NewsTracker Answers for week of Mar. 26, 2012

Q: James Cameron, the filmmaker whose credits include "Avatar" and "Titanic," Sunday piloted a minisubmarine of his own design to the bottom of the Mariana Trench - the deepest point of the world's oceans. The trench is located east of the Mariana Islands, which are south of Japan and north of New Guinea. Can you find this area of ocean on the map?

Circle the area on this map

Q: At the point of Cameron's dive, the Mariana Trench is nearly seven miles below the surface of which ocean?

A. Arctic Ocean

B. Atlantic Ocean

C. Indian Ocean

D. Pacific Ocean

D. The trench is part of a geological boundary system between two tectonic plates. In this system, the western edge of one plate, the Pacific Plate, is subducted beneath the smaller Mariana Plate to the west. The Pacific Plate is the largest of all the Earth's tectonic plates.

Q: Cameron's voyage is only the second manned expedition to the ocean's deepest depths - the first took place in 1960. But before this voyage Cameron took several dives to shoot movie footage of the Titanic on the bottom of which ocean?

A. Arctic Ocean

B. Atlantic Ocean

C. Indian Ocean

D. Pacific Ocean

B. The Titanic sank in the North Atlantic on April 15, 1912, after striking an iceberg during its maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City. Cameron used two Russian submersibles to gather his Titanic footage. His new vessel is packed full of 3D cameras and huge lighting systems built to withstand the water pressure of eight tons per square inch. Cameron plans to make a documentary of his high-risk, solo voyage.

Q: The Mariana Trench does not have the seabed closest to the center of the Earth because the planet is not a perfect sphere. The Earth's radius is about 16 miles less at the poles than at the equator. Which ocean would have the seafloor closest to the center of the Earth?

A. Arctic Ocean

B. Atlantic Ocean

C. Indian Ocean

D. Pacific Ocean

A. Parts of the Arctic Ocean seabed are at least 8.1 miles closer to the Earth's center than the deepest point in the Mariana Trench.

Q: The collision of tectonic plates along the trench created the Mariana Islands, which include Guam, Tinian, Rota and Saipan. This archipelago is the territory of which nation?

A. Japan

B. Papau New Guinea

C. Philippines

D. United States

D. Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands make up a U.S. commonwealth. Spain ceded Guam to the United States in 1898 after the Spanish-American War. The United States took possession of the Northern Marianas from Japan in World War II.