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= The Five Deeps Expedition =

Overview
The Five Deeps Expedition was launched in December 2018 to explore the deepest points in each of the world’s five oceans. Founded by Victor Vescovo of Cadadan Oceanic, the expedition is the first of its kind. A television documentary series about the expedition is also being filmed by Atlantic Productions for Discovery Channel, and will air in 2019/2020.

The expedition utilizes a custom-engineered, two-person, titanium-based submersible named DSV Limiting Factor. The submersible’s support ship, DSSV Pressure Drop, is equipped with a Kongsberg EM124 sonar suite that allows for precise mapping of the ocean floor, even to full ocean depth, thus allowing the expedition to identify and verify the deepest reaches of the ocean.

The Five Deeps Expedition’s scientific agenda is led by renowned chief scientist Dr. Alan Jamieson, Newcastle University, and will bring forth findings from these depths to the global academic, oceanographic, and environmental communities.

The Puerto Rico Trench (Dive)
On December 21, 2018, Victor Vescovo became the first person to dive on a solo mission to the deepest point in the Atlantic Ocean – the verified bottom of the Puerto Rico Trench at 8,376 meters/27,480 feet. The trench was explored in 1964 to approximately 8,300 meters by the French submersible Archimede, but the bottom was never reached. The dive also made the Limiting Factor the deepest diving operational submersible in the world, surpassing the previous operational record-holder, the Chinese submersible Jiaolong which has reportedly reached a maximum depth of 7,062 meters.

The South Sandwich Trench (Dive)
On February 4, 2019, Victor Vescovo became the first person to dive to the deepest point in the Southern Ocean – in the southern section of the South Sandwich Trench – at 7,433.6 meters/24,388 feet. Located just north of Antarctica, the Southern Ocean’s South Sandwich Trench had not been thoroughly explored and is the only subzero Hadal zone (deeper than 6,000 meters) in the world. No human has ever dived in the trench, and what few samples have been taken from its hadal depths, date back to the early 1970s. Vescovo was able to reach the bottom of the South Sandwich Trench in approximately 2.7 hours. While on the bottom, accompanied by two deep-diving scientific landers, he mapped and took high-definition video of the sea floor and also collected sediment and water samples for further study.

Diamantina Fracture Zone (Science Mission)
On April 1, 2019, The Five Deeps Expedition conducted the first detailed, sonar mapping and sample-collection mission at the deepest part of the Diamantina Fracture Zone in the Indian Ocean - an area known as the Dordrecht Deep. The team found it to be 7,019 meters deep, slightly shallower than previously thought when historically measured by other, methods. The area, located 1300 kilometers southwest of Australia, was mapped precisely for the first time through the use of a suite of technology including a Kongsberg EM 124 deep-water multibeam echo sonar (MBES) as well as QPS processing and 3D visualization software. Over 5,800 km2 of multibeam data were acquired at the Diamantina Fracture Zone during a three-day period. The data collected was then contributed to the GEBCO 2030 initiative to map all of the world’s oceans in detail by 2030. In addition to mapping the fracture zone, a scientific lander from Newcastle University was deployed to ~7,010 meters for six hours to measure water temperature and physically confirm the depths registered by the sonar. The lander also collected biological samples of scavenging crustaceans known as amphipods. These samples will be brought back to Newcastle University at the end of the expedition and genetically analyzed alongside samples from other dives to examine the role of ultra-deep fracture zones in evolution, the role of other faults and basins in the dispersal of hadal species (species only found deeper than 6 km below sea-level), and the degree of genetic drift possible across deep ocean trenches.

Java Trench (Dive)
On April 16, 2019, the expedition completed a mission to reach the deepest point of the Java Trench in the Indian Ocean. Now measured at 7,192 meters/23,596 feet deep, Victor Vescovo is the first person to dive to its depths. From the sub, a new species of hadal snailfish was observed amongst many other bottom dwelling organisms, and the landers observed a gelatinous animal – thought to be a stalked Ascidean, otherwise known as a Sea Squirt. A second dive was piloted by Patrick Lahey, President of Triton Submarines and he was accompanied in the two-person submersible by Dr. Alan Jamieson, the Chief Scientist of the Five Deeps Expedition. With his dive to 7,180 meters, Dr. Jamieson, a Scotsman, became the deepest-diving British citizen in history and the first to visit the hadal depths (greater than 6,000 meters).

Future Missions

 * Mariana Trench/Challenger Deep (Pacific Ocean, 10,925 meters)
 * Tonga Trench (Pacific Ocean, 10,882 meters)
 * Molloy Deep (Arctic Ocean, 5,573 meters)