James Cameron's descent into Mariannas Trench

           Mariannas Trench, (the deepest part of the world's oceans; not the horrible emo band) is located in the western Pacific and reaches a maximum depth of 10.91 km.  Humans explored this trench in the 1960’s, however have not returned since, until now.

            

           Right now.  James Cameron, famous filmmaker (Titantic, Avatar) and National Geographic explorer reached the ocean floor at 5:52 p.m. ET Sunday March 25^th.  He is the first person to make the journey solo and will be exploring the deepest parts of Mariannas Trench for up to 6 hours.  While down there he will likely be collecting samples, recording behavioural observations and filming. 

James Cameron is the first person to journey to Marianna's Trench solo

He is likely to find common deep ocean inhabitants like jellyfish or xenophyophores (giant, single-celled, honeycomb-shaped organisms).  However so little is known about the trench that it is probable he will be finding organisms new to science.  What is for certain is that he will return with the highest quality images and film of what is now an alien world to humanity. 

This mission may also motivate the scientific community to resume exploration of the ocean deep in order to gain a better understanding of some of the most extreme areas of our own planet.

For Cameron, he is already looking ahead to phase two for this project.  During his planned second descent he wants to attach a fiber-optic tether to the ship, which would allow the team at the surface of the ocean to see the images in real time.

Cameron should start his ascent at approximately 11:52 p.m. ET Sunday March 25^th.  

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