Victor Vescovo and Dr. Osvaldo Ulloa, Director of the Instituto Milenio de Oceanografia (IMO), complete the first ever crewed dive to the deepest point of the Atacama Trench off the coast of Chile, the deepest trench in the South-Eastern Pacific. The maximum depth recorded at the Atacama Trench’s lowest point was 8,069 meters (+/-8 meters).

Victor also completed a further dive on January 23rd with Dr. Rudebn Escribano of Chile along the eastern slope of the Richards Deep, the second-deepest location in the Atacama Trench at 7,727 meters. The new deepest point identified by Vescovo and Ulloa is now an unnamed deep in the Atacama Trench, 77 nautical miles north of the Richards Deep.