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The Mariana Trench in the western Pacific is so deep that Mount Everest could fit inside it with more than two kilometres of water above its peak.

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The trench's deepest point, the Challenger Deep, lies about 10,935 metres below the surface, according to measurements made during dives between 2019 and 2021. Everest stands 8,849 metres high, so its summit would still be around 2,000 metres under water. The trench forms where the Pacific plate slides beneath the smaller Mariana plate. The first people to reach the bottom were Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh, in the deep-diving vessel Trieste in 1960; the film director James Cameron made a solo dive in 2012, and the explorer Victor Vescovo has dived there several times since 2019. The water pressure at the bottom is more than a thousand times that at sea level.

Türkçe oku
Pasifik Okyanusu'nun batısındaki Mariana Çukuru öyle derindir ki Everest Dağı içine yerleştirilse, zirvesinin üstünde yine de iki kilometreden fazla su kalırdı.

Çukurun en derin noktası olan Challenger Derinliği, 2019–2021 arasındaki dalışlarda yapılan ölçümlere göre yüzeyin yaklaşık 10.935 metre altındadır. Everest'in yüksekliği 8.849 metre olduğuna göre zirvesi yine de 2.000 metre kadar suyun altında kalırdı. Çukur, Pasifik levhasının daha küçük Mariana levhasının altına daldığı yerde oluşur. Dibe inen ilk insanlar, 1960'ta Trieste adlı derin deniz aracıyla dalan Jacques Piccard ile Don Walsh'tır; film yönetmeni James Cameron 2012'de tek başına indi, kâşif Victor Vescovo da 2019'dan bu yana oraya birçok kez daldı. Dipteki su basıncı, deniz seviyesindekinin bin katından fazladır.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Mariana Trench
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