James Cameron Completes Record-Breaking Mariana Trench Dive James Cameron Completes Record-Breaking Mariana Trench Dive Solo sub dive is deepest ever. View Images The DEEPSEA CHALLENGER sub during a February test off Papua New Guinea. Photograph by Mark Thiessen, National Geographic At noon on Monday, local time, (10 p.m. Sunday ET) James Cameron 's "vertical torpedo" sub broke the surface of the western Pacific, carrying the National Geographic explorer and filmmaker back from the Mariana Trench 's Challenger Deep—Earth's deepest, and perhaps most alien, realm. Related Content Tourists Try to See Great Barrier Reef Before It's Gone The first human to reach the 6.8-mile-deep (11-kilometer-deep) undersea valley solo, Cameron arrived at the bottom with the tech to collect scientific data, specimens, and visions unthinkable in 1960, when the only other manned Challenger Deep dive took place, according to members of the National Geographic expedition. After a faster-than-expected, roughly 70-minute ascent, Cameron's sub, bobbing in the open ocean, was spotted by helicopter and would soon be plucked from the Pacific by a research ship's crane.

Earlier, the descent to Challenger Deep had taken 2 hours and 36 minutes. Expedition member Kevin Hand called the timing of the DEEPSEA CHALLENGER sub's ascent "perfect." "Jim came up in what must have been the best weather conditions we've seen, and it looks like there’s a squall on the horizon," said Hand, a NASA astrobiologist and National Geographic emerging explorer . Before surfacing about 300 miles (500 kilometers) southwest of Guam, Cameron spent hours hovering over Challenger Deep's desert-like seafloor and gliding along its cliff walls, the whole time collecting samples and video. Among the 2.5-story-tall sub's tools are a sediment sampler, a robotic claw, a "slurp gun" for sucking up small seacreatures for study at the surface, and temperature, salinity, and pressure gauges. (See pictures of Cameron's sub .) Now "the science team is getting ready for the returned samples," said NASA's Hand. Cameron—best known for creating fictional worlds on film ( Avatar , Titanic , The Abyss )—is expected to announce his initial findings later today.

After analysis, full results are to be published in a future edition of National Geographic magazine . ( Video: Cameron Dive Is an Exploration First. ) "The Ultimate Test" Retired U.S. Navy Capt. Don Walsh , who descended to Challenger Deep in 1960, said he was pleased to hear that Cameron had reached the underwater valley safely. "That was a grand moment, to welcome him to the club," Walsh, said in a telephone interview from the sub-support ship. "There're only three of us in it, and one of them—late Swiss engineer Jacques Piccard—"is dead. Now it's just Jim and myself." Expedition physician Joe MacInnis called Cameron’s successful descent today "the ultimate test of a man and his machine." After breaching the ocean surface, the DEEPSEA CHALLENGER was first spotted by a helicopter owned by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen , a longtime Cameron friend. Allen was on the scene for the historic dive and posted live updates of the event on Twitter from aboard his yacht, the Octopus, which is providing backup support for the mission.

Science in Three Dimensions Throughout the Mariana Trench dive, 3-D video cameras were kept whirring, and not just for the benefit of future audiences of planned documentaries. "There is scientific value in getting stereo images because ... you can determine the scale and distance of objects from stereo pairs that you can't from 2-D images," Cameron told National Geographic News before the dive. But "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," said Doug Bartlett , a marine biologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, California. "It's unlike anything that you'll have seen from other subs or other remotely operated vehicles," said Bartlett, chief scientist for the DEEPSEA CHALLENGE project , a partnership with the National Geographic Society and Rolex. (The Society owns National Geographic News.) (Read more about DEEPSEA CHALLENGE science .) Medical, Psychological Rigors As the 57-year-old explorer emerged from the sub's coffin—tight 43-inch-wide (109-centimeter-wide) cockpit, a medical team stood at the ready.

But if recent test dives—including one to more than five miles (eight kilometers meters) down—are any indication, Cameron should be physically fine, despite having been unable to extend his arms and legs for hours, expedition physician Joe MacInnis told National Geographic News before the dive. "Jim is going to be a little bit stiff and sore from the cramped position, but he's in really good shape for his age, so I don't expect any problems at all," said MacInnis, a long-time Cameron friend. In addition, the sub's "pilot sphere" has a handlebar, which Cameron could use to pull himself occasionally up during the dive. "Usually, shifting position is all that's required to buy yourself another few hours," he said. ( Video: how sub sphere protects Cameron. ) Because Cameron had prepared extensively for the dive, he should be in good psychological health, said Walter Sipes, an aeronautics psychologist at NASA's Johnson Space Center. "He's got prior experience doing this, not just in the simulator but also training dives ... and he's an adventurer, so I really don't think they'll have any issues to worry about," said Sipes, who is not part of the expedition.

Still, if Cameron plans to conduct more dives—which the team has indicated he will—Sipes recommends he get plenty of rest in between or risk mental fatigue. "When you start to get fatigued, you start making mistakes," he added. "And since he's down there solo, he can't afford that. He's a [potential] single-point failure." It should be at least a few weeks before any further DEEPSEA CHALLENGE dives, as the director's next breakneck mission will take him from the middle of the Pacific to London, where he's due at a premiere of his Titanic 3-D Wednesday. ( Animation: Cameron's Mariana Trench dive compressed into one minute. ) "A Turning Point" By returning humans to the so-called hadal zone—the ocean 's deepest level, below 20,000 feet (6,000 meters)—the Challenger Deep expedition may represent a renaissance in deep-sea exploration.

