Depth of the Deepest Point in the Ocean
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Bibliographic Entry | Result (w/surrounding text) |
Standardized Result |
---|---|---|
"The Heath Earth Science Program". Evanston, IL: Houghton Mifflin, 1999. | "The deepest place in this trench- the deepest place in any ocean- is 11 kilometers below sea level." | 11,000 m |
"The Ocean". Encyclopedia Americana. Year 2000 Edition. Danbury, CT: Grolier, 2000. | "The greatest known depth is located in the Mindanao Trench (West Pacific) where the British ship Cook (1962) found 11,516 meters in depth exceeding Mount Everest's height by 2,660 meters." | 11, 516 m [unlikely] |
Ocean Frequently Asked (FAQs). National Oceanographic Data Center, 2003. | "The deepest point in the ocean is generally believed to be in the Marianas Trench in the Western Pacific Ocean at approximately 36,160 feet (11,021 m), according to the Rand McNally Atlas (1977)." | 11, 021 m |
Robert Barton. The Oceans. New York: J.G. Ferguson Publishing Company, 1980. | "The Pacific is the deepest of the oceans, the distance from the surface to the bottom of the Marianas Trench, off Guam, being seven miles." | 11,200 m |
Physical Features of the Ocean. Oceans Alive. Museum of Science, Boston, 1998. | " Deepest point: 36,198 feet (11,033 m) in the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific." | 11,033 m |
The deepest point in the ocean lies in the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean. The Mariana Trench is located in the western part of the Pacific Ocean near the fourteen Mariana Islands. The shape of the Mariana Trench is that of a semi-circle. It extends northeast to southwest for about two thousand five hundred fifty meters and is seventy kilometers wide. The Mariana Trench was formed by the process of subduction. The interior of the earth or the mantle is composed of lava. The solid crust of the earth which are in pieces are on top. Sometimes the lava from the mantle rises up through the cracks in the crust. This either causes pieces of the crust to be pushed together or apart. So when the oceanic crust which is heavier is pushed against the continental crust which is lighter, the oceanic crust is pushed to the bottom and the continental crust to the top. Then oceanic crust or subducted crust forms the trench.
The deepest point in the Mariana Trench and in the oceans is Challenger Deep which is three hundred and forty kilometers off the coast of Guam. Challenger Deep was named after the HMS Challenger II who discovered the point in 1948. In 1960, Jacques Picard and Navy Lieutenant Donald Walsh took the bathyscaphe Trieste into Challenger Deep. They took the Trieste into the deep ten thousand nine hundred and fifteen meters.
Cui Miu Chin -- 2004