Fun fact 5 of 10
5. The Mariana Trench would swallow Everest with room to spare
The deepest point of the oceans is the Mariana Trench, in the Pacific, nearly 11 kilometers deep. If Everest were placed there, its summit would still be more than 2 kilometers below the surface.
Where the pressure crushes
The deepest section, called Challenger Deep, lies about 10,900 meters below sea level. The exact measurement varies a little depending on the method, but all are close to 11 kilometers.
Down there, the water pressure is more than a thousand times greater than at the surface, the equivalent of more than a ton resting on every square centimeter. Darkness is total and the water stays a few degrees above zero.
Even so, there is life. Crustaceans, sea cucumbers, microbes and fish have been seen at great depths. The deepest fish ever filmed, a snailfish, appeared at more than 8,300 meters, in a trench near Japan.
Few people have reached the bottom. The first were Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh, in 1960, in the bathyscaphe Trieste. In 2012, filmmaker James Cameron descended alone, and since 2019 other expeditions have made new crewed dives.
The trench exists because here one plate of the ocean floor dives beneath another and sinks into the Earth's mantle. It is the same process that causes earthquakes and volcanoes around much of the Pacific, the region known as the Ring of Fire.
Did you know? Not even this remote place escapes human trash. A Japanese survey recorded a plastic bag at nearly 11,000 meters depth in the trench.