While remotely operated vehicles, or ROVs, are much less expensive than manned subs, "the critical thing is to be able to take the human mind down into that environment," expedition member Patricia Fryer said, "to be able to turn your head and look around to see what the relationships are between organisms in a community and to see how they're behaving—to turn off all the lights and just sit there and watch and not frighten the animals, so that they behave normally. "That is almost impossible to do with an ROV," said Fryer, a marine geologist at the Hawai'i Institute of Geophysics & Planetology. Andy Bowen, project manager and principal developer of the Nereus , an ROV that explored Challenger Deep in 2009, said a manned mission also has the potential to inspire public imagination in a way a robot can't. "It's difficult to anthropomorphize machines in a way that engages everyone's imagination—not in the same way that having boots on the ground, so to speak, can do," said Bowen, who's not an expedition member.

Biological oceanographer Lisa Levin, also at Scripps, said that the DEEPSEA CHALLENGE program's potential for generating public interest in deep-ocean science is as important as any new species Cameron might have discovered. "I consider Cameron to be doing for the trenches what Jacques Cousteau did for the ocean many decades ago," said Levin, who's part of the team but did not participate in the seagoing expedition. At a time of fast-shrinking funds for undersea research, "what scientists need is the public support to be able to continue exploration and research of the deep ocean," Levin said.

James Cameron Mariana Trench dive: Film director visits ocean's deepest point | Daily Mail Online 'To hell and back': James Cameron is first solo diver to reach deepest point on Earth - but has to race back to surface after hydraulic failure seven miles down Director becomes first human to visit bottom of trench since January 1960 Cuts short dive after hydraulic failure Cameron descended 35,756 feet (6.77 miles/10.89km) to reach 'Challenger Deep' in the Mariana Trench Arnold Schwarzenegger, Richard Branson and Jessica Alba tweet support First of several competing missions to deepest point on Earth Mariana Trench is deeper than Mount Everest is high Returned to the surface in faster-than-expected 70 minutes Cameron filmed the journey for a feature-length documentary comments James Cameron has become the first solo diver to reach the bottom of Challenger Deep - the deepest point on Earth. But the Avatar director revealed he cut the mission three hours short after hydraulic fluid started leaking into his sub.

The 57-year-old described it as ‘a heck of a ride.’ The ‘Titanic’ and ‘Avatar’ director planned to spend seven hours under water but decided to head back up after spotting the leak. ‘I saw a lot of hydraulic oil come up in front of the port. The port was coated with it. I couldn’t pick anything up so I began to feel like it was a moment of diminishing returns to go on,’ he explained. ‘I lost a lot of thrusters. I lost the whole starboard side. That’s when I decided to come up. I couldn’t go any further - I was just spinning in a circle,’ he added. Scroll down to watch James Cameron surfacing from the challenge Success: James Cameron gives two thumbs-up as he emerges from the Deepsea Challenger today after his successful solo dive in the Mariana Trench Cameron's dive took him to a part of the ocean no one has visited for 50 years - and he is the only human being to have travelled and returned solo ‘It was bleak. It looked like the moon. I didn’t see a fish.

I didn’t see anything that looked alive to me, other than a few shrimplike amphipods in the water,’ he added. Cameron, who knows a little about alien worlds having made the movie Avatar, said when he got to this strange cold, dark place seven miles below the western Pacific Ocean that only two other men have been to, there was one thing he promised to himself - he wanted to drink in how unusual it is. RELATED ARTICLES Share this article Share He didn't do that when he first dove to the watery grave of the Titanic, and Apollo astronauts have said they never had time to savour where they were. ‘There had to be a moment where I just stopped, and took it in, and said, “This is where I am. I'm at the bottom of the ocean, the deepest place on Earth. What does that mean?”’ Cameron told reporters after spending three hours at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, nearly seven miles down. ‘I just sat there looking out the window, looking at this barren, desolate lunar plain, appreciating,’ Cameron said.

Water trip: Support vessels and divers circle Cameron's sub just after it surfaced Relief: The trip was fraught with danger but Cameron made it safely back with divers ready to aid the director if needed SIR RICHARD BRANSON TO DIVE TO ATLANTIC'S DEEPEST POINT Sir Richard Branson is determined to press ahead with his own undersea venture following the success of James Cameron’s journey to the deepest ocean point, it was revealed today. Today, a spokeswoman for Sir Richard said the Virgin Oceanic challenge would now begin with a dive to the Puerto Rico Trench - the deepest point of the Atlantic Ocean. As already announced, Sir Richard will pilot the submersible - slightly different in design to the Cameron craft - in the Puerto Rico Trench venture which will see the Virgin boss descend about five miles. The Virgin programme will then take in dives by human pilots to the bottom of the Arctic, Southern and Indian oceans. Sir Richard told the Press Association today: ‘I hope to do the Puerto Rico Trench dive in about three to four months if all goes well.’ He went on: ‘Our submersible is a little different from Jim’s (Cameron’s). It’s smaller and will be able to explore the bottom of the ocean.

‘It will take about five hours to complete the descent and then there will be about three hours of exploring time and then it will take another five hours to ascend.’ Sir Richard said he was practising on a smaller version of the sub. He went on: ‘I think this is the most exciting thing I have done. No-one has been down to the bottom of this trench before. I have been talking with Jim about working together. We might be able to do the Mariana Trench as part of our programme as well.’ He also realised how alone he was, with that much water above him. ‘It's really the sense of isolation, more than anything, realising how tiny you are down in this big vast black unknown and unexplored place,’ Cameron said. Cameron said he had hoped to see some strange deep sea monster like a creature that would excite the storyteller in him and seem like out of his movies, but he didn't. He didn't see tracks of animals on the sea floor as he did when he dove more than five miles deep weeks ago. All he saw were voracious shrimp-like critters that weren't bigger than an inch. But that was okay, he said, it was all about exploration, science and discovery.

