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The Mariana Trench is an oceanic trench located in the western Pacific Ocean, about 200 kilometres (124 mi) east of the Mariana Islands; it is the deepest oceanic trench on Earth. It is crescent-shaped and measures about 2,550 km (1,580 mi) in length and 69 km (43 mi) in width.
Trenches are generally parallel to a volcanic island arc, and about 200 km from a volcanic arc. Oceanic trenches typically extend 3 to 4 km (1.9 to 2.5 mi) below the level of the surrounding oceanic floor. The greatest ocean depth to be sounded is in the Challenger Deep of the Mariana Trench, at a depth of 10,911 m (35,798 ft) below sea level.
Here the bottoms of the Marianas and the Tonga–Kermadec trenches are up to 10–11 kilometers (6.2–6.8 mi) below sea level. In the eastern Pacific, where the subducting oceanic lithosphere is much younger, the depth of the Peru-Chile trench is around 7 to 8 kilometers (4.3 to 5.0 mi). [18]
The lowest known point on Earth – the Mariana Trench – lies 10,911 m (35,797 ft; 5,966 fathoms) below sea level. Its average depth is 4,280 m (14,040 ft; 2,340 fathoms), putting the total water volume at roughly 710,000,000 km 3 (170,000,000 cu mi).
Sonar mapping of the Challenger Deep by the DSSV Pressure Drop employing a Kongsberg SIMRAD EM124 multibeam echosounder system (26 April–4 May 2019). Challenger Deep (CD) is the deepest known point in the Earth's seabed hydrosphere, a slot-shaped valley in the floor of Mariana Trench, with depths exceeding 10,900 meters. [1]
It is a subduction zone where the Pacific Plate is being subducted under the Mariana Plate. [3] At the deepest point, the trench is nearly 11,000 m deep (almost 36,000 feet). [38] [3] This is further below sea level than Mount Everest is above sea level, by over 2 kilometers.
On 23 May 2016, the Chinese submersible Haidou-1 dived to a depth of 10,767 m (35,325 ft) at an undisclosed position in the Mariana Trench, making China the third country after Japan (ROV KaikÅ), and the US (HROV Nereus), to deploy a full-ocean-depth ROV. This autonomous and remotely operated vehicle has a design depth of 11,000 m (36,089 ft).
[1] [2] [3] The majority of the ocean is aphotic, with the average depth of the sea being 4,267 m (13,999 ft) deep; the deepest part of the sea, the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench, is about 11,000 m (36,000 ft) deep. The depth at which the aphotic zone begins in the ocean depends on many factors.