Stewart Jamieson 2019 bathymetry Diamantina

The Dordrecht Deep is located in the Diamantina Trench southwest of

Perth, Western Australia Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth is ...

. The Diamantina Trench is in the eastern part of the larger

Diamantina Fracture Zone The Diamantina Fracture Zone (DFZ) is an area of the south-eastern Indian Ocean seafloor, consisting of a range of ridges and trenches. It lies to the south of the mideastern Indian Ocean features of the Wharton Basin and Perth Basin, and t ...

, which stretches from the

Ninety East Ridge The Ninety East Ridge (also rendered as Ninetyeast Ridge, 90E Ridge or 90°E Ridge) is a mid-ocean ridge on the Indian Ocean floor named for its near-parallel strike along the 90th meridian at the center of the Eastern Hemisphere. It is approxima ...

to the

Naturaliste Plateau The Naturaliste Plateau is one of several large submarine plateaus extending from Western Australia into the Indian Ocean. It is a rectilinear plateau that covers an area of 90,000 square kilometres. Its width is about east-west and north-so ...

, off the lower part of

Southwest Australia Southwest Australia is a biogeographic region in Western Australia. It includes the Mediterranean-climate area of southwestern Australia, which is home to a diverse and distinctive flora and fauna. The region is also known as the Southwest Aus ...

. It is one of the deepest points (surpassed by the

Sunda Trench The Sunda Trench, earlier known as and sometimes still indicated as the Java Trench, is an oceanic trench located in the Indian Ocean near Sumatra, formed where the Australian- Capricorn plates subduct under a part of the Eurasian Plate. It is l ...

) in the

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by th ...

at . It is located about west-southwest of Perth at . It was discovered in 1960. A subsequent survey in 1961 by the

Australian Australian(s) may refer to: Australia * Australia, a country * Australians, citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia ** European Australians ** Anglo-Celtic Australians, Australians descended principally from British colonists ** Aboriginal A ...

oceanographic survey ship confirmed the

bathymetry Bathymetry (; ) is the study of underwater depth of ocean floors (''seabed topography''), lake floors, or river floors. In other words, bathymetry is the underwater equivalent to hypsometry or topography. The first recorded evidence of water de ...

and conducted a scientific survey. The trench (and the Fracture Zone) was named after her. ''Dordrecht'' was the name of a vessel of the

Dutch East India Company The United East India Company ( nl, Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, the VOC) was a chartered company established on the 20th March 1602 by the States General of the Netherlands amalgamating existing companies into the first joint-stock ...

, which explored the Australian west coast in 1619 and discovered the

Houtman Abrolhos The Houtman Abrolhos (often called the Abrolhos Islands) is a chain of 122 islands and associated coral reefs, in the Indian Ocean off the west coast of Australia, about west of Geraldton, Western Australia. It is the southernmost true coral ...

2019 ultra-deep-sea lander descent

To resolve the debate regarding the deepest point of the Indian Ocean, the Diamantina Fracture Zone was surveyed by the

Five Deeps Expedition 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 ...

in March 2019 by the Deep Submersible Support Vessel '' DSSV Pressure Drop'', equipped with a Kongsberg SIMRAD EM124 multibeam echosounder system. Using the multibeam echosounder system and direct measurement by an ultra-deep-sea lander a maximum water depth of ± at for the Dordrecht Deep was recorded. This was shallower than previously thought, and confirmed that the

, rather than the Diamantina Fracture Zone, contains the deepest point in the Indian Ocean. The gathered data will be donated to the

GEBCO The General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans (GEBCO) is a publicly available bathymetric chart of the world's oceans. The project was conceived with the aim of preparing a global series of charts showing the general shape of the seafloor. Over the ...

Seabed 2030 initiative. The expedition aimed to thoroughly map and visit the deepest points of all five of the world's oceans by the end of September 2019, at which it was successful.

References

External links

* http://www.marine.csiro.au/maru/marlin_admin.survey_details?srv_id=337&src_id=4&rscr=plst * http://www.marine.csiro.au/marq/edd_search.Browse_Citation?txtSession=5151 Oceanic trenches of the Indian Ocean Lowest points of the World Ocean {{marine-geo-stub

2019 ultra-deep-sea lander descent

See also

References

External links