On January 23, 1960, Jacques Piccard  and USN Lieutenant Don Walsh spent twenty minutes at the bottom at Challenger Deep in the  bathyscaphe Trieste.  Unfortunately, their landing on the sea bed stirred up a cloud of silt which reduced visibility to zero, and they could not see anything.  On March 26th, James Cameron spend three hours on the bottom of the Challenger Deep and saw very little, because there was apparently little to see.  He described it as a “barren, desolate lunar plain.”    He did see a few small amphipods—shrimplike bottom-feeders.  Then again, no one who climbs Mount Everest expects to find an apple orchard at the summit, either.  Thanks to Phil Leon for contributing to this post.

Cameron brings back tales of “desolate” sea bed but no souvenirs