New Deep Ocean Records and Discoveries

The Five Deeps Expedition is the first to attempt to reach the deepest point in each of the Earth’s five oceans: the Puerto Rico Trench in the Atlantic, South Sandwich Trench in the Southern Ocean, Java Trench in the Indian Ocean, Challenger Deep in the Pacific and Molloy Deep in the Arctic.

They just set a record by going 11 meters deeper in the Marianas Trench in Challenger Deep.

The Challenger Deep gets an enormous amount of attention because it is the deepest place in the world. However, the Sirena Deep is almost as deep – less than 130 meters shallower – and has great scientific interest based on the opinions of some scientists. It is very important to the members of our expedition that our journey is not just one of adventure or technical achievement, but also of real scientific value.

They spent almost three hours on the bottom of the Sirena cruising above the seafloor along boulder fields at 10,700 – 10,300 meters. Red, yellow, and even orange might be “bacterial mats”.

The video will help scientists understand non-photosynthesis-based organic reactions and life development that is outside the norm of regular human experience. They were able to retrieve some rock samples from the bottom of the Deep — not through the use of the manipulator – but by accidentally bumping into some large rocks and having parts of them shear off and serendipitously deposit themselves in different recesses of the submersibles under-structure which were carefully retrieved later.

* The expedition will traverse 40,000 nautical miles / 74,000 km in 11 months
* By the end of the expedition the sub will have descended through at least 72,000 meters / 236,220 ft of water
* Up to 50 scientific lander deployments will be undertaken alongside the submersible dives
* No human has ever been to the bottom of the Java, Puerto Rico or South Sandwich trenches
* No one has ever been to the bottom of Molloy Deep
* No manned submersible has ever been to Challenger Deep more than once
* No person has ever been to the summit of Mount Everest and also been to the bottom of the ocean at Challenger Deep, which could occur on this expedition

Puerto Rico Dive

In December, 2018, explorer Victor Vescovo became the first human to dive on a solo mission to the deepest point in the Atlantic Ocean – the verified bottom of the Puerto Rico Trench at 8,376 meters/27,480 feet in his private submersible, the Limiting Factor. The trench was previously explored to approximately 8,300 meters by the French submersible Archimede in 1964, but it did not reach the deepest point.

A two-person deep-sea research submersible was manufactured by Triton Submarines of Sebastian, Florida specifically for this endeavor. Designed to slip vertically through the water column at high speeds, Vescovo was able to safely reach the bottom of the Puerto Rico Trench after an approximate two-and-a-half hour descent.