Russian State Duma member and deputy speaker from the United Russia Party Artur Chilingarov
Photo: Vasily Shaposhnikov
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Chilingarov Off to Mariana Trench Next
Russian State Duma member and deputy speaker from the United Russia Party Artur Chilingarov has announced that he is preparing an expedition to the Mariana Trench, the deepest part of the ocean, Interfax reports. According to Chilingarov, “certain negotiations” have already taken place, but he declined to give the details of them. Chilingarov is a doctor of geographic sciences and a corresponding member of Russian Academy of Sciences.
In January of this year, Chilingarov and other members of the Arctic deep-water expedition of 2007 were named Heroes of Russia. A research expedition visited the Lomonosov Ridge in the summer of 2007 to prove Russia’s claims to a broader economic zone by 1.2 million sq. km. Experts estimate that that territory contains almost 5 billion tons of fuel equivalent. Chilingarov says that Russia will have the documentation it needs to back up its claim by next year.
The Mir 1 and Mir 2 bathyscaphes were used in the expeditions. They reached a depth of 4261 m. and took samples from the seafloor. The Mariana Trench is 11 km. deep. The pressure at its bottom is 108.6 megapascals, which is more than 1000 times greater than on the surface of the Earth. The Mariana Trench is located in the Pacific Ocean to the East of the Mariana Islands between two of the Earth’s plates. The only time it has been visited was in 1960, when U.S. Navy Lieut. Don Walsh and French researcher Jacques Piccard descended in the bathyscaphe Trieste.
www.kommersant.com
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