The Mariana Trench is located in the western Pacific Ocean about 200 kilometres east of the Mariana Islands. It is crescent-shaped and measures about 2,550 km in length and 69 km in width. The maximum known depth is 10,984 metres at the southern end of a small slot-shaped valley in its floor known as the Challenger Deep. If Mount Everest were placed into the trench at this point, its peak would still be under water by more than two kilometres.
About Mariana Trench in brief
The Mariana Trench or Marianas Trench is located in the western Pacific Ocean about 200 kilometres east of the Mariana Islands. It is crescent-shaped and measures about 2,550 km in length and 69 km in width. The maximum known depth is 10,984 metres at the southern end of a small slot-shaped valley in its floor known as the Challenger Deep. If Mount Everest were placed into the trench at this point, its peak would still be under water by more than two kilometres. At the bottom of the trench, the water column above exerts a pressure of 1,086 bars, more than 1,071 times the standard atmospheric pressure at sea level. At this pressure, the density of water is increased by 4. 96%. The temperature at the bottom is 1 to 4 °C. In 2009, the Mariana Trench was established as a United States National Monument. Monothalamea have been found in the trench by Scripps Institution of Oceanography researchers at a record depth of 10. 6 kilometres below the sea surface. The trench was first sounded during the Challenger expedition in 1875, using a weighted rope, which recorded a depth of 4,475 fathoms. The movement of the Pacific and Mariana plates is also indirectly responsible for the formation of theMariana Islands, which are caused by flux melting of the upper mantle due to the release of water that is trapped in minerals of the subducted portion of thePacific Plate.
The deepest area at the plate boundary is the Mariani Trench proper. It was discovered while scientists from the Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology were completing a survey around Guam; they used a sonar system towed behind the research ship HMRMR. This new spot was named the HMR Deep, possibly even deeper than the deepest spot in the Challenger Trench, which was discovered in 1995. It has been named after Las Marianas in honour of Spanish Queen Mariana of Austria, widow of Philip IV of Spain. The islands are part of the island arc that is formed on an over-riding plate, called the Marian Plate, on the western side of the trenches. In 1899, USS Nero, a converted collier, recorded a Depth of 5,269fathoms. In 1951, Challenger II surveyed the trench using echo sounding, a much more precise and vastly easier way to measure depth.
You want to know more about Mariana Trench?
This page is based on the article Mariana Trench published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 07, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
