Inspired by Jules Verne and his book “20 000 miles Under the Sea”, the bathyscaphs came straight out of the dreams of Auguste Piccard, conqueror of the stratosphere and the deep. From 1948 to 1974, they explored the depths of the ocean floor.
This is the story of a generation of sub-marines that enabled scientists to transplant their laboratories to the depth of the oceans. In January 1960 on board the “TRIESTE”, Jacques Piccard – son of Auguste and Don Walsh – reached the bottom of the fault of the Mariannes, proving that life exists at more than 10 916 metres under the sea. When Henri Germain Delauze, founder of Comex, dives aboard the “Archimède” off the coast of Japan in July 1962, everybody expects a new record. But the bathyscaph reaches a depth of only 9 545 metres. But, never mind the record. Bathyscaphs are first and foremost formidable scientific tools. As such, the “Archimède” was to achieve remarkable results, notably during the operation “FAMOUS” (French-American-Mid-Ocean-Survey) in 1974, that produced tangible proof of continental drift…