Meet some of our favorite denizens of the deep and learn about their adaptations to survive in an environment of frigid cold, inky darkness, and crushing pressure. As this material drops deeper and deeper, the particles can grow in size as smaller flakes clump together. The larger size causes them to fall more quickly through the water column—but, even so, the journey to the bottom can take several weeks to years. Scientists have learned more about the travels of marine snow by using sediment traps on the ocean floor. Data from these traps have shown that 815 million tons of carbon reaches the ocean floor every year.
- Some creatures have adapted a way of life that takes advantage of both the plentiful surface waters and the safety of the deep.
- This work represents one of the most detailed in-situ surveys of biodiversity and habitats in the hadal zone to date.
- The deep sea is a realm of endless mystery and wonder, offering vast opportunities for scientific discovery and technological innovation.
- Species potentially impacted by sulfide mining included chocolate skates, Portuguese dogfish (Centroscymnus coelolepis), great lantern sharks (Etmopterus princeps) and small-eyed rabbitfish.
- Priority is typically given to natural scientists collecting quantitative and computational data, rendering anthropologists potentially superfluous in their eyes.
- The Red Sea is quite shallow, with approximately 40% at less than 100 m (330 ft) deep, and approximately 25% at less than 50 m (160 ft) deep.
The Deep Sea: Earth’s Mysterious and Essential Ecosystem
These 31 contracts have been given to 22 contractors, with five of the contracts going to China through its government and companies. Geographically, 17 of these contracts have been issued to explore in the Clarion-Clipperton Fracture Zone, which is located in the Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and Mexico, making this region strategically important. Over half of these contracts have been awarded to search for REEs through exploring for polymetallic nodules. The deep sea is Earth’s largest and least explored ecosystem – a mysterious world of towering underwater mountains, vast plains, and life forms found nowhere else on the planet. It’s a world few will ever see, but it holds ancient knowledge, remarkable biodiversity and plays a critical role in the health of our ocean, our climate, and our future.
Science
By doing so, we can ensure that the deep sea remains a source of inspiration and discovery for generations to come. That has since become a commonly used method for investigating life and processes in the bottom-most ocean. For this purpose, the AWI relies on PAUL and his “little sister” SARI – two autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) that can be programmed for entire missions. They are deployed from a research vessel, scan a predetermined route independently, taking readings at regular intervals, and then surface again at fixed coordinates for retrieval. Depending on the specific research goals, the AUVs can operate at various depths and be fitted with a broad range of instruments. PAUL can dive down to 3,000 metres, while the smaller SARI has to draw the line at 200 metres.
More Critical Minerals Mining Could Strain Water Supplies in Stressed Regions
It’s only with the help of long-term studies (time series) like this one that we can assess how climate change is impacting marine ecosystems in the Arctic. There are only a handful of comparable observatories worldwide, and HAUSGARTEN is the only one located in a polar region. Like oceanographers, anthropologists cannot directly observe the deep sea with their own eyes. The engagement with this environment is highly mediated—through research vessels, remote sensors, autonomous machines, graphs, images, algorithms, and other technologies. Anthropologists who want to ask about this ‘out of sight and reach’ realm, the deep sea, should look ‘over the shoulder of marine biologists’ (Helmreich 2007, 28) and scientists at work. However, they may encounter challenges in doing so, such as trying to join research-based sea expeditions.
Exploring the Deep Sea: Why It’s Fascinating, Vital, and Worth Protecting
It is also the point of transition from continental shelves to slopes.1 Despite the extreme pressure, organisms called deep sea fish can survive there. While the deep sea was once thought to be devoid of life — too dark, cold and starved of food for anything to survive — we now know that it is the largest habitable space on the planet and home to a dazzling array of life. In the Clarion-Clipperton Zone alone, a key area of interest for deep-sea mining, researchers have recently discovered over 5,000 species that were entirely new to science.
- 2025 was the year many countries set their deadlines to begin commercial deep-sea mining, making the coming months critical as parties wait for the ISA and global regulations to emerge.
- Although deep-sea mining is still emerging, the recent changes in its landscape suggest a future where the industry becomes yet another frontline for competition between the US and China.
- To reduce potential impacts, the authors recommend discharging plumes below 2,000 m (about 6,600 ft), or even directly at the seafloor.
- Even in remote regions like the floor of Fram Strait between Greenland and Svalbard, the number of these large bits of litter has grown substantially in recent years.
- Up to 190 different types of these bacteria have been found on a single whale carcass, and up to 20 percent of those are also found living around hydrothermal vents.
- IEA estimates that significantly scaling up recycling could reduce the need for newly mined minerals by 40% for copper and nickel and 25% for lithium and cobalt by 2050.
