submarine trench in the floor of the Philippine Sea of the western North Pacific Ocean bordering the east coast of the island of Mindanao. The abyss, which reaches the second greatest depth known in any ocean, was first plumbed in 1927 by the German ship Emden. The reading obtained at that time was the first indication of the actual near-record depth. In 1945 the USS Cape Johnson recorded a sounding of 34,440 feet (10,497 m), slightly exceeded by the 34,578-foot sounding originally made by the Danish Galathea in 1951. Later soundings reported to exceed these have been found to be instrumentation errors.