He is the only person to dive there solo, using a sub he helped design. He is the first person to reach that depth - 35,576 feet - since it was initially explored in 1960. He spent more than three hours at the bottom, longer than the 20 minutes Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard spent in the only other visit 52 years ago. But it was less than the six hours he had hoped. He said he would return. ‘I see this as the beginning,’ Cameron said. ‘It's not a one-time deal and then moving on. This is the beginning of opening up this new frontier.’ ‘To me, the story is in the people in their quest and curiosity and their attempt to understand,’ Cameron said. He spent time filming the Mariana Trench, which is about 200 miles southwest of the Pacific island of Guam. The trip down to the deepest point took two hours and 36 minutes, starting Sunday afternoon U.S. East Coast time. His return aboard his 12-ton, lime-green sub called Deepsea Challenger was a ‘faster-than-expected 70-minute ascent,’ according to National Geographic, which sponsored the expedition.

Cameron is a National Geographic explorer-in-residence. The only thing that went wrong was the hydraulics on the system to collect rocks and critters to bring them back to land. Just as he was about to collect his first sample, a leak in the hydraulic fluid sprayed into the water and he couldn't bring anything back. When Cameron climbed into his sub, it was warm because it was near the equator and his cramped vehicle - his head hit one end and his feet the other - was toasty because of the heat given off by electronics. It felt ‘like a sauna’ with temperatures of more than 100 degrees Fahrenheit, he said. But as he plunged into the deep, the temperature outside the sub dropped to around 36 degrees, he said. The pressure on the sub was immense - comparable to three SUVs resting on a toe. The super-strong sub shrank three inches under that pressure, Cameron said. ‘It's a very weird environment,’ Cameron said. ‘I can't say it's very comfortable. And you can't stretch out.’ Cameron gave two thumbs up when he triumphantly resurfaced. His first words to the surface upon reaching the bottom were 'all systems OK', National Geographic said on its website.

As he hit the bottom, he tweeted: 'Just arrived at the ocean's deepest pt. Hitting bottom never felt so good. Can't wait to share what I'm seeing w/ you.' Arnie's tweet to James Cameron Jessica Alba's tweet to James Cameron Moment of truth: Deepsea Challenger carrying Carmon is hoisted into the Pacific Ocean on its way to the bottom of the Mariana Trench Deep-water testing of the submersible that explorer and filmmaker James Cameron will pilot to the bottom of the Mariana Trench Pressure's on: Deepsea Challenger undergoes deep-water testing in preparation for yesterday's dive RELEASE, RELEASE, RELEASE!' were the last words Cameron uttered before beginning the dive, according to a Twitter post from the expedition. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who appeared in Cameron's Terminator films, showed his support for the director via Twitter. 'Congrats to my great friend on the deepest solo dive ever. Always a pioneer'. Richard Branson and Jessica Alba were just a couple of the other celebrities who got behind Cameron's journey. The scale of the trench is hard to grasp - it is 120 times larger than the Grand Canyon and more than a mile deeper than Mount Everest is tall.

While it didn't need it, the submarine Cameron helped design has the capability to support life for a 56-hour dive. The first and only time anyone dove to these depths was in 1960. Swiss engineer Jacques Piccard and U.S. Navy Capt. Don Walsh took nearly five hours to reach the bottom and stayed just 20 minutes. James Cameron emerging from the hatch of Deepsea Challenger - the tiny submarine the director will use to travel to the bottom of the Pacific's Mariana trench Race is on: James Cameron's team tested the Deepsea Challenger in the ocean at Jervis Bay, south of Sydney, Australia before he set off Protection: Cameron is commanding the sub from a spherical cockpit - the best shape for withstanding pressure They didn't have much to report on what they saw there, however, because their submarine kicked up so much sand from the ocean floor they couldn't see much. Cameron said earlier this month that, after a 5.1 mile-deep practice run near Papua New Guinea, the pressure 'is in the back of your mind.' The submarine would implode in an instant if it leaked, he said.

But while he was a little apprehensive beforehand, he wasn't scared or nervous while underwater. Swinging above the docks in Guam's Apra Harbor is the Trieste, the submersible that took Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard on the first and only successful manned dive to the bottom of the Mariana Trench Precedent: Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh emerge from the bathyscaphe Trieste following their successful manned descent to the bottom of the Mariana Trench in January 1960 'When you are actually on the dive you have to trust the engineering was done right,' he said. The latest dive site, which is at the deepest point in the Mariana Trench, is named Challenger Deep after the British naval vessel HMS Challenger that used sound to first measure its depth. The film director has been an oceanography enthusiast since childhood and has made 72 deep-sea submersible dives. Thirty-three of those dives have been to the wreckage of the Titanic, the subject of his 1997 hit film.

Fingers crossed: James Cameron (far right) and Don Walsh (far left), who was aboard the only other successful manned descent to the Mariana Trench in 1960 US scientists have mapped the deepest part of the world's oceans in greater detail than ever before.The Mariana Trench in the western Pacific runs for about 2,500km and extends down to 10,994m VIDEO: We did it! 'I was just the unlucky son of a b**ch that got crammed in here'. James Cameron surfaces from the Deepsea challenge Mariana Trench first-ever look: Cameron releases video from 7-mile deep Abyss (VIDEO) — RT News Tags Celebrity , SciTech , Thrills&Spills , Travel , Vehicles , Oceania ­“My feeling was one of complete isolation from all of humanity,” he said after returning from the Pacific Ocean’s deepest point, where he traveled alone in a specially designed submarine. The acclaimed film producer and director, who has created a number of astonishing worlds for millions of viewers all over the world, was amazed by what he saw in the Mariana Trench, even though the view was not nearly as picturesque as his movie-realities.