Often found resting on the seafloor, tripod fish can pump fluid into their elongated fins to make them like rigid stilts (or as their name implies, a tripod), sometimes a few feet high. Rattail fish, octopuses, and sea cucumbers are also well adapted to the intense pressure here. Many of the unusual offshore reef formations defy classic (i.e., Darwinian) coral reef classification schemes, and are generally attributed to Deep Sea the high levels of tectonic activity that characterize the area. Furthermore, the deep Red Sea brine pools have been extensively studied about their microbial life, characterized by their diversity and adaptation to extreme environments. One is benthic sediment plumes raised by collector vehicles extracting minerals from the seafloor, which the study notes could disrupt nurseries and foraging grounds. The other is discharges of wastewater laden with sediment and metals into the water column, which could potentially harm organisms in various ways, such as reducing visibility, altering foraging habits, introducing toxic metals into the water, and causing respiratory distress.
“Within trenches, at the same depth band, differences in historical seismic disturbance and seafloor stability created different communities,” the deep-sea ecologist said. Marine biologists’ immersion of devices, like their robot, in the deep sea, my immersion for a time in their social practice and language; their remote readouts of deep dynamics, my semi-detached participant-observation… The more I thought about it, though, the stranger fieldwork seemed as a word for what we were doing…
Many creatures that lived on the volcano millennia ago are now long gone – yet their remains linger. And thanks to symbiotic bacteria, the sponges can still put these relics of the past to use. Abyssal plains cover over half the ocean floor, usually between depths of 3,000 to 6,000 meters. Potato-sized polymetallic nodules litter the surface of the abyssal plain, formed over millions of years from metals such as iron, copper, cobalt, manganese and nickel precipitate from seawater. These nodules provide a mosaic of hard substrate for a variety of organisms such as corals and sponges, and support diverse deep-sea communities.
The second takes on a political lens, showing how the deep sea’s unique characteristics give rise to a politics of (in)visibility. The third section explores the potential for porous encounters between humans, machines, and the abyss. The last one approaches the deep sea as a colonial space in which the past, the present, and new alternative futures are claimed. The conclusion invites reflection on the deep sea as an ethnographic field, encouraging a rethinking of how fieldwork is conducted in unconventional or hard-to-access environments. From a fish with a transparent head to an adorable octopus with webbed arms, MBARI researchers have encountered some captivating creatures in more than three decades of deep-sea research.
For much of the deep ocean, food rains down from above in the form of marine snow. The term ‘marine snow’ is used for all sorts of things in the ocean that start at the top or middle layers of water and slowly drift to the seafloor. This mostly includes waste, such as dead and decomposing animals, poop, silt and other organic items washed into the sea from land. The Abyssopelagic extends from 13,100 to 19,700 feet (4,000-6,000 m) down to the seafloor or abyssal plain. Animals that can withstand the pressures in this depth, which can reach up to 600 times what is experienced at sea level are highly specialized.
Temperature
The jurisdictional structure of maritime space has increasingly become the politically-sanctioned battleground for turning the deep sea and its seabed into economic territory (Gentilucci 2022). For several decades, coastal states have been permitted to submit claims to the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS, established in 1997) to extend their continental shelf. In the juridical definition, this concept refers to the seabed and subsoil extending beyond a coastal state’s territorial sea, up to 200 nautical miles from the baseline, within which the state holds exclusive rights to explore and exploit natural resources. Meanwhile, the ISA—composed of 167 member states, with the United States being a notable exception—has entered into 15-year contracts for the exploration of mineral resources in the deep-seabed with 22 contractors operating across various oceanic regions.
For some minerals, such as lithium and battery-grade nickel, the share from recycling will remain low for another 5-10 years before end-of-life EV battery volume starts to rise. For other minerals, such as copper and cobalt, there is already opportunity to scale recycling today, since they are widely used in many sectors such as electronics and infrastructure. Because many of these “underwater islands” are located in remote surroundings, studies are continually finding previously unknown and endemic species. Researchers hope the study could provide the foundation for future ecological research in the “deepest parts of the ocean”.
There is widespread concern in the scientific community that a proposed new extractive industry — deep seabed mining (DSM) — would have an irreversible impact on delicately balanced deep ocean ecosystems. The life that thrives here has adapted over millions of years and has been largely free from human impacts. Research tells us deep sea species and habitats are highly sensitive to disturbance and slow to recover. The deep sea is home to habitats and species found nowhere else on Earth, and provides essential environmental services. The first focuses on the deep sea as an (un)familiar place that challenges epistemologies of life.
Jeff Drazen, study co-author and an ecologist at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, told Mongabay that many animals, including prey species like small fishes, squids and shrimps, move vertically in the water column. You can explore more highlights from the expedition in the above video, showcasing the otherworldly environment and its inhabitants to be found in some of the ocean’s deepest and darkest places. In response to President Trump’s executive order, the Chinese government claimed that the order violated international law by going against the provisions of the UNCLOS that bind all other countries currently involved in deep-sea mining. However, China has not taken direct action against the United States, although conflict may occur once technologies move beyond proof of concept. China has become a powerful force within the ISA to the point where Chinese delegates successfully forced mining licenses to be granted despite popular global opposition.