Archimede, a French made manned submersible Archimede was a French manned DSV-Deep Submergence Vehicle, a successor bathyscaphe for the famous FNRS-2 and Trieste, designed and built in the mid 1960s and operated by IFERMER- Institut Francais de Recherche pour l`exploitation de la Mer (French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea).   Controversial theory of plate tectonics, the idea that the earth`s crust is actually 12 distinct pieces floating on a molten interior. A 1974 expedition, Project FAMOUS (French American Mid-Ocean Undersea Study), set out to explore the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, a 40,000-miIe-long undersea seam running around the planet. It was the first time humans peer into the cracks where the molten interior of the earth seeps up to the rift valley of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and pushes the massive plates farther apart. The FAMOUS dives, some nearly two miles down, produced the first graphic evidence that tears in the skin of the earth allow hot lava to squeeze out from the interior and add to the seafloor.   In 1974 US Alvin and the French submersible Archimede, dove on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, however, the two subs never worked in sight of each other.   Back to History Index Image Country Year Description France 1963 Bathyscaphe Archimede.Deep dive record 9200 m' France 1963 Bathyscaphe Archimede.Deep dive record 9200 m' France 1963 Bathyscaphe Archimede.Deep dive record 9200 m' Palau 1995 Archimede 30,000 feet