Calypso Deep, located in the
Hellenic Trench,
Ionian Sea
The Ionian Sea ( el, Ιόνιο Πέλαγος, ''Iónio Pélagos'' ; it, Mar Ionio ; al, Deti Jon ) is an elongated bay of the Mediterranean Sea. It is connected to the Adriatic Sea to the north, and is bounded by Southern Italy, including C ...
62.6 km south-west of
Pylos
Pylos (, ; el, Πύλος), historically also known as Navarino, is a town and a former municipality in Messenia, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform, it has been part of the municipality Pylos-Nestoras, of which it is th ...
, Greece, is the deepest part of the
Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on ...
, with a maximum depth of , at .
Crewed descents
The first crewed descent into Calypso Deep was on 27 September 1965 by Captain Gérard Huet de Froberville, Dr. Charles “Chuck” L. Drake (USA), and Henri Germain Delauze in the French bathyscaphe ''
Archimède
The bathyscaphe ''Archimède'' is a deep diving research submersible of the French Navy. It used of hexane as the gasoline buoyancy of its float. It was designed by Pierre Willm and Georges Houot. In 1964, ''Archimède'' descended into "wha ...
''. Drake, Froberville, and Delauze reported a maximum depth of without a reference to the measurement accuracy.
In January, 2020, Caladan Oceanic commenced its second year of deep diving with the ''
DSV Limiting Factor'', piloted by
Victor Vescovo. The first dives of the 2020 season commenced with dives to the French submarine ''
Minerve'' in the Mediterranean Sea on 1–2 February 2020, and the second crewed descend to the Calypso Deep.
On 10 February 2020 Victor Vescovo and
Prince Albert II of Monaco
Albert II – Website of the Palace of Monaco (Albert Alexandre Louis Pierre Grimaldi; born 14 March 1958) is Prince of Monaco, since 2005.
Albert was born at the Prince's Palace of Monaco, and he is the second child and only son of Prince Rai ...
reached the bottom of the Calypso Deep at a newly calculated depth of ± using multiple direct measurement sensors. The 2020 expedition validated that the French mission in 1965 had, in fact, reached the deepest point of the Mediterranean Sea which, until this point, was not affirmed.
See also
*
Extremes on Earth
This article lists extreme locations on Earth that hold geographical records or are otherwise known for their geophysical or meteorological superlatives. All of these locations are Earth-wide extremes; extremes of individual continents or coun ...
*
NESTOR Project
References
Landforms of the Mediterranean Sea
Lowest points of the World Ocean
Ionian Sea
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