Challenger Deep

The Challenger Deep is a marine Deep in the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean and is approximately 10,994 meters (± 40 m) below sea level.

"The deepest sounding valid ... Obtained in this survey which 10.994 m at latitude 11.326344 ° N, longitude 142.187248 ° E. This Measured depth HAS to estimated uncertainty of ± 40 m. "

Geography

About 1,800 km east of the Philippines is the Challenger Deep in the southwestern part of the Mariana Trench, a deep trough in the western Pacific. It is located about 500 km south-west of the island of Guam, an island in the Mariana Islands, which is one of the Micronesian Islands, at about 12 ° north latitude and 143 ° east longitude.

History

Already in 1951 a sea depth of 10,899 m was determined by sonar ( 10,863 m per Drahtlotung ) in the Mariana Trench by the crew of the English survey ship Challenger II; this point they gave the name of the Challenger.

On January 23, 1960 Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh dived as the first people in the submersible Trieste to the bottom of the lows. The exact location of the dive is therefore also known as Triestetief. Piccard and Walsh had a depth of 10,916 m was measured.

The unmanned submersible Kaiko Japanese gathered there in 1995 sediment samples in March and certain a depth of 10,911 m.

On May 31, 2009, also unmanned Nereus the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts reached ( WHOI ), the Challenger Deep, and took soil samples. The mud is found there for the most part from foraminifera. On this dive to a depth of 10,902 m was displayed.

Two years later, on 7 November 2011, researchers published by Jim Gardner of the University of New Hampshire results of the dive an underwater robot, wherein a depth of 10,994 meters was determined by sound waves. The result is accurate to within 40 meters.

In recent years, four groups worked independently of getting back to send a manned boat to the bottom of Challengertiefes. The race was won on 26 March 2012, the filmmaker James Cameron, who alone, as the third person ever reached the bottom with the Deepsea Challenger became the first man.