“There had to be a moment where I just stopped, and took it in, and said, ‘This is where I am; I’m at the bottom of the ocean, the deepest place on Earth. What does that mean?’” Cameron said after spending three hours at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, nearly seven miles below the surface. “I just sat there looking out the window, looking at this barren, desolate lunar plain, appreciating it,” Cameron confessed. Perhaps the only disappointment for the film director was that he did not see any strange deepwater creatures. All those he did encounter were small, but voracious shrimp-like critters not bigger than an inch (2.5 centimeters) in length. Cameron says next time he’ll bring “bait” – like chicken. There was also one technical malfunction. Just as Cameron was about to collect his first samples of rocks and critters, a leak in the hydraulic fluid sprayed into the water, rendering it impossible to bring anything back. ­Deepsea Challenger too small for Cameron ­Cameron’s decent to the depth of 35,576 feet (10,843 meters) took two hours and 36 minutes.

He spent around three hours exploring and filming the Challenger Deep, the deepest point of the Mariana Trench. His ascent was faster than expected, says National Geographic, a cosponsor of the expedition, and took only 70 minutes. Conditions aboard the 12-ton, lime-green sub called Deepsea Challenger were not exactly comfortable. The vehicle was somewhat cramped, barely fitting Cameron’s tall 6’2 frame, and not giving him enough room to stretch out. When the filmmaker had just gotten into the sub, he said it felt like a sauna, as the temperature outside topped 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 Celsius). But when he dove into the deep, the temperatures outside the sub dropped to 36 degrees Fahrenheit (2.2 Celsius). The pressure at the extreme depth was comparable to three SUVs resting on a toe. “It’s a very weird environment,” Cameron said. “I can’t say it’s very comfortable. And you can’t stretch out.” Film director the first to reach Challenger Deep on his own James Cameron is a world-famous director, most famous for blockbusters such as The Terminator, Aliens, The Abyss, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, True Lies, Titanic and Avatar.

Cameron is also an explorer and has participated in a number of deep sea dives, including 33 plunges to visit the underwater grave of Titanic, which sank in 1912. Cameron became the first person to reach the Challenger Deep of the Mariana Trench on his own, and the third person to do so overall. In 1960 oceanographers Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard visited Challenger Deep together aboard the Bathyscaphe Triest. Back then, they observed a number of small sole and flounder and said the floor of the Challenger Deep consisted of a “diatomaceous ooze.” However, the pair spent just twenty minutes at that depth, much shorter than the three hours spent by Cameron. Their descent and ascent were also much longer – totaling over eight hours. Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Group and a diving enthusiast himself, called Cameron’s plunge “a fantastic achievement.” Branson is working on his own one-man sub and says he hopes to join Cameron in a tandem dive of solo subs. For now, Branson is planning on diving to the deepest part of the Atlantic – the Puerto Rico trench.

Cameron launched the Deepsea Challenge Expedition, sponsored by National Geographic Magazine and Rolex, in 2012. He has made a number of dives in his Deepsea Challenger sub, most notably to the bottom of the 26,791 foot (8,221 meter) deep New Britain Trench, located between Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands in the Sea of Solomon. He said the mission was all about exploration, science and discovery. “I see this as the beginning,” Cameron said. “It’s not a one-time deal and then moving on. This is the beginning of opening up this new frontier.” FILM DIRECTOR�S HISTORIC DIVE TO BOTTOM OF OCEAN SUCCESSFUL<br>First dive to that depth in 50 years | FEATURE NEWS | Sky Valley Chronicle Washington State News FILM DIRECTORï¿½S HISTORIC DIVE TO BOTTOM OF OCEAN SUCCESSFUL First dive to that depth in 50 years March 26, 2012 James Cameron in the tight confines of the one man sub Deepsea Challenger. Photo courtesy National Geographic MAP shows where Marian Trench is located. CLICK TO ENLARGE Cameron's one man sub the Deepsea Challenger.

Photo courtesy National Geographic. (INTERNATIONAL) -- There are good reasons expeditions to the bottom of the ocean are virtually never done. They are extremely dangerous –there’s very little margin of error at 1,000 atmosphere of pressure – and they cost a lot of money, time and effort. But all of those roadblocks were but challenges to overcome for “Titanic” and “Avatar” director James Cameron in order to achieve a lifelong dream of going somewhere and seeing things that no human had seen before. Sunday Cameron secured a spot in history and the record books by being only the third human being in the last half century to dive to the deepest depths of the ocean in his specially constructed one man submarine, a “vertical torpedo” more than 23 feet long and weighing 11 tons that slices through the water allowing a rapid descent. Cameron’s sub took just two hours to reach the bottom of the Marianna Trench, about 6.8 miles down. The Mariana Trench is the deepest part of the world's oceans. It is located in the western Pacific Ocean, to the east of theMariana Islands.

The trench is about 1,580 miles long but has a mean width of only 43 miles. It reaches a maximum-known depth of about 6.78 miles (35,800 ft) at the “Challenger Deep,” a small slot-shaped valley in its floor, at its southern end, By getting there – and coming back alive - the film director became the first human to reach that depth solo. Once there he spent time collecting scientific data, specimens and recording with cameras visions of things that were not even in the real of possibility when the other manned Challenger Deep Dive took place. After a faster-than-expected, roughly 70-minute ascent from the bottom, Cameron's sub, bobbing in the ocean, was spotted by a helicopter and was a short time later take out of the water by a research ship's crane. Retired U.S. Navy Capt. Don Walsh, who descended to Challenger Deep in 1960, said he was pleased to hear that Cameron had reached the underwater valley safely. National Geographic quoted him as saying “That was a grand moment, to welcome him to the club," Walsh, said in a telephone interview from the sub-support ship.

