forms a trough known as an ocean trench. An example of an ocean trench is shown in the diagram. Ocean trenches form some of the deepest locations in Earth's oceans. Mariana Trench earthquake: Map showing the location of the Challenger Deep, the epicenter of an April, 2016 earthquake, and the relative movement directions of the Pacific and Philippine Plates. USGS map with annotations by Geology.com.

Underwater volcanic vent: As the Pacific Plate is pushed into the mantle and heated, water in the sediment is volatilized, and gases are liberated as the basalt of the plate melts. These gases migrate to the surface to form a number of volcanic vents on the ocean floor. This photo shows gases escaping and bubbles moving towards the surface, expanding as they ascend. NOAA image. Earthquakes in the Mariana Trench The Mariana Trench occurs along a plate boundary between the Philippine Plate and the Pacific Plate. The Pacific Plate is on the eastern and southern side of this boundary, and the Philippine Plate is on the western and northern side of this boundary. Both of these plates are moving in a northwesterly direction, but the Pacific Plate is moving faster than the Philippine Plate. The motion of these plates produces a convergent plate boundary because the greater speed of the Pacific Plate is causing it to collide into the Philippine Plate. This collision produces a subduction zone at the Mariana Trench as the Pacific Plate descends into the mantle and under the Philippine Plate. This collision occurs at variable speeds along the curving boundary of the plates, but the average relative motion is in the range of tens of millimeters per year.

Recurrent earthquakes occur along this plate boundary because the Pacific Plate's descent into the mantle is not smooth and uniform. Instead, the plates are usually stuck with pressure accumulating, but with sudden slips as the plates move a few millimeters to a few meters at a time. When the plates slip, vibrations are produced, and those vibrations travel through Earth's crust as earthquake waves. As the Pacific Plate descends into the mantle, it is heated by friction and the geothermal gradient. At a depth of approximately 100 miles, the rocks have been heated to a point where some minerals begin to melt. This melting produces magma that rises towards the surface because of its lower density. As the magma reaches the surface, volcanic eruptions are produced. These eruptions have formed the Mariana Island Arc. More Earth Extremes What Is the Deepest Part of the Ocean? What Is the Deepest Part of the Ocean? What Is the Deepest Part of the Ocean? How Deep Is the Ocean, and What Is the Deepest Point? Mariana Trench Map, Showing the Challenger Deep.

Kmusser, Wikimedia Commons Share By Jennifer Kennedy The ocean ranges in depth from 0 to more than 36,000 feet deep.The average depth of the ocean is about 12,100 feet, which is more than 2 miles! The deepest known point in the ocean is more than 7 miles below the ocean surface. What Is the Deepest Part of the Ocean? The ocean's deepest area is the Mariana Trench (also called the Marianas Trench), which is about 11 km (almost 7 miles, or almost 36,000 feet) deep. The trench is 1,554 miles long and 44 miles wide, and is like the Grand Canyon of the ocean, although it is 120 times larger . Contrary to what you might picture, the trench is wide - according to NOAA , almost 5 times wider than it is deep. The Mariana Trench is located in the western North Pacific Ocean. How Deep Is the Ocean's Deepest Point? The deepest point in the ocean is, not surprisingly, in the Mariana Trench.

It is called the Challenger Deep, after the British ship Challenger II, which discovered this point in 1951 while surveying. continue reading below our video 10 Best Universities in the United States The Challenger Deep lies along the southern end of the Mariana Trench near the Mariana Islands. Various measurements have been taken of the ocean's depth at the Challenger Deep, but it is usually described as about 11,000 meters deep, or close to 7 miles beneath the ocean's surface. At 29,035 feet, Mt. Everest is the tallest spot on Earth, yet if you were to submerge the mountain with its base at the Challenger Deep, it would still have over a mile of water above it. The water pressure at Challenger Deep is 8 tons per square inch. How Did the Mariana Trench Form? The Mariana Trench is so deep because it is an area where two of the Earth's plates converge and one (the Pacific plate) is subducted, or dives underneath, the other (the Philippine plate). During this slow process, the Philippine plate also gets pulled down.

