What Lies Beneath: Life in the Ocean Deep

We cannot imagine life without the sun. Yet, there is a world that brims with life a few hundred meters beneath the surface of the ocean. Sunlight has never penetrated depths of a thousand meters or more. Yet life exists in this eternal darkness. The animals who live down here produce their own light. They have bioluminescent bodies, strange tentacles, all kinds of unique characteristics that enable them to survive in such extreme conditions. These critters are not just cool looking; they play an important role in keeping carbon dioxide out of our atmosphere. By feeding near the surface, carbon in their food are brought into the deep waters where they remain isolated from the atmosphere for thousands of years. We ignore and damage this world at our peril.