"There're only three of us in it, and one of them—late Swiss engineer Jacques Piccard—"is dead. Now it's just Jim and myself." Because of its extreme depth, the Mariana Trench is always 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. 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 just a short 20 minutes at the bottom and was unable to take any photographs due to clouds of silt stirred up by craft at landing. At least three other teams are planning piloted submarines to reach the bottom of the Mariana Trench. These include: Triton Submarines, a Florida based company that designs and manufactures private submarines, for which a crew of three will take 120 minutes to reach the seabed.

There's also the Virgin Oceanic, sponsored by Richard Branson's Virgin Group, piloted by Chris Welsh, for which the solo pilot will take 140 minutes to reach the seabed and DOER Marine, a marine technology company, based in San Francisco and set up in 1992, for which a crew of two or three will take 90 minutes to reach the seabed. BACK TO James Cameron reaches deepest point on Earth James Cameron reaches deepest point on Earth | Mar 26, 2012 | Vote 0 0 James Cameron reaches deepest point on Earth Canadian-born film director becomes first solo explorer to reach bottom of Mariana Trench in Pacific Ocean Up from bottom of ocean Mark Thiessen/The Associated Press/National Geogra In an image provided by National Geographic, filmmaker James Cameron gives two thumbs-up as he emerges from the Deepsea Challenger submersible on Monday after his successful solo dive in the Mariana Trench, the deepest part of the ocean.

Up from bottom of ocean Mark Thiessen/The Associated Press/National Geogra Filmmaker and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence James Cameron emerges from the Deepsea Challenger submersible after his successful solo dive to the Mariana Trench, the deepest part of the ocean, on Monday. DEEPSEA CHALLENGER Mark Thiessen/The Associated Press The DEEPSEA CHALLENGER submersible begining its first test dive off the coast of Papua New Guinea. Earth's lost frontier, the deepest part of the oceans where the pressure is like three SUVs sitting on your little tow. Waterloo Region Record The director of The Abyss has reached the abyss. Filmmaker and ocean enthusiast James Cameron , a native of Kapuskasing, Ont., became the first solo explorer to reach the deepest point of the ocean — almost 10.9 kilometres down — when his custom-built one-man submarine touched down in the western Pacific Ocean’s Mariana Trench on Sunday, according to a statement from the National Geographic Society , which sponsored the filmmaking and scientific expedition. The Academy Award winner radioed, “All systems OK,” after hitting bottom at a depth of 35,756 feet (10,898 metres), the statement read.

Seven years in the making, the descent by one of the most successful Hollywood directors of all time (Aliens, The Terminator, Titanic, Avatar) was delayed for some 16 hours by choppy seas. But about 4 a.m. local time, seas calmed enough for Cameron to splash his vehicle into the ocean. He began the dive by saying, “Release, release, release!” according to the @deepchallenge Twitter account that’s sending out running updates of the adventure. The National Geographic Society is sponsoring the trip, the first attempt by humans to reach the Challenger Deep, the deepest point of the Mariana Trench, since two U.S. Navy lieutenants touched bottom in January 1960. On that trip, Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard spent just 20 minute on the bottom inside the bathyscaphe Trieste. The sub stirred up so much silt that the pair saw virtually nothing outside their porthole. Cameron’s dive was planned to last about eight hours.

According to plan, the innovative “vertical torpedo” — a lime-green submersible called Deepsea Challenger — was to plummet nearly 11,000 metres in just over 90 minutes, the swiftest deep dive with a human pilot. At the end of the dive, Cameron was scheduled to release 1,100 pounds of metal ballast, sending the vehicle shooting to the surface. The pilot sphere is pressurized, so Cameron would not be risk for decompression sickness. High-tech “syntactic foam” that forms the core of the vehicle will be squeezed by the immense pressures, while a metal sphere less than 1.5 metres across will keep Cameron safe. An unmanned test dive Friday proved the sub worthy of surviving the crushing pressures, according to National Geographic News. Redundant safety systems can detach the sphere and send it toward the surface if problems arise. If the sub gets stuck underwater, ocean saltwater will eat through straps holding the sphere inside the vertical torpedo, releasing it in four to five days. Four high-definition cameras are recording the trip, with a bank of high-intensity lights illuminating the depths of the trench, which lies far beyond the reach of sunlight.

The trench is a gash formed where one of the Earth’s huge tectonic plates, the Pacific plate, plunges under another, the Mariana plate. Besides filming the journey, Cameron planned to collect rocks, soil and any deep-sea creatures he encountered, using hydraulic arms attached to the sub. Cameron, a National Geographic explorer-in-residence, is a longtime ocean explorer. Besides his blockbuster films, he produced a documentary about the wreck of the Titanic in 2003, Ghosts of the Abyss, and in 2005 released Aliens of the Deep, which documented the strange creatures found in the East Pacific Rise, an underwater mountain range bisecting the Pacific Ocean. In a 2010 talk, Cameron explained his early love for science fiction and tales of exploration. “The Jacques Cousteau shows actually got me very excited about the fact that there’s an alien world here on earth,” he said. “I might not go to an alien world on a spaceship someday — that seemed pretty unlikely.

