Page "Oceanic trench" Paragraph 6

Trenches were not clearly defined until the late 1940s and 1950s.

The bathymetry of the ocean was of no real interest until the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with the initial laying of Transatlantic telegraph cables on the seafloor between the continents.

Even then the elongated bathymetric expression of trenches was not recognized until well into the 20th century.

The term “ trench ” does not appear in Murray and Hjort ’ s ( 1912 ) classic oceanography book.

Instead they applied the term “ deep “ for the deepest parts of the ocean, such as Challenger Deep.

Experiences from World War I battlefields emblazoned the concept of the trench warfare as an elongate depression defining an important boundary, so it was no surprise that the term “ trench ” was used to describe natural features in the early 1920s.

The term was first used in a geologic context by Scofield two years after the war ended to describe a structurally controlled depression in the Rocky Mountains.

Johnstone, in his 1923 textbook An Introduction to Oceanography, first used the term in its modern sense for any marked, elongate depression of the sea bottom.