Mr. Rockhill has been teaching earth science and oceanography for ten years. As an earth science teacher, geology is a huge point of interest. As an oceanography teacher, deep-sea trenches are particularly interesting. Trenches are formed from the subduction of the Earth’s crust. What many do not know is that the crust is actually pulled under by the convection currents within the mantle, not pushed by the less dense plate.
The deepest trench is the Mariana Trench, just southeast of Japan. The deepest part of the Mariana Trench is Challenger Deep, which goes 11,000 meters deep. The Cayman Trench, or the Bartlett Trough, is between Jamaica and Cuba. It is another deep trench, reaching 7,886 meters. The Puerto Rican trench exceeds 8,000 meters; other deep trenches include the Philippines Trench and the Tonga Trench.
There are also interesting biological things to explore in these trenches. Two well-known animals that reside in the sea’s deepest parts are blobfish and lampfish. These animals cannot tolerate the pressure closer to the surface.
Rockhill provides an interesting comparison: if you were dropped into California and walked around for 15 minutes, reporting back, it would be equivalent to the amount of knowledge we have about the deepest parts of our ocean. In terms of expense and difficulty, exploring our oceans is easily comparable to exploring outer space.