What is the deepest ocean trench on Earth?

The deepest ocean trench on Earth is the Mariana Trench. It lies in the western Pacific Ocean, roughly 200 kilometers east of the Mariana Islands, and forms a long, crescent-shaped depression in the seafloor.

Its deepest point is Challenger Deep, which reaches about 10,935 meters below sea level. That is more than two kilometers deeper than Mount Everest is tall. The trench formed where the Pacific Plate is forced beneath the smaller Mariana Plate, a process called subduction.

The Mariana Trench is often confused with Challenger Deep, but they are not exactly the same thing: the Mariana Trench is the entire geological feature, while Challenger Deep is its deepest section. The first crewed descent reached the bottom in 1960, and filmmaker James Cameron completed a solo descent in 2012.