What Exactly Did James Cameron Find in the Deepest Ocean Trench?
- Posted on March 26, 2012 at 3:58pm by
Liz Klimas
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Mariana Trench (Image: National Geographic)
WASHINGTON (The Blaze/AP) — Oscar-winning director James Cameron had to cut his six hour trip in the deepest place on Earth — the Mariana Trench — to just three hours due to a leak, which means he didn’t collect the samples he had expected. He did bring back visual feedback of what he saw in the the last frontier.
(Related: Oscar-winning director James Cameron sinks to a new low (literally!))
What was down there? Honestly, not that much. Still, Cameron described it as out-of-this-world, desolate, foreboding and moon-like.
Cameron, who knows a little about alien worlds having made the movie “Avatar,” said when he got to this strange cold, dark place 7 miles below the western Pacific Ocean that only two other men have been to, there was one thing he promised to himself: He wanted to drink in how unusual it is.
Cameron being lowered down on Sunday. (Photo: National Geographic)
“There had to be a moment where I just stopped, and took it in, and said, `This is where I am; I’m at the bottom of the ocean, the deepest place on Earth. What does that mean?’” Cameron told reporters during a Monday conference call after spending three hours at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, nearly 7 miles down.
“I just sat there looking out the window, looking at this barren, desolate lunar plain, appreciating,” Cameron said.
He also realized how alone he was, with that much water above him.
“It’s really the sense of isolation, more than anything, realizing how tiny you are down in this big vast black unknown and unexplored place,” Cameron said.
Cameron said he had hoped to see some strange deep sea monster like a creature that would excite the storyteller in him and seem like out of his movies, but he didn’t.
James Cameron andNavy Capt. Don Walsh shake hands before Cameron went under. (Photo: AP)
He didn’t see tracks of animals on the sea floor as he did when he dove more than 5 miles deep weeks ago. All he saw were voracious shrimp-like critters that weren’t bigger than an inch.
According to National Geographic, Cameron said, ”I didn’t feel like I got to a place where I could take interesting geology samples or found anything interesting biologically.”
But that was OK, he said, it was all about exploration, science and discovery. He is the only person to dive there solo, using a sub he helped design. He is the first person to reach that depth — 35,576 feet — since it was initially explored in 1960.
What could Cameron have expected to find? According to the project’s website, along with the crustaceans noted by Cameron, sea cucumbers, snail fish, single-celled Xenophyophores, mollusks and some cynrdarians have been observed at those depths. Watch this clip from NatGeo of “giant amoebas” that have been previously seen in the trench:
He spent more than three hours at the bottom, longer than the 20 minutes Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard spent in the only other visit 52 years ago. But it was less than the six hours he had hoped.
He spent time filming the Mariana Trench, which is about 200 miles southwest of the Pacific island of Guam. The trip down to the deepest point took two hours and 36 minutes, starting Sunday afternoon U.S. East Coast time.
This NatGeo clip shows Cameron’s trip in a condensed minute highlighting where life would be present along the way in the descent:
His return aboard his 12-ton, lime-green sub called Deepsea Challenger was a “faster-than-expected 70-minute ascent,” according to National Geographic, which sponsored the dive.
Cameron's tweets when he was at the bottom and when he again surfaced.
National Geographic has more on why Cameron’s trip was cut short:
“I saw a lot of hydraulic oil come up in front of the port. The port got coated with it,” he explained.
Cameron had planned to collect rock and animal samples with the sub’s mechanical arm, but with the leak, “I couldn’t pick anything up, so I began to feel like it was a moment of diminishing returns to go on.”
Finally, he said, “I lost a lot of thrusters. I lost the whole starboard side. That’s when I decided to come up. I couldn’t go any further—I was just spinning in a circle.”
Earlier, an issue with the sub’s sonar system had scuttled the launch of a baited, unmanned “lander.”
The lander was supposed to touch down at Challenger Deep hours before Cameron’s arrival and attract deep-ocean predators and scavengers.
