Trench Exploration

Explorers

Since the depths of the deep dark Mariana Trench is such an unreachable place for mankind, there have only been 20 people throughout history that have been able to say that they have reached the trench floor. Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh aboard the bathyscaphe Trieste in 1960. James Cameron on his vehicle the DeepSea Challenger in 2012. Victor Vescova (pictured to the right) has made multiple decents on his DSV Limiting Factor starting in 2019. From 2019 to June 2021 on Vescova’s DSV Limiting Factor (although on seperate voyages) Patrick Lahey, Jonathan Struwe, John Ramsay, Dr Alan Jamieson, Dr Kathryn Sullivan, Vanessa O’Brien, John Rost, Kelly Walsh, Ying-Tsong Lin, Jim Wigginton, Richard Garriott, Michael Dubno, Hamish Harding, Nicole Yamase, Rob McCallum, and Tim Macdonald all reached the trench floor. (National Geographic), (Britannica), (E&T, 2016), (BBC,2020), (Sky News, 2020), (Forbes), (WHOI, 2020), (Deeper Blue, 2021), (ORP), (NOAA). These 20 explorers are the reason we have so much information on a place we wouldn't be able to know anything about otherwise. All of our information and data on the Mariana Trench comes from their adventures to the bottom, and that's quite the impact to give to the world.

"Victor Vescovo, Founder of Caladan Oceanic and Sub Pilot on the Five Deeps Expedition" by Glenn Singleman, lisenced under CC BY 4.0

Don Walsh & Jaques Piccard

Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard were the first to make the descent to the bottom of the mariana trench, and it took 52 years for anyone else to do it. Walsh and Piccard didn't have the technology available to explorers today, so they basically had to design and plan their journey from scratch. The vessel they settled on, the bathyscaphe Trieste, looks like a huge inflatable hot-dog. It’s designed with two parts, the cabin inside, and the large outer shell. The cabin was resistant to water pressure, and allowed the people inside to observe the outside surroundings. The shell is filled with gasoline, and water. The people in the cabin control the buoyancy by releasing air and water, controlling how fast the Trieste descends (since gasoline is lighter than water). By doing this you're able to rapidly descend, while being protected from water pressure in the cabin.(National Geographic). On January 23rd of 1960, Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard began the descent, and successfully made the deepest dive in history at 35,800 feet deep.(National Geographic). They weren't able to stay too long at the bottom due to the technology of the time, but they most certainly were pioneers for deep sea exploration.

James Cameron

52 years in 2012, James Cameron joined the club as the third person to make the descent.(National Geographic). Already world famous from his work on films like Titanic and the Terminator series, James Cameron decided to move to the world of deep sea exploration, due to his lifelong interest in the deep sea. His self designed vehicle, the DeepSea Challenger, was much smaller than the bathyscaphe Trieste. It’s only 24 feet, but it is equipped with all of the modern technology that wasn't available to Walsh and Piccard in 1960. This allowed Cameron to explore the seafloor much more extensively than his predecessors, and he came back up to the surface with videos, pictures, and samples.(National Geographic). Cameron found jellyfish, microbial mats, and what he described as big anemones. The importance of his work really can't be understated, not only did he bring worldwide attention to the life down in the deep trenches, but he’s helped build up the very little we know about the species that live down there.

"James Cameron" by Gage Skidmore, is licensed under CC BY 4.0

Victor Vescova

Only 7 years after Cameron, the explorer Victor Vescova (who is pictured above) made his first descent. This time using the deep sea vehicle Limiting Factor.(CNN). What separates Limiting Factor is that it is designed specifically to be able to sustain thousands of repeated dives.(FiveDeeps). This means the future of trench exploration is extremely bright. Vescova has fully utilized the fact that the Limiting Factor can be reused repeatedly, and he has made a multitude of descents to the bottom of the Mariana Trench. In fact, the 16 other people who’ve made the descent (who I mentioned above) all made the descent on the Limiting Factor. Vescova has made multiple breakthroughs on the trench floor. New species, more samples etc. However, possibly Vescova's recent descovery, and maybe his most important, was his (scary and shocking) discovery of a plastic bag and candy bar wrappers on the trench floor.(Gunia, Time). Hopefully this discovery will lead to a change in the way we interact with the ocean and the natural world, but only time will tell.

