The Factorian Depth was discovered in 2019 by American explorer and entrepreneur Victor Vescovo during his Five Deeps expedition, which aimed to map the deepest points of the world's five oceans. Vescovo personally piloted the submersible called "Limiting Factor" to the bottom of the South Sandwich Trench in the Atlantic Ocean—a submarine canyon that spans approximately 965 kilometers of seabed between South America and Antarctica.
The Factorian Trench: Discover the deepest point in Earth's fifth ocean.
Researchers have released the most detailed map of the cold Southern Ocean surrounding Antarctica to date, which includes the "Factorian Trench," reaching a depth of 7,437 meters.
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Although this point is shallower than the well-known Mariana Trench, it is remarkable primarily due to its location.
The trench crosses the 60th parallel south, an invisible circle of latitude located 60 degrees south of the equator, separating the Atlantic and Southern Oceans. Vescovo's expedition was the first to map the entire length of the South Sandwich Trench, discovering a new deepest point in the Southern Ocean south of the 60th parallel.
The Deepest Point in the Southern Ocean
The Factorian Trench was first marked on the seabed map, with a depth of 7437 meters. The maximum depth of the Mariana Trench is 11,022 meters. In a study published in the journal Scientific Data, an international team of researchers included the Factorian Trench in an extensive new map of underwater mountains, canyons, and plateaus in the Southern Ocean.
The map is based on over 1200 sets of sonar data, mostly collected by research vessels from around the world and icebreakers that cut their way through. The seabed map covers more than 48 million square kilometers of ocean floor, which is more than double the size of the first map of the IBCSO region released in 2013. However, no matter how large the new map appears, it accurately describes only 23% of the area's surface. Thus, there is still much work ahead for scientists.