But without the sonar system working properly, finding the lander would have been difficult, explained Doug Bartlett, chief scientist for the DEEPSEA CHALLENGE project, a partnership with the National Geographic Society and Rolex. (The Society owns National Geographic News.)
Cameron said he plans on returning to the depths though.
“I see this as the beginning,” Cameron said. “It’s not a one-time deal and then moving on. This is the beginning of opening up this new frontier.”
“To me, the story is in the people in their quest and curiosity and their attempt to understand,” Cameron said.
Watch National Geographic‘s teaser for more information to come from Cameron’s trip:
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Comments (50)
THXll38
Posted on March 26, 2012 at 7:51pmDid he discover The Snorks?
Report Post »TRUMPETCALL
Posted on March 26, 2012 at 7:04pm“There are three things that man tries to hide from God: Man tries to hide his sin. Then man tries to hide his soul. And third, man tries to hide himself.” — Jack Hyles
Solomon said, recorded in Ecclesiastes 1:9: “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.”
Or the under the sea, for that matter.
Report Post »Kaoscontrol
Posted on March 26, 2012 at 10:04pmYes. And to your point… after viewing the video online of what he saw I’ve concluded that the bottom 7 miles down looks like….the bottom of the pond we have behind our farm, minus a few catfish. Nice try James, but I‘m not sure there’s much ‘there’ there…
Report Post »bjdeverell
Posted on March 26, 2012 at 6:41pmWhy is everybody getting political about this story? I‘m a conservative too but can’t we put that all aside for a second and recognize that even though he’s a liberal he did something really cool, scientifically speaking.
Report Post »kiddopup
Posted on March 27, 2012 at 8:38amIf he really did anything I watched a feed online and alot of so called experts said he never made itn to the bottom of the actual trench just a publicity stunt
Report Post »mountainmover101
Posted on March 26, 2012 at 6:01pmWhat did he find? Well obviously not a prehistoric sea creature not seen for billions of years which would have been attracted to his pod like a lure. He came back didn’t he.
Report Post »Baikonur
Posted on March 26, 2012 at 5:59pmHe found the long lost Golden Plates right there at the very bottom.
Report Post »Gumbercules
Posted on March 26, 2012 at 7:02pmThanks for trying to be funny. Better luck next time.
Report Post »rrick
Posted on March 26, 2012 at 8:50pmDon’t make jokes about silly religions!
Report Post »mountainmover101
Posted on March 26, 2012 at 5:57pmI know, right. People do know that was all fiction and those aliens and planets et. al do not exist. Don’t they? I mean this is the left though and I don’t credit them with an overwhelming wealth of intelligence.
Report Post »Siddhartha
Posted on March 26, 2012 at 5:56pmSay what you will about the man’s politics. Picture what he just did. He climbed into a steel sphere less than 4 feet in diameter and descended alone to the most inaccessible place on the planet. There could have been no rescue attempted if he had suffered a catastrophic failure. He would have died all alone, horribly. He had no tether as someone here suggested. A winch carrying 7 miles of cable would have been a prominent feature on the deck of the ship. I didn’t see one. The pressure on his capsule staggers the imagination. Sea water exerts a pressure of .44 pounds per square foot per foot of depth. This puts the pressure at 15653 pounds per square inch. His website says the sphere was 43 inched in diameter. This works out to a surface area of 5808 square inches. This results in a total crushing load of 90,912,624 pounds. Wanna go next?
Report Post »marcus_arealius
Posted on March 26, 2012 at 5:51pmRight on point. How does making a ‘movie’ about a fictitious alien planet qualify as ‘knowing a little about alien worlds’ ? I suppose a stretch on the qualifier ‘little’ could be he knows he knows little about alien worlds. As far as bottom, he has yet to find the bottom to where the Democraps get their vitriolic rhetoric. I would think Cameron needs to plan a trip to the bottom level of hell for that.
