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An Ohio real-estate investor is planning to take a two-person submersible down to Titanic-level depths to prove that the journey can be carried out safely following the Titan sub's implosion last year. The investor, Larry Connor, told The Wall Street Journal: "I want to show people worldwide that while the ocean is extremely powerful, it can be wonderful and enjoyable and really kind of life-changing if you go about it the right way." He's working with Patrick Lahey, a cofounder and the CEO of the submersible manufacturer Triton Submarines. They aim to show that such an expedition can be carried...

The Mariana Trench is the deepest spot in the world's oceans and only a handful of people have been there. But for the first time, travellers are being offered the opportunity to explore it - if they have a spare $100,000 to $200,000 (£83,000 to £166,000). Isle of Man-based Eyos Expeditions is offering three members of the public the chance to tag along on a dive it's organising to a spot in the Western Pacific trench known as Challenger Deep - 35,853ft (10,928 metres/6.79 miles) beneath the surface. It is, the company says, the most exclusive destination on the planet.

A new record has been set for the deepest fish ever seen in the world, at an incredible depth of 26,722 feet (8,145 metres). The snailfish was found at the bottom of the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean, and breaks the previous record by almost 1,640 feet (500 metres). The finding was part of an international expedition that also found many other new species at the extreme depths.

Hollywood icon James Cameron has made it to Earth's deepest point. The director of "Titanic," ''Avatar" and other films used a specially designed submarine to dive nearly seven miles, completing his journey a little before 8 a.m. Monday local time, according to Stephanie Montgomery of the National Geographic Society. He plans to spend about six hours exploring and filming the Mariana Trench, about 200 miles southwest of the Pacific island of Guam. "All systems OK," were Cameron's first words upon reaching the bottom, according to a statement. His arrival at a depth of 35,756 feet came early Sunday evening on...

PDF version Imagine a one-celled organism the size of a mango. It's not science fiction, but fact: scientists have cataloged dozens of giant one-celled creatures, around 4 inches (10 centimeters), in the deep abysses of the world's oceans. But recent exploration of the Mariana Trench has uncovered the deepest record yet of the one-celled behemoths, known as xenophyophores. Found at 6.6 miles beneath the ocean's surface, the xenophyophores beats the previous record by nearly two miles. The Mariana Trench xenophyophores were discovered by dropcams, developed by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and National Geographic, which are unmanned HD cameras 'dropped'...

Gigantic amoebas have been found in the Mariana Trench, the deepest region on Earth. During a July 2011 voyage to the Pacific Ocean chasm, researchers with Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego and National Geographic engineers deployed untethered landers, called dropcams, equipped with digital video and lights to explore the largely mysterious region of the deep sea. The team documented the deepest known existence of xenophyophores, single-celled animals exclusively found in deep-sea environments. Xenophyophores are noteworthy for their size, with individual cells often exceeding 4 inches (10 centimeters), their extreme abundance on the seafloor and their role as...

Swiss-based marine explorer and inventor Jacques Piccard, who was part of the deepest submarine dive in history, has died at his home aged 86. In 1960, Piccard and US co-pilot Don Walsh took a submersible developed by his father to the bottom of the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific. They went 11km (seven miles) beneath the surface of the sea. Their discovery of living organisms at that depth led to a ban on the dumping of nuclear waste in ocean trenches. "By far the most interesting find was the fish that came floating by our porthole," Piccard said afterwards...."