This combination results in the formation of a deep trench (see map of the Earth's lithospheric plates here ). Have Humans Been To the Ocean's Deepest Point? Oceanographers Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh explored the Challenger Deep in January 1960 aboard a bathyscaphe named Trieste. The submersible carried the scientists approximately 11,000 meters (about 36,000 feet) into the Challenger Deep. The trip down took about 5 hours, and then they spent only about 20 minutes on the sea floor, where they viewed an "ooze" and some shrimp and fish, although their view was hampered by the sediment stirred up by their ship. They then traveled about 3 hours back to the surface. Since then, unmanned submersibles from Japan (the Kaikō in 1995) and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution explored the Challenger Deep. Until March 2012, no human besides Piccard and Walsh had traveled to the Challenger Deep. But on March 25, 2012, filmmaker (and National Geographic Explorer) James Cameron became the first person to make a solo voyage to the deepest point on Earth.

His 24-foot tall submersible Deepsea Challenger, reached 35,756 feet (10,898 meters) after an approximately 2.5-hour descent. Unlike Piccard and Walsh's historic first exploration, Cameron spent more than 3 hours exploring the trench, although his attempts to take biological samples at the ocean bottom were hampered by technical glitches. Marine Life in the Deepest Part of the Ocean Despite cold temperatures, extreme pressure (to us, anyway) and lack of light, marine life does exist in the Mariana Trench. Single-celled protists called foraminifera , crustaceans and other invertebrates and even fish have been found there. References and Further Information: The Mariana Trench Resources Explore the Mariana Trench The Mariana Trench is located in the Pacific Ocean, just east of the 14 Mariana Islands (11"21' North latitude and 142" 12' East longitude ) near Japan. As you probably already know, it is the deepest part of the earth's oceans, and the deepest location of the earth itself.

It was created by ocean-to-ocean subduction, a phenomena in which a plate topped by oceanic crust is subducted beneath another plate topped by oceanic crust. The deepest part of the Mariana Trench is the Challenger Deep, so named after the exploratory vessel HMS Challenger II; a fishing boat converted into a sea lab by Swiss scientist Jacques Piccard. On this site, you will find information on the main characteristics of the Mariana Trench, its exploration, and its ecosystem. The Biology section of the site covers the fish and various (organisms and microorganisms) of the deep, what makes these creatures unique, and the fascinating ways in which they live and survive. The Oceanography section explores the data pertaining to the Mariana Trench and other deep sea formations. The Exploration section relates some of the events pertaining to the first survey of the MT, and the history of deep sea exploration. We have also included a section on the Mariana Arc , from an article published by NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) Magazine Online . In addition to this, we also added a nautical measurement conversion table. In closing we have added two supplemental sections so that you may continue your research into the fascinating world of the deep.

Whether you are seeking answers to questions about the Mariana Trench, or are simply interested in Marine Biology, Oceanography, or related subjects, we hope our site will help you better understand the mysteries of the ocean floor. Fact You will notice that some of the pages on this site feature our fact finder, mainly a recap of the important points covered in the sections. In addition to this and the resources page, relevant links appear at the bottom of each page. How the Mariana Trench Became Earth's Deepest Point How the Mariana Trench Became Earth's Deepest Point Heavy lava, tectonic movements shaped the 7-mile-deep abyss. View Images The Mariana Trench (pictured in a video still of an illustration) is the deepest place on Earth. Video still courtesy of NOAA James Cameron made headlines last month by successfully diving 6.8 miles (11 kilometers) to the deepest part of the Mariana Trench in a one-person submersible called the DEEPSEA CHALLENGER.