Report Post »Chuck T
Posted on March 26, 2012 at 5:38pmOne of the world media’s top leftist elitist finally hit bottom…almost. Kind of anticlimactic.
Report Post »Taxpayer550
Posted on March 26, 2012 at 5:14pm“What Exactly Did James Cameron Find in the Deepest Ocean Trench?”
I hope he found the 2.5, 3.5, and 4.5 million jobs that were promised if the stimulus was passed. They never did turn up, did they?
Report Post »Balthazor
Posted on March 26, 2012 at 5:10pmNext thing you know there’ll be a story about James Cameron being packed into a time machine and sent into the future to look for signs of cyborgs.
Report Post »ImmediateRealityCheck
Posted on March 26, 2012 at 4:58pmIf he inadvertantly tries to pick up a shrimp off the top of some of that live ordinance down there he may meet the real Director/Creator of this world. And it won’t be the fairy tale one promoted by National Geographic either!
Report Post »felix
Posted on March 26, 2012 at 4:57pmso this liberal,communist , demothug pollutes the trench with hydraulic oil and no one cares ? oh silly me – forgot hes an obumbler boy.
Report Post »v15
Posted on March 26, 2012 at 4:56pmHere’s the logic: James Cameron directed “The Abyss” and “Titanic.” Although both movies were shot in an aquarium at Hollywood, they depict scenes of life at 30,000+ feet deep. These two movies appealed to mostly to Marine Biologists; therefore, James Cameron is a skilled Marine Biologist and how dare peasants like us question him.
Report Post »tmplarnite
Posted on March 26, 2012 at 4:56pmHow can we believe anything in this article…nuke submarine at 800 Feet….nonsense. WWII submarines were designed for 3000 Feet: FACT!
Report Post »blackeneth
Posted on March 27, 2012 at 4:18pmWWI subs with pressure hulls made of carbon steel could dive as deep as 330 ft. During WWII, new pressure hulls with alloyed steel were introduced that could go as deep as 660 ft. Modern subs can go down 820 – 1300 ft (if not more – max depths are classified) . The soviets did create some subs titanium pressure hulls that could go down to 3300 ft., but none of these are in service today. These are maximum depths, not necessarily the depth at which most operations occur – US subs in WWII would normally operate at 200 ft.
Report Post »tmplarnite
Posted on March 27, 2012 at 6:30pmBlackeneth: You sir are full of you know what…I am an ex WWII Diesel boat sailor…my boat was designed for 3000 ft (test {safety} depth set at 1500ft and was put out of commission in the ‘70’s with a 485ft test depth: test depth is lowered ever time the hull is opened for new batteries because the soft patches get weaker) …it was launched in 1943. Nuke subs cruise at 3500-5000ft at speeds of 80 plus knots… It is NO secret every one knows except fools like you who like to perpetuate fairy tales……….
Report Post »LOJ
Posted on March 26, 2012 at 4:40pmPeople are still amazed and fascinated by the Ocean Floor, even if Cameron didn’t find some miraculous clues, or sea monsters. Wouldn’t it be great if another movie was made about ship wrecks and piracy on the high seas, to help the public have some enjoyment….aside from finatical people, Gotcha Politics, and hateful Radicals who seem intent on destroying our society! Would love to see more of the Sea World!
Report Post »MittensKittens
Posted on March 26, 2012 at 4:34pmWHAT EXACTLY DID JAMES CAMERON FIND IN THE DEEPEST OCEAN TRENCH?
Jimmy Hoffa…right next to Osama
Report Post »lukerw
Posted on March 26, 2012 at 4:41pmHe’s looking the the Golden Tablets of Atlantis… upon the Communist Utopia!
Report Post »cyclops
Posted on March 27, 2012 at 1:23pmHahahahahaha…………….Good one……
Report Post »paperpushermj
Posted on March 26, 2012 at 4:32pmNot to be hung up on words, but it looks like it is being lowered on a cable which I think makes it more like a Bathysphere then a Sub.
