The world ’s sea have an middling deepness of around 3,682 m ( 12,080 feet ) , yet there is one point where the seafloor plunges to around three times this profundity . Known as theChallenger Deep , the deepest spot in the ocean lie within the notable Mariana Trench in the western Pacific , and has only ever been visited by a fistful of people .
Named after the fabled Challenger Expedition that first sounded the deepness of the deep in 1875 , the Challenger Deep lie some 200 nautical miles ( 230 miles ; 370 kilometers ) southwest of Guam , towards the southern destruction of the Mariana Trench . The muddy abysm is part into three imprint know as the eastern , central , and western basins , with a 2021 written report confirm that the deepest stop lies within the eastern basin , at a depth of 10,935 meters(35,876 feet ) .
The spot is so deep that if Mount Everest were placed there , its tip would still lie around 2,084 meters ( 6,842 feet ) beneath the waves . Despite its unbelievable profoundness , however , the Challenger Deep was achieve by oceanographer Jacques Piccard and Navy Lt . Don Walsh , who made it to the bottom of the ocean in a US Navy submersible in 1960 .
More than six X subsequently , film producer and explorerJames Cameronbecame the second visitor to the Challenger Deep and the first solo traveler to arrive in 2012 . diving event aboard a submarine he designed himself , Cameron take two hours and 36 minute to derive to the bottom of the chasm , before return to the surface in about 70 minutes .
Like the rest of theMariana Trench , the Challenger Deep was constitute by a process known as subduction , whereby the Pacific Plate slid beneath the modest Mariana Plate . This sent the seafloor plummeting towards the so - called hadal zone , which set out at a deepness of3.7 miles(19,536 feet ) and choose its name from Hades , the fabulous Greek Hell .
Yet while Hades may be associated with death , the Challenger Deep is surprisingly pour with life . For example , during Cameron ’s visit , he enchant footage ofstrange , translucent sea cucumbersthat had not been seen anywhere else in the sea .
As exciting as that sound , subsequent visits to the Deep revealed that the life forms at the bottom of the sea may already be bear on bypollution . Unbelievably , one expedition even found abeer bottlelying on the seafloor , foreground the motivation to do a better job of protect the sea , and indeed the ease of the planet .
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