The lowest point on the Earth's crust is the Mariana Trench, which stretches an incredible 11 kilometers below sea level.
The lowest point of the Earth's crust
The Mariana Trench is the deepest known part of the world's oceans and the lowest point on the Earth's crust. The maximum measured depth of the ditch is 10,984 meters below sea level, and according to some measurements, which were then not confirmed, even 11,034 meters.
It lies at the bottom of the Northwest Pacific Ocean, about 200 kilometers east of the Mariana Islands, near the Guam Islands. The ditch is the boundary between two tectonic plates. It is a subduction where the Pacific Plate collapses beneath the Marian Plate. It is the deepest ocean ditch on Earth.
The ditch is crescent-shaped and measures approximately 2,550 km in length and 69 km in width. It was discovered by the ship of the British Navy Challenger II in 1951, after which the deepest part of the ditch is named. Using sound reflection (they measured sound reflection with headphones and a stopwatch), the Challenger II measured a depth of 10,900 m. So with a fairly simple, but for those times pretty accurate measurement.
Dimensions at the bottom of the ditch
The pressure at the bottom of the Marianas Trench is 1,086 bar, which is more than 1,071 times the normal atmospheric pressure at sea level. At this pressure, the density of water increases by 4.96%. The bottom temperature is 1 to 4 °.
Although it is the lowest point of the Earth’s crust, researchers have found some unique marine animals there, and unfortunately even a plastic bag. Scientific American even reported that carbon-14 from nuclear bomb tests was found in the bodies of aquatic animals found in the ditch.
Human crews
So far, man has only descended to the deepest point of the oceans a few times. The first manned vessel was a U.S. Army vessel that reached a depth of 10,916 meters on January 23, 1960. The achievement was not repeated until March 25, 2012, when Canadian director James Cameron reached a depth of 10,908 meters. In 2019, this feat was also undertaken by Texas magnate Victor Vescov. It reached a depth of 10,927 meters and thus broke the record reached by 16 meters.
Vescov's dive was repeated in 2020, when he was joined on an expedition by geologist Kathryn D. Sullivan, thus becoming the first woman to reach the lowest point of the Earth's crust. Last November, a Chinese submarine with a crew also sank to the bottom of the Marianas Trench.
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