Science: Into the Trench

Sixty miles southeast of Guam, the Navy's bathyscaphe Trieste (TIME, Sept. 1, 1958) settled slowly below the rolling .sea. In the small, thick-shelled crew compartment were Lieut. Donald Walsh and Swiss Scientist Jacques Piccard (son of the bathyscaphe's inventor, Auguste Piccard). At 24,000 ft. (more than 4½ miles) below the surface, the Trieste touched the greatest depth ever reached by man.

Final target of Trieste and her crew is the Marianas Trench, which runs east of

Guam and is believed to include the deepest place in the earth's oceans, about 37,000 ft. below the surface. To cruise into this fearful place, seven miles below the sunlight, where the pressure reaches 16,000 Ibs. per square inch, is no mere stunt. No submarine today can cruise at bathyscaphe depths, but it may be desirable some time to build one that can. Long before that time comes, the Navy intends to be skilled in bathynavigation.

For geophysicists, the ocean trenches are some of the most interesting places on earth. A well-supported theory holds that the trenches are places where the earth's crust is being sucked slowly into the depths by currents in the plastic inner material. When Trieste has penetrated the Marianas Trench and studied its rugged bottom, her reports may explain the origin not only of the earth's ocean deeps but also of its mountains.