Calypso Deep, located in the

Hellenic Trench The Hellenic Trench (HT) is an oceanic trough located in the forearc of the Hellenic Arc, an arcuate archipelago on the southern margin of the Aegean Sea Plate, or Aegean Plate, also called Aegea, the basement of the Aegean Sea. The HT begins ...

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 ...

62.6 km south-west of Pylos, 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 the ...

, 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 " ...

''. 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 A deep-submergence vehicle (DSV) is a deep-diving crewed submersible that is self-propelled. Several navies operate vehicles that can be accurately described as DSVs. DSVs are commonly divided into two types: research DSVs, which are used for ex ...

'', piloted by

Victor Vescovo Victor Lance Vescovo (born 1966) is an American private equity investor, retired naval officer, space tourist and undersea explorer. He is a co-founder and managing partner of private equity company Insight Equity Holdings. Vescovo achieved the ...

. 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.

References

Landforms of the Mediterranean Sea Lowest points of the World Ocean Ionian Sea {{marine-geo-stub

Crewed descents

See also

References