Report Post »Tri-ox
Posted on March 26, 2012 at 4:32pmCameron is a mindless obama drone, so, who cares?
Report Post »cyclops
Posted on March 26, 2012 at 4:21pmI would love to do it…..How exciting……
Report Post »qpwillie
Posted on March 26, 2012 at 4:20pm“What Exactly Did James Cameron Find in the Deepest Ocean Trench?”
Water?
Report Post »hidden_lion
Posted on March 26, 2012 at 4:36pmObama’s birth certificate
Report Post »lukerw
Posted on March 26, 2012 at 4:37pmMmmm… One Inch SHRIMP!
Report Post »qpwillie
Posted on March 26, 2012 at 4:47pmHow many guesses do we get?
Report Post »Chet Hempstead
Posted on March 26, 2012 at 4:57pmAquaman.
Report Post »TIME_2_END_THE_PAUL_CAMPAIGN_IN_12
Posted on March 26, 2012 at 5:51pmAlec Balwin and Red October?
Report Post »cyclops
Posted on March 27, 2012 at 1:25pmLMAO……………………..Good one, Hidden_Lion
Report Post »Kinnison
Posted on March 26, 2012 at 4:18pmOne thing Cameron probably saw was a bunch of degrading WWII ammo from Guam’s Naval Magazine. In the mid-1960′s the U.S. Navy continually loaded sea-going barges with time-expired ammunition of all kinds, from pallets of rifle and machine gun ammunition to artillery projectiles and bombs via the docks at Naval Station, Guam, took them out to sea with tugs, and dumped the ordnance into the sea over the Marianas Trench. Just after WWII the U.S. military also dumped thousands of aircraft, trucks, jeeps and lots of other surplus military equipment that had been stockpiled for the conventional invasion of Japan there too, as it was simply not cost-effective to ship it all back to the continental U.S.
Report Post »TIME_2_END_THE_PAUL_CAMPAIGN_IN_12
Posted on March 26, 2012 at 4:16pmUnless I missed it on this story somewhere… wasn’t he the director of the movie “The Abyss?”
Nice that guys like him with mad money movie spoils can go on adventures like this an live out their movie fantasies. Maybe he was looking for that alien space ship… with Dennis Kucinich at the helm.
Report Post »TIME_2_END_THE_PAUL_CAMPAIGN_IN_12
Posted on March 26, 2012 at 4:23pm“…according to National Geographic, which sponsored the dive.”
Okay, he may not have paid his own way.
Report Post »Exrepublisheep
Posted on March 26, 2012 at 4:14pmInteresting.
Report Post »SgtB
Posted on March 26, 2012 at 4:10pmWhy is Nat Geo sponsoring this trip to the sea bed for a millionaire Hollywood producer instead of…. oh, I don’t know, a marine biologist? If he wanted, he could easily have invested his own dollars into this venture and gone it alone without costing Nat. Geo a dime. I understand, it is probably a publicity stunt for Nat. Geo. that they hope will return them a profit; but why send James Cameron? Wouldn’t it be more advantageous for actually learning about the deep if they sent someone with more experience and professional skill? And wouldn’t just the news that they sent a man deeper than anyone has ever been be sufficient to generate publicity?
Report Post »COFemale
Posted on March 26, 2012 at 9:06pmWhy do you care?
As far as James Cameron goes, he is one of the few Hollywood director/producers with imagination. All the other crap is re-runs or sequels to sequels. Hollywood has gone dark due to their own stupidity.
Report Post »SgtB
Posted on March 27, 2012 at 8:41amMaybe I care because despite his ability to create entertaining cinema, he is a douchebag liberal progressive who supports the ideas of anthropogenic global climate change and wants to enforce global population control. That alone is enough to make me dislike someone. But the reality is that he is not the person that we should be sending to the bottom of the sea to make scientific discoveries.
Report Post »