HMS Challenger sounds the deep that will bear her name
During the Challenger expedition, a wire sounding in the southern Mariana Trench recorded a depth far greater than anything then known, and the feature was later named the Challenger Deep after the ship. The measurement was made by lowering a weighted line - a method with large and poorly-quantified errors compared with modern acoustics - which is where the long history of disagreement over this one number begins.
Historical — it happened, and the record is settled.
Subjects
- Challenger Deep · site · Western Pacific Ocean - southern Mariana Trench
- Mariana Trench · site · Western Pacific Ocean
Evidence
Partly verified — Core facts are sourced; some optional detail is deliberately absent.
So, How Deep Is the Mariana Trench?
Post-2000 published maximum depths for the Challenger Deep, and the geodetic positions assigned to them, disagree by more than the accompanying stated uncertainties. A 2010 multibeam survey recorded a deepest sounding of 10,984 +/- 25 m, a value not confirmed by any direct pressure-gauge descent.
Marine Geodesy (Taylor & Francis), Gardner, Armstrong, Calder and Beaudoin · 2014 · Partly verified
Marine Geodesy 37(1); https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01490419.2013.837849
Recorded on Challenger Deep
- HMS Challenger sounds the deep that will bear her name
- Trieste reaches the bottom of the Challenger Deep
- JAMSTEC's Kaiko reaches the Challenger Deep floor
- Multibeam survey reports a 10,984 m maximum sounding
- First solo crewed dive to the Challenger Deep
- So, How Deep Is the Mariana Trench? asks the question in print
- Five Deeps Expedition dives the Challenger Deep four times
- Submersible pressure transects across the Challenger Deep floor
- Revised depth of the Challenger Deep published
Related
Related because they share a subject in the Atlas — never because the text looks similar.
- Revised depth of the Challenger Deep published · 2021
- Submersible pressure transects across the Challenger Deep floor · 2020-06
- Five Deeps Expedition dives the Challenger Deep four times · 2019-04-28/2019-05-07
- So, How Deep Is the Mariana Trench? asks the question in print · 2014
- First solo crewed dive to the Challenger Deep · 2012
- Multibeam survey reports a 10,984 m maximum sounding · 2010
- JAMSTEC's Kaiko reaches the Challenger Deep floor · 1995
- Trieste reaches the bottom of the Challenger Deep · 1960-01-23