Marianas Trench Probed by James Cameron in Solo Dive

James Cameron has taken another giant leap for mankind in his quest to go from "king of the world" to king of the deep.

This weekend the director returned from a record-breaking solo trip to the Marianas Trench's Challenger Deep—the planet's deepest ocean area. Cameron descended to the 6.8 mile deep undersea valley in a 2.5 story-tall "vertical torpedo" submarine and spent hours moving along the trench's seafloor and cliff walls, utilizing a robotic arm and "slurp gun" to collect sediment and small sea creatures for study.

The haul from Cameron's trip included scientific data, specimens, and a 3-D recording of his adventure, and may signal a renaissance in deep-sea study. A full report on the findings will be released in National Geographic magazine. We're pretty sure he didn't find any blue people down there, but here's hoping the new footage boasts a better plot than his last opus.

[cray]

Nuclear waste has not been dumped in the Marianas Trench. It is a *proposed* dump site, but hasn't been used that way. Also, the Trench is 1, 580 miles (2, 550 kilometers) long and averages 43 miles (69 km) wide, but Cameron only explored a few yards of it. Even if waste was dumped there, it's doubtful he'd find it.

[hrriva]

did he recorded some of the nuclar waste that is dumped there ?

[zwete]

I was trying to come up with some witty comment, but I guess that pun went down the abyss.

[hrriva]

it probably is . but thank you for clearing it out for me anyway.