Jacques Piccard 1922-2008
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto 
on 11. 1.08
In 1960 Jacques Piccard reached the bottom of the Mariana Trench , 6.78 miles down, in the bathyscaphe Trieste.
"Ahead of his time in his concern for environmental questions and with a lifelong passion for the study and protection of the seas, he spent a month in 1969 drifting 3,000 km underwater in 1969 exploring the current of the Gulf Stream. But his greatest achievement was his discovery in 1960 of living organisms at a depth of more than 11 000 m, leading to the prohibition of nuclear waste dumping in ocean trenches."
Jacques Piccard, dead at 86. Via Solar Impulse, a project of his son, Bertrand Piccard
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The sad loss of a adventuring visionary - he, and his son, pushed forward human understanding.