The Mariana Trench in the western Pacific Ocean contains the deepest known point in Earth’s oceans, the Challenger Deep, plunging to roughly 11,000 metres below sea level
Location and depth
The Mariana Trench is an oceanic trench in the western North Pacific Ocean located east of the Mariana Islands. Its deepest surveyed point, the Challenger Deep, reaches about 10,984 metres below sea level.
Scale and structure
The trench is crescent‑shaped and extends for roughly 2,550 kilometres with an average width of about 69 kilometres, forming the deepest part of the global seafloor trench system.
Mount Everest comparison
The trench is so deep that, if Mount Everest were placed inside the Challenger Deep, its summit would remain submerged beneath the ocean surface because the trench’s depth exceeds the mountain’s height above sea level.
Environmental conditions and life
Conditions at trench depths are extreme, with near‑freezing temperatures, pitch darkness and crushing pressures, yet research has found specialized life forms adapted to these environments, including microbial communities and scavenging organisms that exploit limited food falls and chemosynthetic niches.
Scientific significance
Studying the Mariana Trench helps scientists learn about plate tectonics, deep‑sea geology, extreme‑adapted biology and the limits of life, and deep‑ocean exploration continues to reveal surprises about biodiversity and geological processes in the planet’s deepest realms.
Takeaway
The Mariana Trench is Earth’s deepest known seafloor feature, a remote and extreme environment whose scale and conditions challenge exploration while offering key insights into geology, biology and the nature of the deep ocean.