What is the deepest point in the ocean?
The deepest known point is the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench, in the western Pacific. It is nearly 11,000 meters (about 36,000 feet) below the surface.
The Mariana Trench is a crescent-shaped scar in the seafloor near Guam. It formed where one tectonic plate dives beneath another. The Challenger Deep sits at its southern end. Measurements vary slightly, but most put it at about 10,900 to 11,000 meters deep.
If Mount Everest were placed at the bottom, its peak would still be more than 2 kilometers underwater. The water pressure at the bottom is more than 1,000 times the pressure at sea level.
Who has been there
Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh first reached the bottom in the bathyscaphe Trieste in 1960. Film director James Cameron made a solo dive in 2012, and since 2019 several more crewed dives have taken place in specially built submersibles. Even at that depth, scientists have found life, including tiny shrimp-like amphipods and single-celled organisms.
Did You Know?
The deepest point of the Atlantic is in the Puerto Rico Trench, at about 8,400 meters. More than 80 percent of the ocean floor has still not been mapped in high detail, so scientists expect more surprises in the deep sea.