In March filmmaker and aquanaut James Cameron, back from his record-setting visit to the Challenger Deep in the Marinas Trench 11 kilometers below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, announced the donation of his sub, DEEPSEA CHALLENGER, to Woods Hole, where scientists plan to use its cutting-edge technology to help further their understanding of life in ocean trenches.
The first order of business when the DEEPSEA CHALLENGER arrives at Woods Hole in a few weeks: Fit its custom-made lights, imaging equipment and high-definition 3-D cameras on to Woods Hole’s Nereus robotic sub in preparation for the latter’s dive to the 10-kilometer-deep Kermadec Trench—off the northeastern tip of New Zealand's North Island—in February or March 2014. The Kermadec Trench is a kilometer shallower than the Challenger Deep site that Cameron explored, but Nereus’s mission is crucial to understanding the peculiar inhabitants, ecosystem and geologic activity that have evolved in ocean trenches—the planet’s most hostile habitat.
