“Jiaolong will make a 7,000-meter test dive this year after several improvements are made to the submersible vessel,” Jin Jiancai, secretary-general of the China Ocean Mineral Resources Research and Development Association, said over the weekend. If the planned dive is successful, Jiaolong will have proven itself capable of reaching nearly any seabed in the world. China will also hold the record for performing the deepest navigable dive, surpassing Japan, whose Shinkai 6500 dove 6,527 meters in August 1989. Bathyscaphe Trieste went deeper in 1960, to 10,911 meters, but could not navigate along the bottom of the sea bed.
