The development of manned deep‐sea submersibles equipped with a sampling device was a milestone in oceanographic research comparable to the development of the Precision Depth Recorder and the Profiler. Visual observations in deep trenches will contribute significantly to solving some basic problems of the formation of our planet such as “Is the earth expanding, shrinking, or maintaining a steady size?”; The occurrence of oil within the deep trenches is not outside the realm of possibility. The movie, ‘'Chasms Beneath the Sea,”; is a memorial to Dr. Bruce C. Heezen, who made many contributions to understanding the structure and processes of the ocean basins, as well as pioneering in the use of deep‐sea submersibles.