Mariana Trench: What's Really at the Bottom? (11,000 m)

The Challenger Deep, at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, is the deepest known place on Earth, almost eleven kilometres below the surface. So what's actually down there? In this documentary we descend layer by layer, from the sunlit surface to the hadal zone, and follow the handful of people who have made the trip: Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard in nineteen sixty, James Cameron in twenty twelve, and Victor Vescovo in twenty nineteen. Along the way we meet the Mariana snailfish (Pseudoliparis swirei), the armoured amphipod Hirondellea gigas and giant single-celled xenophyophores, find out why even the exact depth is still debated, and look at the unsettling discovery of microplastics found by Alan Jamieson's team at Newcastle University. If you've ever wondered what's really on the floor of the ocean, this is the full journey down. Subscribe to Neptune's Ledger for more stories from the deep. Timestamps: 0:00 Cold Open: What's Really at the Bottom 0:32 Where It Is & How Deep 0:58 The Descent Begins 2:26 First Contact: HMS Challenger & the Trieste 4:35 Cameron's Solo Dive 4:51 Vescovo & the Depth Debate 6:21 The Trench Floor 6:50 The Mariana Snailfish 7:51 Armoured Amphipods 8:19 Xenophyophores & the Rest of the Cast 9:03 The Plastic Problem 10:22 Why It Matters 11:34 We Know the Moon Better Than Our Seafloor 11:56 Outro Credit: NOAA Ocean Exploration, via Flickr/NOAA Photo Library Wikimedia Commons Sources:1. Guinness World Records: deepest point in the sea https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/... 2. Guinness World Records: Victor Vescovo deepest dive https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/... 3. Popular Science: Cameron and Vescovo depth dispute https://www.popsci.com/?p=146593 4. US Navy: Trieste and the first dive to the deepest part of the oceans https://history.navy.mil/about-us/lea... 5. Scientific American: Diving Deeper Than Any Human Ever Dove https://www.scientificamerican.com/ar... Contact: egmmedaicontact@gmail.com #MarianaTrench #challengerdeep #deepsea #ocean #oceanexploration #documentary #hadal #DeepOcean #jamescameron #oceanography #marinelife #NeptunesLedger