(See "Cameron Exclusive: After Record Dive, Why Go Back to Mariana Trench?" ) Related Content Rare Ruby Seadragon Caught on Video for First Time Best known as a Hollywood director and now a National Geographic Society explorer-in-residence , Cameron is one of just three people to dive to Earth's deepest point, and the only one to be able to stay long enough to look around. ( Video: Cameron Dive Is an Exploration First. ) Though Cameron and his team are hoping to discover more about the biology of the Mariana depths, geologists already know a lot about how the Mariana Trench formed—and why it's Earth's deepest spot. (Related: "James Cameron on Earth's Deepest Spot: Desolate, Lunar-Like." ) Ancient Lava Shaped Mariana Trench The Mariana Trench isn't really the deep, narrow furrow that the word "trench" implies. Rather, the abyss marks the location of a subduction zone. Subduction zones occur where one part of the seabed—in this case the Pacific plate—dives beneath another, the Philippine plate.

Though tectonic forces eventually warp the Pacific plate so that it makes a near-vertical dive into the Earth's interior, at seabed level the plate dips at a relatively gentle angle. A tectonic plate is a huge hunk of rock, 60 miles (97 kilometers) or more thick, said Robert Stern , a geophysicist at the University of Texas, Dallas. "In order for this to sink back into the earth, it has to bend downward, and these are very gentle bends." One reason the Mariana Trench is so deep, he added, is because the western Pacific is home to some of the oldest seafloor in the world—about 180 million years old. Seafloor is formed as lava at mid- ocean ridges. When it's fresh, lava is comparatively warm and buoyant, riding high on the underlying mantle. But as lava ages and spreads away from its source, it slowly cools and becomes increasingly dense, causing it to settle ever lower—as is the case with the Mariana Trench. Mariana Trench Could Trigger Big Quakes?

Two other factors conspire to make the 1,580-mile-long (2,550-kilometer-long) Mariana Trench staggeringly deep. For one, the trench lies far from any major landmass, which means it's remote from the mouths of muddy rivers. "Many other deep trenches are more filled with sediment," Chris Goldfinger , director of the Active Tectonics and Seafloor Mapping Laboratory at Oregon State University, said in an email. "This one isn't." In addition, nearby fault lines cut the Pacific plate into a narrow tongue at the site of the trench, allowing the plate to bend more steeply downward than at other subduction zones. Because of this orientation, most scientists thought that the Mariana Trench subduction zone wouldn't be a source of major earthquakes, said geophysicist Emile Okal of Northwestern University. That's because the dense rock of the Pacific Plate at the site of the trench should not press strongly upward against the overriding Philippine plate, creating the friction that would cause earthquakes.

But the 2004 Sumatra earthquake and the 2011 Japan earthquake "killed" that theory by occurring in other, similar places where giant temblors weren't expected, Okal said by email. So there's no reason to believe the Mariana Trench region couldn't produce an earthquake of perhaps magnitude 8.5, he said. "There are two events [in the region] known to have generated local tsunamis in 1826 and 1872." Cameron Dive a "Man on the Moon" Feat Despite Cameron's record dive, it's impossible to know what really happens in the subduction zone, since most of the action occurs up to 420 miles (700 kilometers) below Earth's surface. (See plate-tectonics pictures .) (The dive was part of the DEEPSEA CHALLENGE program, a partnership with the National Geographic Society and Rolex. The Society owns National Geographic News.) "That's the iceberg," the University of Texas's Stern said, in reference to Cameron's movie Titanic. "Cameron wasn't even at the tip of it—11 kilometers out of 700.

The trench is the interface between the limits of human experience and the reality humans can't experience." Even so, with subsequent dives, there's the prospect of retrieving rock samples and looking for life deeper than it's ever been found before. "Life in extreme environments is fascinating, and I think [that's] a big part of what motivated Cameron," said Oregon State's Goldfinger. "Hopefully this new vehicle will lead to being able to do science effectively at those depths. I think it's really a mission of discovery at this point." UT's Stern agreed, calling Cameron's trip "kind of a man-on-the-moon thing." Comment on This Story James Cameron Now at Ocean's Deepest Point James Cameron Now at Ocean's Deepest Point Explorer-filmmaker reaches Mariana Trench on deepest ever solo sub dive. View Images A shipboard crane lowers Cameron's sub into the Pacific around 2 a.m. Monday, local time. Photograph by Mark Thiessen, National Geographic At 5:52 p.m. ET Sunday (7:52 a.m. Monday, local time), James Cameron arrived at the Mariana Trench 's Challenger Deep, members of the National Geographic expedition have confirmed.

