Dark Ocean Floor

Sunlight entering the water may travel about 1 000 meters 3 280 feet into the ocean under the right conditions but there is rarely any significant light beyond 200 meters 656 feet.

Dark ocean floor.

Water entering cracks in the crust is heated by magma and mixed with mineral sulphides then belched forth in dark clouds. This layer is also called the midnight or the dark zone. Deep in the pacific ocean near china is the mariana trench the deepest part of the ocean. Detailed maps require expensive specially equipped boats.

In 1977 scientists used submersible vehicles to explore the seabed and discovered vents gushing dark plumes of superhot mineral rich water. The ocean is divided into three zones based on depth and light level. R lyeh is a sunken city in the south pacific and the prison of the entity called cthulhu. Join jessi and squeaks and learn all about the super cool super.

Bathypelagic zone midnight zone the bathypelagic layer is found between 3 281 feet and 12 124 feet just above the abyss. Sunlight does not penetrate to the sea floor making these deep dark ecosystems less productive than those along the continental shelf. The lines you have pointed out are actually mapping anomalies. The deep ocean is dark very cold and has tremendous pressure from the overlying water.

Adaptation is the name of the game when you live thousands of feet below the water s surface. Scuba divers can explore only to about 40 meters while most submarines dive only to about 500 meters. R lyeh is a fictional lost city that was first documented in the h. Only a small fraction of the seafloor has ever been mapped at high resolution.

Your instinct was right. Although some sea creatures depend on light to live others can do without it. But despite their name these plains are not uniformly flat. Until the development of sonar we knew very little about the ocean floor.

Scientific research submersibles have explored the ocean s deepest trenches. At depths of over 10 000 feet and covering 70 of the ocean floor abyssal plains are the largest habitat on earth. See how these deep sea denizens make the most of their deep dark home.