China's Jiaolong submersible finishes ninth dive this year

Chinese manned deep-sea submersible Jiaolong finished on Tuesday its ninth scientific expedition dive this year in the western Pacific Ocean.

It was also the first time for China to conduct undersea scientific exploration with Jiaolong in the Marcus-Wake Seamounts area in the western Pacific Ocean.

The sub reached a depth of 2,496 meters during the 10-hour mission, gathering lots of undersea samples, including rocks, corals, starfishes and sea cucumber, among others, while shooting video data of seabed minerals and giant benthic creatures.

The vehicle's carrier, the Xiangyanghong 09, set sail on July 4 from Fuzhou, capital of east China's Fujian province, for the submersible's first expedition mission for the 2014-2015 period.

The submersible, named after a mythical sea dragon, reached 7,062 meters in the Pacific's Mariana Trench in a dive in June 2012.