This is possible thanks to biochemical reactions in which compounds known as luciferins react with oxygen and the enzyme luciferase. In this way, many jellyfish, but also some species of fish, squid, and other deep-sea fauna can emit a blue, green, or in some cases even red light. This is done e.g. to attract potential mates, lure in prey, or to illuminate their surroundings with organic “searchlights”. They primarily feed on carrion-eating amphipods, which can be found in abundance near their food sources. Experiments have revealed how quickly and efficiently bits of food that sink to the seafloor are put to use.

Bubblegum coral

  • As we continue to explore the deep sea, it is essential to balance the potential benefits of resource extraction with the need to protect and preserve this unique and fragile environment.
  • The deep sea is not yet a distinct subfield within anthropology, nor is it likely to become one.
  • They reimagine the transatlantic voyage of slaves (‘the Middle Passage’) as the origin of an underwater nation, born from the unborn children of enslaved African pregnant women thrown overboard during the transatlantic crossing.
  • About three-fourths of the area covered by ocean is deep, permanently dark, and cold.
  • This not only makes great depths very difficult to reach without mechanical aids, but also provides a significant difficulty when attempting to study any organisms that may live in these areas as their cell chemistry will be adapted to such vast pressures.
  • One is benthic sediment plumes raised by collector vehicles extracting minerals from the seafloor, which the study notes could disrupt nurseries and foraging grounds.

By valuing and safeguarding the deep ocean, we ensure a healthier planet and the preservation Deep Sea of life’s strangest, most fascinating forms for generations to come. Hydrothermal vents, for example, host ecosystems that thrive without sunlight, challenging our understanding of where and how life can exist. Studying these environments can reveal insights into resilience and adaptation, possibly helping us tackle challenges in medicine, technology, and sustainability. The deep sea, a vast and largely unexplored realm 200m beneath the ocean’s surface, is one of Earth’s most mysterious and awe-inspiring places. The deep sea is not just a scientific frontier; it is a reminder of the vastness and complexity of our planet.
The latest round of talks ended in July 2025, and negotiations will resume in 2026. Anthropological reflections on how the remote, seemingly human-less deep sea is rendered knowable—via visualisation, digitisation, and data extraction—have turned attention toward the embodied experiences of scientists themselves, particularly as they operate marine robotics. Oceanographers’ reliance on sensors and robotic technologies—deeply entangled with the sea’s material and affective dimensions—produces novel sensory relationships between humans and nonhumans (Helmreich 2009; Lehman 2020). In a similar vein, the anthropology of outer space has highlighted the embodied engagements of scientists with their technological surrogates, such that they ‘become rovers’ by learning to ‘see like a rover’ (Vertesi 2015). Sediment plumes have emerged as a significant conceptual and analytical lens through which the deep sea is examined in the social sciences. They are characterised as ‘spectral’ phenomena, existing at the threshold between the perceptible and imperceptible, the visible and invisible (Han 2024).

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By the time the ocean returned to that region, sediment had covered the salt, isolating it from the seawater. These worms house bacteria within their “roots” that take advantage of the sulfur in the bones to make energy in a process called chemosynthesis. 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. They say we know more about the surface of the Moon than we do about the bottom of the ocean, which is what made it so incredibly exciting when scientists decided to do what the rest of us are too chicken to, dive down to the seabed to get a look at what’s lurking there.

HYDROTHERMAL VENTS AND COLD SEEPS

Another frequently used definition considers all waters beyond the reach of light from the surface to be part of the deep sea. Understanding the deep sea as a highly sensory place that allows for porous human–non-human encounters helps us acknowledge the agency of the beings that inhabit it. In contrast to portrayals of the deep sea as an empty, lifeless void, ethnographic writing reveals it to be a vibrant, non-human-rich ecosystem—one that may even be haunted by ‘ghosts’ (Palermo 2022). Scientists first learned of these symbiotic relationships through the study of the Riftia tubeworm. Upon first discovering hydrothermal communities in 1977, scientists were perplexed by the diversity and abundance of life. The worm’s blood red plumes filter the water and absorb both oxygen and hydrogen sulfide from the vents.

Exploring the Deep Sea: Why It’s Fascinating, Vital, and Worth Protecting

(T)he boundaries of the human are no longer central to the reflection on abyssal architecture. … The design of a cohabitation reef becomes the technical, and even ontological, challenge of architectural work. The sea is known for its recreational diving sites, such as Ras Mohammed, SS Thistlegorm (shipwreck), Elphinstone Reef, The Brothers, Daedalus Reef, St. John’s Reef, Rocky Island in Egypt64 and less known sites in Sudan such as Sanganeb, Abington, Angarosh and Shaab Rumi.

  • Their blood contains hemoglobin that binds tightly to both oxygen and hydrogen sulfide.
  • Indeed, ‘the blue archive and the blue frontier are two sides of the same coin’ (Han 2024, 30), and special attention must be paid to how we collectively make sense of the deep sea.
  • Creatures in this zone must live with minimal food, so many have slow metabolisms.
  • It also showed to politicians, fishers, and tourism operators the danger of taking marine resources for granted (Adler 2019).
  • In the months and years after a whale fall the site will become the home and food source for millions of creatures.
  • The yeti crab waves its arms in the water to help cultivate bacteria on tiny arm hairs which it then consumes.
  • That has since become a commonly used method for investigating life and processes in the bottom-most ocean.

The materials collected would then be piped up to a surface vessel for processing. Any waste, such as sediments and other organic materials, would be pumped back into the water column. It is estimated that millions of species inhabit the deep ocean, many of which have yet to be discovered and described by science.
Just as canyons funnel water, seamounts also influence the flow of water, often diverting deep currents. They are often found at the edges of tectonic plates where magma is able to rise through the surface crust. When dense, nutrient rich ocean currents hit the seamount they deflect up toward the surface, allowing marine life to thrive on the newly supplied food.
In the late 4th century BC, Alexander the Great sent Greek naval expeditions down the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean. This work represents one of the most detailed in-situ surveys of biodiversity and habitats in the hadal zone to date. Mary is a staff writer for the HIR interested especially in the intersection between global politics, energy, and climate change.

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Most people onshore remain unaware of ‘those dark, remote, and unexciting practices that take place in locations so vastly removed from the ocean’ (Braverman 2024, 4). Flashy displays may seem easy to spot, but in the dark expanse of the deep, distance and the immense area can make even bright lights hard to see. Deep sea animals will often have enlarged eyes that can pick up even the faintest light, ensuring a rare encounter leads to a meal or a mating. The Phronima, an invertebrate resembling Ridley Scott’s Alien, uses two sets of eyes, one large set in front and one on the sides. Research that included Smithsonian scientists found that the large eyes allow it to see at longer distances and the smaller eyes provide low resolution vision of nearly the entire area surrounding them, enabling them to catch anything close by. Their carcass, pickled and preserved, serves as a warning of the toxic landscape below.
The construction of a speculative seabed archive through the language of common heritage can thus, practically speaking, become a tool of colonization. In the blue archive, the notion of a ‘resource’ or ‘cultural artifact’ is thereby invented alongside the designation of others as obstacles (ocean waste, natural turbulence, indigenous communities, environmental fragility) (Han 2024, 45-46). The rich diversity of the Red Sea is in part due to the 2,000 km (1,240 mi) of coral reef extending along its coastline; these fringing reefs are 5000–7000 years old and are largely formed of stony acropora and porite corals.