But (the ocean) was a world I could really go to right here on Earth that was as rich and exotic as anything I had imagined from reading these books.” News services James Cameron relives his heart-stopping descent to the deepest part of the ocean in submersible just 43-inches wide | Daily Mail Online comments He is no stranger to the power of the ocean, having made his name by recreating the sinking of the Titanic to spectacular effect. But James Cameron has admitted to moments of dread in the lead up to his latest marine adventure - which saw him become the first lone human to reach the deepest realm of the Earth's oceans. The director relives his record-breaking journey to the bottom of the Mariana Trench inside a '43-inch diameter steel ball' in next month's National Geographic magazine.

Scroll down for video Murky depths: A panel of LED lights illuminates the ocean floor during a further test dive off the Ulithi Atoll in the Pacific 'Childlike excitement': The Titanic director, seen monitoring the systems inside the pilot's sphere, told National Geographic the sub felt 'snug and comforting' After years of research, planning and preparation, Cameron completed the deepest solo dive ever made in his futuristic submersible Deepsea Challenger last year. RELATED ARTICLES Share this article Share Seven miles beneath the surface of the western Pacific, the Mariana Trench is deeper than Mount Everest is high. The director described the weeks spent imagining 'all the things that could go wrong' before the descent, but said that on the day of the dive his apprehension was replaced by 'childlike excitement'. 'The pilot’s chamber is a 43-inch-diameter steel ball, and I’m packed into it like a walnut in its shell' - Cameron recounts his historic dive '...my knees pushed up in a hunched sitting position, my head pressed down by the curve of the hull.

I’ll be locked in this position for the next eight hours.' 'I won’t say there hasn’t been dread in the past few weeks, thinking about all the things that could go wrong. But right now I feel surprisingly calm.' 'I am wrapped in the sub, a part of it and it a part of me, an extension of my ideas and dreams.' 'After weeks of pilot training, my hand goes to a specific control or switch without thinking. There’s no apprehension at this point, only determination to do what we came out here for, and childlike excitement for what’s ahead.' The cramped pilot's chamber, into which he was crammed 'like a walnut in its shell', was not claustrophobic, but 'snug and comforting', Cameron writes in the magazine. 'I feel surprisingly calm. I am wrapped in the sub, a part of it and it a part of me, an extension of my ideas and dreams,' the director said of the day of the dive. 'As co-designer, I know its every function and foible intimately.

'There's no apprehension at this point, only determination to do what we came out here for, and childlike excitement for what's ahead.' Cameron spent about three hours at the bottom of the ocean off the island of Guam, the deepest-known part of any ocean in the world. He shot some 3-D video during the dive, but admitted afterwards it was difficult to see much in the murky depths from his vantage point inside Deepsea Challenger. The futuristic electric green submersible was launched off the Mermaid Sapphire in the western Pacific in March 2012. The Avatar director revealed he cut the mission three hours short after hydraulic fluid started leaking into his sub. The 57-year-old described it as ‘a heck of a ride.’ Cameron planned to spend seven hours under water but decided to head back up after spotting the leak. ‘I saw a lot of hydraulic oil come up in front of the port. The port was coated with it. I couldn’t pick anything up so I began to feel like it was a moment of diminishing returns to go on,’ he explained. ‘I lost a lot of thrusters. I lost the whole starboard side. That’s when I decided to come up.

I couldn’t go any further - I was just spinning in a circle,’ he added. ‘It was bleak. It looked like the moon. I didn’t see a fish. I didn’t see anything that looked alive to me, other than a few shrimplike amphipods in the water.' He also realised how alone he was, with that much water above him. ‘It's really the sense of isolation, more than anything, realising how tiny you are down in this big vast black unknown and unexplored place,’ Cameron said. Cameron said he had hoped to see some strange deep sea monster like a creature that would excite the storyteller in him and seem like out of his movies, but he didn't. He didn't see tracks of animals on the sea floor as he did when he dove more than five miles deep weeks ago. All he saw were voracious shrimp-like critters that weren't bigger than an inch. But that was okay, he said, it was all about exploration, science and discovery. He is the only person to dive there solo, using a sub he helped design.

He is the first person to reach that depth - 35,576 feet - since it was initially explored in 1960. Cover star: The full article appears in the June issue of National Geographic He spent more than three hours at the bottom, longer than the 20 minutes Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard spent in the only other visit 52 years ago. But it was less than the six hours he had hoped. He said he would return. ‘I see this as the beginning,’ Cameron said. ‘It's not a one-time deal and then moving on. This is the beginning of opening up this new frontier.’ ‘To me, the story is in the people in their quest and curiosity and their attempt to understand,’ Cameron said. His return aboard his 12-ton, lime-green sub called Deepsea Challenger was a ‘faster-than-expected 70-minute ascent,’ according to National Geographic, which sponsored the expedition. Cameron is a National Geographic explorer-in-residence. The only thing that went wrong was the hydraulics on the system to collect rocks and critters to bring them back to land.

Just as he was about to collect his first sample, a leak in the hydraulic fluid sprayed into the water and he couldn't bring anything back. When Cameron climbed into his sub, it was warm because it was near the equator and his cramped vehicle - his head hit one end and his feet the other - was toasty because of the heat given off by electronics. It felt ‘like a sauna’ with temperatures of more than 100 degrees Fahrenheit, he said. But as he plunged into the deep, the temperature outside the sub dropped to around 36 degrees, he said. The pressure on the sub was immense - comparable to three SUVs resting on a toe. The super-strong sub shrank three inches under that pressure, Cameron said. ‘It's a very weird environment,’ Cameron said. ‘I can't say it's very comfortable. And you can't stretch out.’ Cameron gave two thumbs up when he triumphantly resurfaced. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who appeared in Cameron's Terminator films, showed his support for the director via Twitter. 'Congrats to my great friend on the deepest solo dive ever. Always a pioneer'.