His depth on arrival: 35,756 feet (10,898 meters)—a figure unattainable anywhere else in the ocean . Reaching bottom after a 2-hour-and-36-minute descent, the National Geographic explorer and filmmaker typed out welcome words for the cheering support crew waiting at the surface: "All systems OK." Folded into a sub cockpit as cramped as any Apollo capsule , the National Geographic explorer and filmmaker is now investigating a seascape more alien to humans than the moon. Cameron is only the third person to reach this Pacific Ocean valley southwest of Guam (map) —and the only one to do so solo. Hovering in what he's called a vertical torpedo, Cameron is likely collecting data, specimens, and imagery unthinkable in 1960, when the only other explorers to reach Challenger Deep returned after seeing little more than the silt stirred up by their bathyscaphe . After as long as six hours in the trench, Cameron—best known for creating fictional worlds on film ( Avatar , Titanic , The Abyss )—is to jettison steel weights attached to the sub and shoot back to the surface.

(See pictures of Cameron's sub .) Meanwhile, the expedition's scientific support team awaits his return aboard the research ships Mermaid Sapphire and Barakuda, 7 miles (11 kilometers) up. ( Video: how sound revealed that Challenger Deep is the deepest spot in the ocean. ) "We're now a band of brothers and sisters that have been through this for a while," marine biologist Doug Bartlett told National Geographic News from the ship before the dive. "People have worked for months or years in a very intensive way to get to this point," said Bartlett, chief scientist for the DEEPSEA CHALLENGE program , a partnership with the National Geographic Society and Rolex. (The Society owns National Geographic News.) "I think people are ready," added Bartlett, of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, California. "They want to get there, and they want to see this happen." ( Video: Cameron Dive Is an Exploration First. )m Rendezvous at Challenger Deep Upon touchdown at Challenger Deep, Cameron's first target is a phone booth-like unmanned "lander" dropped into the trench hours before his dive.

Using sonar, "I'm going to attempt to rendezvous with that vehicle so I can observe animals that are attracted to the chemical signature of its bait," Cameron told National Geographic News before the dive. He'll later follow a route designed to take him through as many environments as possible, surveying not only the sediment-covered seafloor but also cliffs of interest to expedition geologists. "I'll be doing a bit of a longitudinal transect along the trench axis for a while, and then I'll turn 90 degrees and I'll go north and work myself up the wall," said Cameron, also a National Geographic Society explorer-in-residence . (Listen: James Cameron on becoming a National Geographic explorer .) Though battery power and vast distances limit his contact with his science team to text messaging and sporadic voice communication, Cameron seemed confident in his mission Friday. "I'm pretty well briefed on what I'll see," he said. ( Video: Cameron Dive First Attempt in Over 50 Years. ) Bullet to the Deep To get to this point, Cameron and his crew have spent seven years reimagining what a submersible can be. The result is the 24-foot-tall (7-meter-tall) DEEPSEA CHALLENGER.

Engineered to sink upright and spinning, like a bullet fired straight into the Mariana Trench, the sub can descend about 500 feet (150 meters) a minute—"amazingly fast," in the words of Robert Stern, a marine geologist at the University of Texas at Dallas. Pre-expedition estimates put the Challenger Deep descent at about 90 minutes. ( Animation: Cameron's Mariana Trench dive compressed into one minute. ) By contrast, some current remotely operated vehicles, or ROVs, descend at about 40 meters (130 feet) a minute, added Stern, who isn't part of the expedition. Andy Bowen, project manager and principal developer of the Nereus , an ROV that explored Challenger Deep in 2009, called the DEEPSEA CHALLENGER "an extremely elegant solution to the challenge of diving a human-occupied submersible to such extreme depths." "It's been engineered to be very effective at getting from the surface to the seafloor in as quick a time as possible," said Bowen, of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, who also isn't part of the current expedition.

