Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Was hypothesizing, would not time dilation be significant (relative term pertaining to our short existence) at the bottom of the ocean or rather say the Mariana Trench for instance? For example the trench which is roughly 10,994 meters (36,070 feet) is quite far down there. Now obviously our capability to both traverse the depth and pressure is extremely limited at the moment. I think the single well-documented voyage was 10 hours or some such. However, for the sake of interest, wouldn't time be slower at such depth and pressure. If living in the average basement, which is what 4-5 meters below sea level tops?... adds 90/billionths of one second to a persons life where does that leave extention at 11,000 meters? Again, living on an undersea vessel particularly at the depth and pressure of something like the Mariana Trench is not viable by any stretch of the imagination and by all means probably won't ever be, but I'm just curious as to how time behaves down there with respect to say how we perceive time. Thanks for any insight!
-Jake

Hi Jake - while it doesn't sound like this question is directly related to a science project (which is what these forums are usually for), it's an interesting one so I can provide some pointers. There are a bunch of references online for gravitational time dilation:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitati ... e_dilation

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_dilation

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hb ... im.html#c5

Time dilation is usually discussed for things above the surface of the Earth (the tops of mountains, planes, satellites, etc), but the same concepts should apply to things below the surface. If you do some Googling, you should be able to find other examples for different altitudes, like the basement example you cited, and that should give you an idea of how big time dilation is at the bottom of the Mariana trench. Mount Everest might be a good example since it is roughly as tall as the trench is deep.