Conclusion

All in all, the ocean is an amazing, enthralling, scary, and mysterious place. The ocean and trenches in particular are possibly the most unexplored places on this planet, and we only know so much because of the exploration that has been done. Technology like the DSV Limiting Factor gives hope for a bright future of discovery, and the discovery of plastic bags and candy bars gives a glimpse of the scary future we may be in for. That may be the way the ocean is; amazing, and scary at the same time.

References

Nat Geo. Ocean Trench. National Geographic Society. Retrieved July 8, 2022, from https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/ocean-trench
Encyclopædia Britannica, inc. Mariana Trench. Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved June 28, 2022, from https://www.britannica.com/place/Mariana-Trench
Smith, N. (2016, July 12). Interview - John Ramsay CTO triton submarines. RSS. Retrieved July 8, 2022, from https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2016/07/interview-john-ramsay-cto-triton-submarines/
Cooper, K.-L. (2020, June 13). Kathy Sullivan: The woman who's made history in Sea and space. BBC News. Retrieved July 8, 2022, from https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53008948
Sky. (2020, June 19). Vanessa O'Brien: British-american explorer becomes first woman to reach Earth's highest and lowest points. Sky News. Retrieved July 8, 2022, from https://news.sky.com/story/vanessa-obrien-british-american-explorer-becomes-first-woman-to-reach-earths-highest-and-lowest-points-12010201
Amos, J. (2020, June 20). Mariana Trench: Don Walsh's son repeats historic ocean dive. BBC News. Retrieved July 8, 2022, from https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-53112621
Clash, J. (2020, July 16). 60 years after Don Walsh Dove to Earth's deepest point, son Kelly repeats the feat. Forbes. Retrieved July 8, 2022, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimclash/2020/07/15/60-years-after-don-walsh-dove-to-earths-deepest-point-son-kelly-repeats-the-feat/?sh=5666e7c9121b
NOAA. NOAA Research News. Welcome to NOAA Research. Retrieved July 8, 2022, from https://research.noaa.gov/article/ArtMID/587/ArticleID/2662/Mapping-the-bottom-of-the-sea
Lieng, J. (2021, April 9). 'The Anzac Dive': Australian, New Zealander dive to challenger deep. DeeperBlue.com. Retrieved July 8, 2022, from https://www.deeperblue.com/the-anzac-dive-australian-new-zealander-dive-to-challenger-deep/
WHOI. (2020, June 26). WHOI researcher dives to challenger deep. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Retrieved July 8, 2022, from https://www.whoi.edu/press-room/news-release/whoi-researcher-dives-to-challenger-deep
Nat Geo. Unsinkable Don Walsh. National Geographic Society. Retrieved July 9, 2022, from https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/unsinkable-don-walsh
-Than, K. (2021, May 3). James Cameron completes record-breaking Mariana Trench Dive. Adventure. Retrieved July 12, 2022, from https://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/article/120325-james-cameron-mariana-trench-challenger-deepest-returns-science-sub
Street, F. (2019, September 10). Explorer Victor Vescovo completes mission to dive to deepest points in the world's oceans. CNN. Retrieved July 8, 2022, from https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/victor-vescovo-historic-dive/index.html
FiveDeeps. (2019, January 19). Limiting Factor. Five Deeps Expedition. Retrieved July 9, 2022, from https://fivedeeps.com/home/technology/sub/
Gunia, A. (2019, May 14). Plastic bag found found at deepest point in Ocean. Time. Retrieved July 12, 2022, from https://time.com/5588691/victor-vescovo-plastic-oceans/

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