And that's just the idea, the DEEPSEA CHALLENGE team says: The faster Cameron gets there, the more time for science. (Read more about DEEPSEA CHALLENGE science .) Pursuing speed and science in tandem makes the DEEPSEA CHALLENGER test dives—and even the Mariana Trench mission—perhaps as unorthodox as the sub itself. Typically "you conduct a sea trial for a vehicle, you pronounce it fit for service, and then you develop a science program around it," Cameron said before heading to the trench. "We collapsed that together into one expedition, because [we were] fairly confident the vehicle would work—and it is." Techno Torpedo Now, at the bottom of the trench, the sub's custom-designed foam filling and the pressure-resistant shape of the "pilot sphere"—are helping protect Cameron from the equivalent of 8 tons pressing down on every square inch (1,125 kilograms per square centimeter). ( Video: how sub sphere protects Cameron. ) Among the sub's tools are a sediment sampler, a mechanical claw, a "slurp gun" for sucking up small sea creatures for study at the surface, and temperature, salinity, and pressure gauges.

While that might sound like a gearhead's paradise, Cameron knows he'll "have to be able to prioritize." "Is my manipulator working properly? Do I still have room in my sample drawer? And do I still have the ability to take a [sediment] core sample? ... I only have [tools for] three sediment cores available on the vehicle, so I have to choose wisely when to use them." By contrast, the sub's multiple 3-D cameras will be whirring almost continually, and not just for the benefit of future audiences of planned documentaries. "There is scientific value in getting stereo images," Cameron said, "because ... you can determine the scale and distance of objects from stereo pairs that you can't from 2-D images." But, Scripps's Bartlett said, "it's not just the video." The sub's lighting of deepwater scenes—mainly by an 8-foot (2.5-meter) tower of LEDs—is "so, so beautiful.

It's unlike anything that you'll have seen from other subs or other remotely operated vehicles." BBC News - Ocean trench: Take a dive 11,000m down Ocean trench: Take a dive 11,000m down CAMERON'S SUB Film adventure Icy cold, pitch black and with crushing pressures - the deepest part of the ocean is one of the most hostile places on the planet. Only three explorers have made the epic journey there: 11km (seven miles) down to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean's Mariana Trench. As a new wave of deep-sea exploration begins, take a look at the mysterious world that they will be plunging into. Scroll to see the ocean's deepest depths Operating depth of the oil rig Deepwater Horizon Wreck of the RMS Titanic found at this depth Maximum depth of Russia's two MIR subs Deepest point in the Atlantic Ocean m (36,069ft) Challenger Deep is the deepest place on Earth. Don Walsh was in the first sub to reach the ocean's darkest depth. Depth reached by film director James Cameron Sunlight Zone Sunlight or Epipelagic zone, (0-200m).

Most of the life in the ocean occurs here, in the warmer surface waters. Approx temp: 12-20C Twilight Zone Twilight or Mesopelagic zone (200-1,000m). With depth, sunlight fades to pitch-darkness and temperatures plunge. Approx temp: 4-13C. Midnight Zone Midnight or Bathypelagic zone (1,000-4,000m). Bioluminescence produced by the animals here is the only light. Approx temp: 4C Lower Midnight Lower Midnight or Abyssal zone (4,000-6,000m). Most of the ocean floor is found in this range. Approx temp: Near freezing The Trenches The Trenches or Hadal zone, 6,000m plus. Food is scarce, but new life is still found in this harsh environment. Approx temp: Just above freezing DEPTH 0 (m) on a single fingernail Pressure Test: Diving 100m down With the help of some polystyrene heads, science reporter Rebecca Morelle finds out what happens at the pressure experienced 100m below sea level.

