Very few people have undertaken the mission to dive into the foreboding chasm of the Mariana Trench.
Scientist Dawn Wright is counted in that small number, and she’ll be returning to Oregon State University on Wednesday to discuss her trip to the bottom of the sea.
Wright’s talk will start at 6 p.m. and is being held in the LaSells Stewart Center. Tickets are free, and available through the College of Earth, Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences website.
Dawn Wright was a professor at OSU for 17 years, from 1995 to 2011, and is still in the faculty as a courtesy professor. Wright said she found her love for all things ocean thanks to her childhood growing up in Hawaii, and her time in school, in which she spent three years on and off at sea for her master’s and Ph.D.
In her lecture, “The Dive Of A Lifetime To The Deepest Place On Earth,” she will discuss her expedition to Challenger Deep. The dive was part of a partnership with ocean research firm Caladan Oceanic, led by underwater researcher Victor Vescovo.
She will describe the utilization of imaging and Geographic Information System technology during the dive, the findings from mapping that region of the world and the implications for future ocean science throughout her session.
“For students, this is an incredibly important topic, with important jobs on the climate change and ocean justice front, given that our planet is a water planet, the ocean covers 71% of the planet and is home to the largest biosphere on the planet, 50-80% of all life on Earth,” Wright said.