Richard Branson and Jessica Alba were just a couple of the other celebrities who got behind Cameron's journey. The scale of the trench is hard to grasp - it is 120 times larger than the Grand Canyon and more than a mile deeper than Mount Everest is tall. The film director has been an oceanography enthusiast since childhood and has made 72 deep-sea submersible dives. Thirty-three of those dives have been to the wreckage of the Titanic, the subject of his 1997 hit film. The following is an extract from the full article by James Cameron, which appears in the June issue of National Geographic: The pilot’s chamber is a 43-inch-diameter steel ball, and I’m packed into it like a walnut in its shell, my knees pushed up in a hunched sitting position, my head pressed down by the curve of the hull. I’ll be locked in this position for the next eight hours. My bare feet rest on the 400-pound steel hatch, locked shut from the outside. I’m literally bolted in. People always ask me if I get claustrophobic in the sub. To me it just feels snug and comforting.

My visual field is filled by four video screens, three showing views from the external cameras, one a touch screen instrument panel. The sub, painted electric green, is hanging upright in the swells like a vertical torpedo aimed at the center of the Earth. I tilt my 3-D camera, out on the end of its six-foot boom, to look up the face of the sub. The divers are getting into position to release the buoyant lift bag attached to the sub, holding it at the surface. I’ve had years to contemplate this moment, and I won’t say there hasn’t been dread in the past few weeks, thinking about all the things that could go wrong. But right now I feel surprisingly calm. I am wrapped in the sub, a part of it and it a part of me, an extension of my ideas and dreams. As co-designer, I know its every function and foible intimately. After weeks of pilot training, my hand goes to a specific control or switch without thinking. There’s no apprehension at this point, only determination to do what we came out here for, and childlike excitement for what’s ahead.

Challenge: Launched from the Mermaid Sapphire, the futuristic sub relies on 180 different systems, from battery packs to sonar Into the blue: Director James Cameron took his futuristic submersible - christened Deepsea Challenger - for a test dive off Papua New Guinea to see if it could survive the crushing pressure at the depths of the ocean Record: The director became the first person to reach the deepest point of the Earth's oceans alone in his Deepsea Challenger, seen on the Mermaid Sapphire Success: James Cameron gives two thumbs-up as he emerges from the Deepsea Challenger today after his successful solo dive in the Mariana Trench Cameron's dive took him to a part of the ocean no one has visited for 50 years - and he is the only human being to have travelled and returned solo James Cameron emerging from the hatch of Deepsea Challenger - the tiny submarine the director will use to travel to the bottom of the Pacific's Mariana trench Race is on: James Cameron's team tested the Deepsea Challenger in the ocean at Jervis Bay, south of Sydney, Australia before he set off Moment of truth: Deepsea Challenger carrying Carmon is hoisted into the Pacific Ocean on its way to the bottom of the Mariana Trench 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." The Mariana Trench by eric paci - issuu issuu By: Luke Yang Table Of Contents Title Page..................................................2 Table of Contents......................................3 Intro...........................................................4 Measurements...........................................5 Animals that live there..............................6 Geology.....................................................7 Descents to Challengers Deep..................8 Conclusion................................................9 Bibliography.............................................10 Glossary....................................................11 About the Author......................................12 The Mariana Islands The Mariana Trench is the deepest place in the world. Even though it is the deepest place on earth, it is not the place closest to the earthâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s core. That is because the earth is not a perfect sphere and it is 25 km less at the poles than the equator. As a result, some parts of the Arctic Ocean are closer to the core of the Earth than Challengers Deep (The deepest point of the Mariana Trench). Like other trenches, the Mariana Trench has been declared a nuclear waste disposal site.

It is because people hope that the tectonic plate subduction will push it deeper into the earthâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mantle. However, nuclear waste disposal is prohibited there by the international law. At Challengers Deep, the water pressure is over 1086 bars. That is more than 1000 times the pressure of normal water. Therefore, not many animals live in the Mariana Trench. As you can see, the Mariana Trench holds many very interesting things. Measurements The measurements of the Mariana Trench are probably one of the most superb in the world. The depth of the Mariana Trench is enough to fit Mt. Everest and three Burj Khalifas. It is 36,070 feet deep. Mt. Everest is 29,035 feet deep and Burj Khalifa is 2,723. The Mariana Trench also has a considerable width and length. It is 1580 miles long, but only 43 miles wide. The Mariana Trench is located in the Pacific Ocean .It is 200 miles southwest of Guam.

It is also at the coordinates: 11.3500째 N, 142.2000째 E. You have to admit that the largest trench in the world, the Mariana Trench, is humongous. Animals That Live There The Mariana Trench has more animals living there than you may think. There are only a few animals that live in the Mariana Trench. Some people were surprised to find any at all because of the pressure down there. The animals also have to be able to survive in 1 to 4째C to live at the Mariana Trench because of the temperature of the water. The animals that live in the Mariana Trench are very interesting. Some are larger, like the 1-foot long sole (or flounder) and the shrimp. Others can be much smaller, like the large amount of Xenophyophores in the water. Apparently, the bottom of the ocean was light and clear. As a result, some scientists think they found other animals living at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. The animals they think they found were probably either a sea cucumber or a flatfish.