Pressure Test: Diving 1,000m down The BBC's Rebecca Morelle reveals what happens to a polystyrene head as it is subjected to the pressure 1,000m below the waves. Atmospheric diving suit They may look as clunky as a suit of armour but some atmospheric diving suits (ADS) can enable people to reach depths of up to 600-700m. This ADS used by the French navy can reach 250m. Elephant seal - expert diver This southern elephant seal is a fantastic diver and reach depths of up to 2,000m. Large males can weigh as much as four tonnes and live mainly on a diet of fish and squid. Anglerfish, predator in the deep This fearsome predator has a lure above its mouth that flickers with bioluminescent light. It has evolved to catch the attention of prey and draw them near. If they come close enough, the anglerfish will strike.

Alvin - deep diving sub The long-serving, US-submersible Alvin is capable of taking up to three people to depths of 4,500m - but an upgrade is under way that will allow it to dive even deeper. Launched in the 1960s Alvin surveyed the wreck of the RMS Titanic and many others. Scavengers that live on the edge of a trench Alan Jamieson, from Oceanlab at the University of Aberdeen, describes the animals that live at the top of an ocean trench. Why 6,000m is a strange zone for life At 6,000m down, the trenches are full of surprises, as Alan Jamieson, from Oceanlab at the University of Aberdeen, explains. Are snailfish the world's deepest fish? Alan Jamieson, from Oceanlab at the University of Aberdeen, says a species called the snailfish is the deepest fish he has seen in the ocean trenches. HMS Challenger - survey vessel The British survey vessel HMS Challenger was the first to sound the depths of the Mariana Trench in 1875.

The deepest point in the trench, Challenger Deep, was eventually named after her as was the ill-fated space shuttle. Take a fly-through the Mariana Trench This fly through, created by Jim Gardner from the US Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping, is the most detailed map of the Mariana Trench to date. Prawn-like creatures dominate the deepest ocean In the deepest ocean, scavengers called amphipods dominate, as Alan Jamieson, from Oceanlab at the University of Aberdeen, explains. Pressure Test: Diving 10,000m down The BBC's Rebecca Morelle reveals what happens to a polystyrene head as is taken to the pressure experienced 10,000m below the waves. Meet the man who survived the deepest ocean In 1960, Don Walsh, with Swiss engineer Jacques Piccard, made the world's first dive to the bottom of the Mariana Trench. Here, he tells the remarkable story. James Cameron: Deepest seabed 'like another planet' Film director James Cameron has returned to the surface after becoming the first person in 50 years to reach the deepest point in the ocean. Written by Rebecca Morelle.

Production by John Walton, Helene Sears, Luke Ward and Charlotte Thornton. Camera work, Simon Hancock. Share this page New video shows life in the deepest ocean | Earth | EarthSky New video shows life in the deepest ocean By Deborah Byrd in Earth | Science Wire | January 3, 2015 An international team of scientists has set a new record for the deepest known ocean fish. They were filming in the Mariana Trench – the deepest part of the ocean. The deepest part of the ocean is in the Mariana Trench (sometimes called the Marianas Trench), located in the western Pacific Ocean. At its deepest part, it’s just under 7 miles (6.831 miles / 10.994 km / 10,994 meters) deep. Using the UK’s deepest diving vehicle – the Hadal-Lander – an international team of marine biologists, geologists, microbiologists and geneticists recently probed this area, captured video of the world’s deepest ocean life, discovered some new species and set a new record for the world’s deepest known fish.

In December, 2014, the University of Aberdeen released information and the video above, based on these scientists’ recent 30-day journey to this cavernous part of the ocean floor. Mysterious supergiant amphipod, filmed alive for the first time. This extremely large crustacean was first recovered by traps off New Zealand in 2012. Deepest known fish is now a snailfish, the fragile creature to the left of center in this image, at a depth of 8,145 meters in the Mariana Trench. Among other things, they captured the first footage of a live and very mysterious supergiant amphipod. This creature, an extremely large crustacean, was first recovered by traps off New Zealand in 2012. The new footage shows the supergiants swimming, feeding and fending off would-be predators with its large body size and protective tail. Alan Jamieson from the University of Aberdeen was part of the expedition. He said: Knowing these creatures exist is one thing, but to watch them alive in their natural habitat and interacting with other species is truly amazing.

