Talk:Challenger Deep/Archive 2

How was 1875 sounding made?
It says the first sounding of the Challenger Deep was made in 1875. How? Did they carry over 5 miles (8km) of rope? If it was really a weight on the end of a 5 mile rope, how did they know when the end reached the bottom? RedTomato (talk) 19:17, 15 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Purely speculation, but if you can get to a point where you realize that you're making slack in the rope, and then remove the slack until the line is taut again, the length of rope below the water should be the distance to the bottom. MMetro (talk) 04:27, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Back then they used a 'lead line network' to survey in shallower areas—-several lead lines tethered together and dragged across the seafloor by several ships tethered together
 * 'wire rope' is another name for modern 'braided sea cable' which of course is very heavy but does fit on a manageable sized 10K meter spool on an oceanographic winch, and as such when the cable is spooled over the side of a ship the weight of the cable itself, plus whatever it might be weighted with, (ie usually lead cast weights calculated before hand to be appropriate to overcome buoyancy and currents issues) puts a noticeable list on the ship, and the ship handler is expected to know how to drive the ship correctly to help compensate for currents too, and the concept of the 'wire angle' is noted. So a straight up and down wire angle is preferable, then when the weight hits the alleged bottom a resultant tell-tale vibration is likely transferred back up the cable to the ship. 76.21.27.240 (talk) 05:03, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

Para 4.1.5 Planned crewed descents -- recm deletion of this entire sub-para
This para was inserted to identify those organizations competing to dive into the Challenger Deep, when such an ability displayed pioneering technology and the expenditure of major investments in designing and fabrication of a unique vehicle to make the dive. Many announced such an intention, but their efforts have now been made moot by the activities of the deep submersible Limiting Factor over the last two years. Recommend this entire section be deleted as no longer informative or useful. Gwyncann (talk) 18:06, 14 September 2020 (UTC)