Guinness World Records 2018

“marine snow”. One 40-tonne (88,000-lb) whale

carcass provides a source of carbon equivalent

to 100–200 years’ worth of marine snow falling

on 1 ha (2.47 acres) of ocean floor.

DEEPEST...

Salvage with divers

On 2 May 1942, British warship HMS Edinburgh

sank in 245 m (803 ft) of water in the Barents

Sea off northern Norway, inside the Arctic Circle.

Over the course of 31 days (from 7 Sep to 7 Oct

1981), 12 divers working for a consortium of

companies recovered 431 gold ingots. Five years

later, a further 29 ingots were reclaimed.

Dive by a combat submarine

A Russian K-278 submarine descended to

1,027 m (3,346 ft) in the Norwegian Sea on

4 Aug 1984. The first (and only) K-278 was

commissioned on 28 Dec 1983. A prototype

nuclear-powered attack sub, it featured a double

hull (including a titanium inner hull) that allowed

for deeper operations than any other combat sub.

Shipwreck

On  28  Nov 1996, using side-scanning sonar,

Blue Water Recoveries Ltd (UK) found the wreck

of the SS Rio Grande, a World War II German

blockade runner, at the bottom of the South

Atlantic Ocean. It lies 5,762 m (18,904 ft) deep.

Fish

Specimens of the cusk eel Abyssobrotula

galatheae have been collected from the Puerto

Rico Trench at a depth of 8,370 m (27,460 ft).

Point in the ocean

The Challenger Deep is located within the

Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean, about

300 km (186 mi) south-west of Guam. According

to measurements taken in Oct 2010 by the USNS

Sumner, the bottom of the Challenger Deep lies

10,994 m (36,070 ft) below sea level.

The Deep

EARTH

DEEPEST

HYDROTHERMAL

VENTS

On 21 Feb 2013,

a team of British

scientists on board

the research ship

RRS James Cook

announced that

they had found

hydrothermal vents

at a depth of 4,968 m

(16,299 ft). The vents

were discovered in

the Cayman Trough in

the Caribbean Sea by

means of a remotely

operated underwater

vehicle (ROV). The

ROV measured the

temperature of the

mineral-rich water

emanating from

the vents at 401°C

(753.8°F).

Below 200 m (656 ft), you are in “deep sea”: beyond this, the temperatures near 0°C

(32°F), the light fades and the pressure is hundreds of times greater than at sea level.

Largest shipwreck

The 153,479-gross-tonnage VLCC (Very Large

Crude Carrier) Energy Determination blew up on

13 Dec 1979 and later broke in two in the Strait of

Hormuz, Persian Gulf. It was not carrying cargo,

but its hull value was $58 m (£26 m at 1979 rates).

Largest deep-sea research submersible

The Ben Franklin (PX-15) measured 48 ft 9 in

(14.85 m) in length, with a displacement mass

of around 295,000 lb (133.8 tonnes). She was

developed by NASA and Northrop Grumman

(both USA) and built in Switzerland. On 14 Jul

1969 she was launched, with a crew of six, on a

30-day mission to drift in the Gulf Stream at a

maximum depth of some 600 m (1,970 ft). She

was sold privately in 1971 and now is on display

at the Vancouver Maritime Museum in Canada.

FIRST...

Scientific instrument used

in deep-sea exploration

In 1840, while leading an expedition to the

Antarctic, British explorer Sir James Clark Ross

used a sounding weight to reach a depth of

3,700 m (12,139 ft). This instrument comprised a

lead weight attached to rope, which was lowered

until it touched the sea floor.

Phone call from the ocean floor to space

On 29 Aug 1965, during NASA’s Gemini V

mission, the orbiting crew of Gordon Cooper

and Charles Conrad received a radiotelephone

call from fellow astronaut Scott Carpenter (all

USA). Carpenter was on board the experimental

marine habitat Sealab II, at a depth of 62 m

(203 ft) off the coast of California, USA. He spent

30 days living on Sealab II, during which he

performed research on physiology.

Recorded whale fall

In 1956, a research paper was published

detailing the fate of whale carcasses that fall to

the seabed. It was not until 1977, however, when

the bathyscaphe Trieste II was exploring the

Santa Catalina Basin off the USA’s west coast,

that the first natural whale fall was discovered.

The ocean floor is poor in nutrients, and

many species rely on the constant fall of

organic particles from above known as

Q: What is the “hadal zone”?

A: The deepest parts of the ocean. It

is named after Hades, the god of the

underworld in Greek myth.

Boaty

McBoatface

will be the name of

one of the remotely

operated submersibles

on^ the^ RRS^ Sir David

Attenborough, which is

under construction in

Birkenhead,^ UK,

and^

will sail in 2019.

0 m

Sea level

Deepest

dive in

a diving

suit

Deepest salvage

with divers

610 m

245 m

Deepest combat

submarine

Deepest-diving

submersible in

service

1,027 m

1,208 m

5,1 5 0 m

3,800 m

Deepest

hydrothermal vents

Wreck of Titanic

Deepest observed

volcanic eruption

Deepest salvage

of cargo

4,968 m

5,762 m

7,020 m

8,370 m

10,898 m

10,9 11 m

10,994 m

Deepest shipwreck

Deepest fish

Deepest

point

reached by

Trieste

Deepest

point

reached by

DEEPSEA

CHALLENGER

Deepest point in

the Mariana Trench

MOST PUBLIC VOTES TO NAME A RESEARCH VESSEL

In Mar 2016, the UK’s National Environment Research

Council (NERC) announced that their new research ship,

which would replace the RRS James Clark Ross and the RRS

Ernest Shackleton, would be named by the public via an

online vote. The polls closed on  16  Apr 2016; the winner, with

124,109 votes, was “Boaty McBoatface”. Despite this, NERC

decided to name the vessel RRS Sir David Attenborough,

after the British natural history broadcaster, whose name

came fourth in the poll.