The video footage also shows a type of snailfish at depths of 8,145 meters – 500 meters further down than the greatest depth that fish had been observed prior to this expedition. Jamison said: This really deep fish did not look like anything we had seen before, nor does it look like anything we know of. It is unbelievably fragile, with large wing-like fins and a head resembling a cartoon dog. In all, the scientists completed 92 deployments of deep-sampling equipment across the entire depth range of the trench (5000 meters to 10,600 meters deep). That’s the greatest number deployed to the Mariana Trench so far, they say. The scientists and their diving vehicle traveled aboard Schmidt Ocean Institute’s Research Vessel Falkor. Mariana Trench in the western Pacific. The trench is some 1,580 miles long (about 2,550 km), with an average width of only 43 miles (69 km). Image via Wallace at Wikimedia Commons. Bottom line: An international team of scientists has set a new record for the deepest known ocean fish.

They were filming in the Mariana Trench – the deepest part of the ocean. Mariana Trench Facts and Location By Jennifer Kennedy Updated February 17, 2016. The Mariana Trench (also called the Marianas Trench ) is the deepest part of the ocean. This trench lies in an area where two of the Earth's plates - the Pacific Plate and the Philippine Plate - come together. The Pacific plate dives under the Philippine plate, which also partially gets pulled along (read more about this collision under oceanic-oceanic convergence here ). It is also thought that water can be carried with it, and may contribute to strong earthquakes by hydrating rock and lubricating the plates, which might lead to a sudden slip. There are many trenches in the ocean, but because of the location of this trench, it is the deepest. The Mariana Trench is located in an area of old seafloor, made up of lava, which is dense and causes the seafloor to settle further. Plus, since the trench is so far away from any rivers, it does not get filled with sediment like many other oceanic trenches, which also contributes to its extreme depth.

continue reading below our video What are the Seven Wonders of the World Where Is the Mariana Trench? The Mariana Trench is located in the western Pacific Ocean, east of the Philippines and about 120 miles east of the Mariana Islands. In 2009, President Bush declared the area surrounding Mariana Trench as a wildlife refuge, called the Marianas Trench Marine National Monument , which covers approximately 95,216 square miles - you can see a map here . How Big is the Mariana Trench? The trench is 1,554 miles long and 44 miles wide. The trench is more than 5 times wider than it is deep. The deepest point of the trench, which is known as the Challenger Deep - is almost 7 miles (over 36,000 feet) deep and is a bathtub-shaped depression. The trench is so deep that at the bottom, the water pressure is eight tons per square inch. What Is the Water Temperature in the Mariana Trench? The water temperature in the deepest part of the ocean is a chilly 33-39 degrees Fahrenheit - just above freezing. What Lives in the Mariana Trench?

The bottom of deep areas like the Mariana Trench is composed of an "ooze" made up of the shells of plankton . While the trench and areas like it haven't been fully explored, we know that there are organisms that can survive at this depth, including bacteria, microorganisms, protists ( foraminifera , xenophyophores , shrimp-like amphipods , and possibly even some fish. Has anyone been to the bottom of the Marianas Trench? The short answer is: yes. The first trip to the Challenger Deep was made by Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh in 1960. They didn't spend much time at the bottom, and couldn't see much as their sub kicked up too much sediment, but they did report seeing some flatfish. Voyages to the Mariana Trench have been made since then to map the area and collect samples, but humans had not been to the deepest point in the trench until 2012. In March 2012, James Cameron successfully completed the first solo, human mission to the Challenger Deep. Read more about the next steps and scientific analysis of his findings here . References and Further Information:

Question: The Mariana Trench is the deepest point in which ocean?
Answer: Pacific Ocean