The animals living in the Mariana Trench are undoubtedly more interesting then the ones living on the surface. This is a shrimp found in challengers deep. Geology The Mariana Trench has a very interesting geology. The Mariana Trench was made when the Pacific plate was drawn under the Mariana plate. The subduction also indirectly caused the creation of the Mariana Islands. At the western edge of the Pacific plate, there is some crucial material that had 170 million years to become dense and compact. The ocean floor is also very smooth. It is because of the volcanoes and earthquakes that keep the earth moving and it makes new layers of sediment that cover up all signs of living organisms. When something goes near it, a bunch of powder erupts. There are many pillow lavas in the Mariana Trench. Pillow lavas are mounds of lava that were produced by underwater eruptions. Many people were surprised because pillow lavas aren't usually exposed like the ones in the Mariana Trench.As you can see, the Mariana Trench has many things that are special about its formation and things inside it.

The Deepsea Challenger” Did you know that there is a website for the “Deepsea Challenger” called: Descents to Challengers Deep So far, four descents to Challengers Deep have been made. The first descent was a manned sub called “The Bathyscaphe Trieste”. The design was Swiss, Italians built it, and the US Navy owns it. It reached the bottom at 1:06 PM on January 3rd, 1960 with US Navy lieutenant Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard on board. Later, in 1996 and 2009, the unmanned ROVs “Kaiko” and “Nereus” followed. These three expeditions all went down to depths from 10,902 m to 10,916 m. Canadian film director James Cameron made the last expedition on March 26, 2012. He went down in the submarine called "The Deepsea Challenger". These expeditions all are very interesting and taught many scientists about the Mariana Trench. The Mariana Trench is a tremendous place. It is the kind of place that is perfect for sci-fi movie scenes.

That is probably why James Cameron went down to film some scenes of “Avatar 2”.The Mariana Trench is probably the most interesting trench of all trenches. There is even a band named after it called the Marianas Trench. The Mariana Trench is also 120 times larger than the Grand Canyon. The Grand Canyon is 1902 square miles. This is just one of the many examples of how large the Mariana Trench is. As you can see, this is one of natures many wonders. The “Deepsea Challenger”, about go down to the Mariana Trench References 1music.ro. 2008. Regizorul James Cameron a ajuns în cel mai adânc loc de pe Terra. [online] Available at: [Accessed: 22 Jan 2014]. Dailygalaxy.com. 1894. James Cameron --'Avatar' Director Explores Mariana Trench --Deepest Spot of the Planet. [online] Available at: http:// [Accessed: 22 Jan 2014]. DEEPSEA CHALLENGE. 1960.

About the Mariana Trench - DEEPSEA CHALLENGE Expedition. [online] Available at: [Accessed: 22 Jan 2014]. DEEPSEA CHALLENGE. 1960. DEEPSEA CHALLENGE – National Geographic Explorer James Cameron’s Expedition. [online] Available at: http:// deepseachallenge.com/ [Accessed: 22 Jan 2014]. En.wikipedia.org. 2013. Mariana Trench - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. [online] Available at: [Accessed: 22 Jan 2014]. Mail Online. 2012. 'To hell and back': James Cameron is first solo diver to reach deepest point on Earth - but has to race back to surface after hydraulic failure seven miles down. [online] Available at: [Accessed: 24 Jan 2014]. Photolib.noaa.gov. 2004. NOAA Photo Library. [online] Available at: [Accessed: 22 Jan 2014]. Sketchup.google.com. 2008. marianas trench by elvenartist - 3D Warehouse.

[online] Available at: x [Accessed: 24 Jan 2014]. Iexplore.com. 2014. Northern Mariana Islands Travel Guide | iExplore. [online] Available at: northern-mariana-islands/overview [Accessed: 11 Feb 2014]. Glossary/Index: Avatar 2- A movie made by James Cameron- pg.9 Kaiko- An unmanned submarine sent to the bottom of the Mariana Trench- pg.8 Nereus- An unmanned submarine sent to the bottom of the Mariana Trench- pg.8 The Deepsea Challenger- A manned sub with James Cameron that went to the bottom of the Mariana Trench in 2012- pg.8 The Grand Canyon- A canyon located in Arizona/California-pg.5 The Mariana Trench- A trench located approx. 200mi. southeast from- pg.4, pg.5, pg.6, pg.7, pg.9 Subduction- Drawn below- pg.4, pg.7 Xenophyophores- A type of microbe- pg.

6 About the Author: Luke Yang is a 11 year old boy that goes to Shanghai American School PX ES. He was born in Michigan, USA and right now he lives in Shanghai, China. Currently, he is in 5th grade in Mr. Paciâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s class. Luke just moved to Shanghai in the summer of 2013 from Michigan, USA and he still likes Michigan much more than Shanghai. His favorite hobbies are: Minecraft, Legos, and many other building things. His favorite food and favorite animal changes every day, and at about the start of 5 grade, his favorite food was ice cream and his favorite animal was the Komodo Dragon. Other things that he like are some sports and computers. He chose this topic for this book because he is very interested in things that are special in some sort of way. The Mariana Trench, as you can see, is also very special in many ways. Researching for this book gave Luke lots of new information about things that include the oceans and other stuff that he didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know about the Mariana Trench.

As you can see, Luke has an interesting life and an interesting reason for writing this book. ! Have you ever wondered what is at the bottom of the deepest place on Earth? Well, you are about to find out. The deepest place in the world is called Challengers Deep in the Mariana Trench. It is a very amazing place because of all the wonders in it. Even though it is so amazing, not many people have went there. That is because it is at the bottom of the largest ocean on earth - the Pacific Ocean. This book explains all about the deepest place on Earth, with many very interesting facts within the threads of it. All pages:

Question: In 2012, which film director became the first solo diver to reach the bottom of the Mariana Trench in a submarine?
Answer: James Cameron