Oceanic Proportions

Two explorers dueling over the record for diving to Earth’s deepest point reminds us what we don’t know about our oceans—and the troubling data in what we do

- Hannah Osborne

In 2012, James Cameron, creator of Avatar and Titanic, became the first person to reach the deepest part of the ocean on a solo dive. When he arrived at the Challenger Deep—the deepest spot on Earth at 7 miles below sea level—he spent hours mapping the region and taking photos and samples.

“As human beings, we’re drawn to absolutes—the deepest, the highest, the coldest, the farthest,” he says. “My logical justification was if we could build a sub to go to the deepest place, it could dive anywhere and open up the entire ocean to exploration. And as a storyteller and curious monkey, I just wanted to see what was there.”

And over the following years, and subsequent dives to the surrounding Mariana Trench, it has become very apparent what is down there. Plastic.

“Our so-called civilization is using the ocean as its toilet,” Cameron says.

“Unless this changes and fast, ocean ecosystems are going to continue their rapid collapse.”

In August, Texas investor, and now explorer, Victor Vescovo completed a dive to the Challenger Deep, located about 200 miles southwest of Guam in the Pacific Ocean, and found a plastic bag and candy wrappers. Microplastics—bits of plastic measuring less than 5 mm—have also been ingested by creatures living in the Mariana Trench. In research published in February, a team of scientists discovered all 10 of the minute crustaceans they sampled had plastic fibres in their digestive tracts.