The Challenger Deep EarthCache marker being attached to the Limiting Factor submarine by Richard Garriott. This EarthCache is an additional effort to educate the public about some of the fascinating scientific concepts on display at Challenger Deep. In addition to making new contributions to science, the expedition will also provide inspiration to students through the Venture to the Deep initiative, which features fun STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics) activities. The expedition also assessed and documented the environmental impact and pollution at Challenger Deep. Extremophiles, or organisms that live in extreme environments, are of special interest to Richard, who has studied them in numerous locations across the globe. New species have been identified at Challenger Deep in the past, and it is expected that new ones may yet be discovered. Richard and Michael’s dive was part of a scientific expedition that conducted detailed mapping, recorded video footage, and collected biological samples from the ocean’s greatest depths. Markers with floats and weights are the STANDARD deep water method for marking sites to find again on a future visit. The plaque will be tethered with Kevlar rope, to a float made of carved syntactic foam. This EarthCache is marked with a titanium plate, which contains the geocache number, and a secret message that future visitors must provide as proof that they have "found" the cache. While this depth has been rarely visited, new technology such as the submarine Limiting Factor, can now make repeated dives to this depth, and plans to revisit in future expeditions as well. They left the deepest geocache to date, and likely the deepest geocache possible during their dives. Between 28 April and, the DSV Limiting Factor completed four manned dives to the bottom of Challenger Deep.On March 1st, and March 3rd 2021, Richard Garriott and Michael Dubno as part of the Caladan Oceanic Challenger Deep Expedition 2021, dove 10,925m below the surface in the submarine Limiting Factor. In March 2012 a manned solo descent was made by film director James Cameron in the deep-submergence vehicle Deepsea Challenger. This was followed by the unmanned ROVs Kaikō in 1995 and Nereus in 2009. The first descent by any vehicle was by the manned bathyscaphe Trieste in 1960. According to the August 2011 version of the GEBCO Gazetteer of Undersea Feature Names, the location and depth of the Challenger Deep are 11☂2.4′N 142☃5.5′E and 10,920 m (35,827 ft) ☑0 m (33 ft).The high water pressure at this depth makes designing and operating exploratory craft difficult. It is located in the ocean territory of the Federated States of Micronesia.The depression is named after the British Royal Navy survey ship HMS Challenger, whose expedition of 1872–1876 made the first recordings of its depth. The closest land to the Challenger Deep is Fais Island (one of the outer islands of Yap), 287 km (178 mi) southwest, and Guam, 304 km (189 mi) to the northeast. Both the western and eastern basins have recorded depths (by sonar bathymetry) in excess of 10,920 m (35,827 ft), while the center basin is slightly shallower. The three basins feature extends about 48 km (30 mi) west to east if measured at the 10,650 m (34,941 ft) isobath. The Challenger Deep consists of three 6 to 10 km (3.7 to 6.2 mi) long about 2 km (1.2 mi) wide basins, each over 10,850 m (35,597 ft) in depth, oriented in echelon from west to east, separated by mounds between the basins 200 to 300 m (656 to 984 ft) higher. It is a relatively small slot-shaped depression in the bottom of a considerably larger crescent-shaped oceanic trench, which itself is an unusually deep feature in the ocean floor. It is located in the Pacific Ocean, at the southern end of the Mariana Trench near the Mariana Islands group. The Challenger Deep is the deepest known point in the Earth's seabed hydrosphere (the oceans), with a depth of 10,902 to 10,925 m (35,768 to 35,843 ft) by direct measurement from submersibles and (sometimes) slightly more by sonar bathymetry. Wikipedia (0.00 / 0 votes) Rate this definition:
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