The Five Deeps Expedition

Victor Vescovo · 2018 CE – 2019 CE · Earth

Survey and then dive the deepest point of each of the five oceans within a single year.

Historical context

Before 2018 the deepest point of four of the five oceans had never been reached at all, and the fifth had been reached three times in sixty years. The Five Deeps Expedition treated the problem as logistics: a submersible certified for any depth, a ship with a modern sonar, and a schedule. Nine months and five oceans later, full ocean depth had become a place one could go back to.

The voyage, step by step

1. Out of San Juan

   December 2018

   In December 2018 a converted naval ship leaves Puerto Rico with a titanium submersible on her stern and three free-falling landers in her hold.

2. The bottom of the Atlantic

   19 December 2018

   On 19 December 2018 the submersible reaches 8,376 metres in the Puerto Rico Trench, the deepest point of the Atlantic Ocean.

3. The Factorian Deep

   4 February 2019

   On 4 February 2019, under the South Sandwich Islands, the sub touches 7,434 metres in the only hadal trench whose water sits below freezing.

4. The Sunda Trench

   April 2019

   In April 2019, 500 kilometres south of Bali, the sub reaches 7,192 metres and settles the long argument about where the Indian Ocean is deepest.

5. Deeper than anyone

   28 April 2019

   On 28 April 2019 the submersible records 10,928 metres in the Challenger Deep, and dives it again three days later.

6. The Molloy Deep

   24 August 2019

   On 24 August 2019, in the Fram Strait west of Svalbard, the last of the five dives reaches 5,550 metres under the Arctic ice edge.

Outcome

All five deepest points reached between December 2018 and August 2019, each one mapped by sonar first and dived in the same submersible.

Victor Vescovo

Investor and former naval officer who had a repeatable full-depth submersible built and dived the deepest point of every ocean in nine months.

Read on Wikipedia

Sources

• Victor Vescovo — Wikipedia
• The five deeps: the location and depth of the deepest place in each of the world's oceansHeather A. Stewart and Alan J. Jamieson · Earth-Science Reviews, volume 197 · 2019

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