Diving deep with Richard Garriott (LordBritish) and Michael Dubno (Dubnium)
In the global geocaching community, we are fortunate to have so many interesting people with very extraordinary stories. Richard Garriott, better known as LordBritish among geocachers, is someone who tests the limits of what is possible for geocache placement. With legendary geocaches such as International Space Station and the Deep Sea Rainbow Hydrothermal Vents, Richard Garriott, along with expedition partner Michael Dubno (Dubnium), tested those limits once again by placing an EarthCache at Challenger Deep of the Marianas Trench 10,925 meters (10.9 kilometers, 6.8 miles) beneath the surface of the water.
The two contacted HQ about their idea to place a geocache at the Challenger Deep and we worked together with the Geological Society of America to make it possible. At a depth of almost 11km (7mi) there are a variety of challenges with securing a physical geocache, therefore an EarthCache proved to be the best viable option and serves as an opportunity to educate geocachers who visit the cache page. The page is filled with educational materials about the unique geology at the Earthcache site.
In the months preceding the dive, Mike and Richard worked in Mike’s basement, a full machine shop in NYC, planning the parts of the cache. The base would be a 6”x6”x1” titanium plate carved with the cache details, but also rounded so there would be no square corners for deep sea life to take hold. Worrying that the plate would be hard to find in the silt, they designed a syntactic foam float also with the cache details. A kevlar rope attaches the two parts together. While numerous other experiments were started and finished in Mike’s machine shop, for intricate titanium work they elicited the help of expert craftsmen John Saunders of NYC CNC. A video of machining the cache is here:
On March 1st and 3rd 2021, Richard Garriott and Michael Dubno as part of the Caladan Oceanic Challenger Deep Expedition 2021, dove below the surface in the submersible “Limiting Factor.” Apart from placing the deepest hidden geocache in the world, they conducted detailed mapping, collected biological samples, and recorded the whole expedition on video. One of the goals of the mission was to observe and document the human environmental impact at these ocean depths. You can learn more about the dive in this video:
If you want to take the plunge and find the cache yourself, not only do you need to provide the answers to the questions, but you’ll need to provide the secret message engraved on the titanium plaque resting at the EarthCache coordinates.
The EarthCache is located in the western Pacific Ocean, near the southern end of the Marianas Trench about 200 hundred miles southwest of Guam. The conditions are extreme – 1,000 times the pressure at sea level, near freezing temperatures, no light, and really, really deep. Species at this depth have evolved to thrive in the hostile environment and may help us find potential organisms living in Jupiter’s moon “Europa.”
To prevent abuse, this EarthCache has been locked and will only be unlocked for verified finders. For those who have found it, please email the code word printed on the plaque to the following email address for verification: GC95P88@geocaching.com. Once verified, you will be required to submit answers to the questions on the cache page.
There are future expeditions planned for Challenger Deep, including some potential geocachers seeking a very unique find. There are also plans to retrieve the plaque after a few years. All of us are hoping for some intrepid geocachers to someday make the journey down to the deep ocean to log the deepest possible geocache on Earth. Stay tuned for more information from Richard Garriott and Michael Dubno, the masterminds behind this incredible EarthCache at the bottom of the ocean.
