5

Performance Task

A Challenging Descent

  • Explore
  • Did You Know?

Plan an Expedition

Plan an Expedition

You pilot a manned dive to the Challenger Deep. Use the ascent times and the descent times for the 1960 and 2012 expeditions to write a plan for your dive, including:

  • how long will you spend descending
  • how long will you spend on the ocean floor
  • how long will you spend ascending
  • goals you hope to accomplish

Dive schedules must be flexible to allow for unexpected circumstances. Determine the maximum total amount of time for your expedition and the minimum and maximum amounts of time you want to spend on the ocean floor. Use a graph to show the amounts of time that you can spend on the ocean floor and the amounts of time that you can spend traveling.


Submersible exploration vessel pictured underwater beside coral.

Did You Know?

  • The Mariana Trench is more than 1,500 miles long and 43 miles wide on average.
  • The water pressure at the bottom of the Mariana Trench is about 16,000 pounds per square inch, more than 1,000 times the standard atmospheric pressure at sea level.

Find Out More – Search Topics

  • Mariana Trench
  • Challenger Deep
  • Deep sea expedition
  • How does a bathyscaphe work?

Submersibles can ascend more rapidly than they can descend because of the buoyancy of the air inside a submersible's ballasts. For Piccard and Walsh, the descent took about 1.5 times as long as the ascent. For Cameron, the descent took about 1.75 times as long as the ascent.