James Cameron back from Earth's deepest point

HONOLULU -- Hollywood icon James Cameron has completed his journey to Earth's deepest point.

The director of "Titanic," "Avatar" and other films used a specially designed submarine to dive nearly seven miles. He spent time exploring and filming the Mariana Trench, about 200 miles southwest of the Pacific island of Guam, according to members of the National Geographic expedition.

Cameron returned to the surface of the Pacific Ocean Sunday night on the U.S. East Coast, said Stephanie Montgomery of the National Geographic Society.

He spent a little more than three hours under water after reaching a depth of 35,756 feet before he began his return to the surface, according to the expedition team.

Cameron's return aboard his 12-ton, lime-green sub called Deepsea Challenger was a "faster-than-expected 70-minute ascent," National Geographic said.

The scale of the trench is hard to grasp -- it's 120 times larger than the Grand Canyon and more than a mile deeper than Mount Everest is tall.

Swiss engineer Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh, a U.S. Navy captain, are the only others to reach the spot. They spent about 20 minutes there on their 1960 dive but couldn't see much because of kicked-up sand. -- AP