The Bathyscaphe Triest and the Mariana Trench
On January 23, 1960, Jacques Piccard and US Navy Lieutenant Don Walsh took the research bathyscaphe Trieste deep into the waters of the Mariana Trench. On March, 23, 1875, the Challenger determined that the ocean’s lowest point was about 26,850 feet. But Piccard and Walsh discovered that the lowest point was about 35,797 feet. And later in 2009, the Mariana Trench was designed a US National Monument that protects 95,216 square miles of the submerged land area and waters.