Bathyscaphe Trieste
Trieste is a Swiss-designed, Italian-built deep-diving research bathyscaphe, which with its crew of two reached a record maximum depth of about , in the deepest known part of the Earth's oceans, the Challenger Deep, in the Mariana Trench near Guam in the Pacific. On 23 January 1960, Jacques Piccard (son of the boat's designer Auguste Piccard) and US Navy Lieutenant Don Walsh achieved the goal of Project Nekton.
Deep-sea exploration
In general, modern scientific Deep-sea exploration can be said to have begun when French scientist Pierre Simon de Laplace investigated the average depth of the Atlantic ocean by observing tidal motions registered on Brazilian and African coasts. He calculated the depth to be , a value later proven quite accurate by soundings measurement. Later on, with increasing demand for submarine cables installment, accurate soundings was required and the first investigations of the sea bottom were undertaken. The first deep-sea life forms were discovered in 1864 when Norwegian researchers obtained a sample of a stalked crinoid at a depth of . The British Government sent out the "Challenger" expedition (a ship called ) in 1872 which discovered 715 new genera and 4,417 new species of marine organisms over the space of four years.