"The Challenger’s Deep-Sea Brethren"

"On Monday, the film director and explorer James Cameron became the first human to reach the world’s deepest abyss on his own, the Challenger Deep, which lies 62 miles southwest of Guam in the Pacific Ocean. The dive had been attempted only once before, in 1960, when Don Walsh, a retired United States Navy captain, and Jacques Piccard, a Swiss engineer, reached the spot in the Navy submersible Trieste."



"Mr. Cameron’s achievement is a triumph of engineering. At 35,756 feet below the surface -- two leagues under the sea -- where his sub, the Deepsea Challenger, hit bottom, the water pressure is around 16,000 pounds per square inch, nearly the atmospheric pressure on the surface of Venus. "

Andy Isaacson reports for the New York Times' Green blog March 27, 2012.

Source: Green/NYT, 03/27/2012