We have visually explored less than 0.001 percent of the deep sea floor. To put that in perspective, 66 percent of the planet is deep ocean, and 99.999 percent of that ocean is unknown to us.
Like ecosystems on land, the sea has a complex food web. Most of life in the sea depends on detritus, mostly phytoplankton, falling down from the surface, something called “marine snow.”
Organisms that live in shallow water absorb carbon dioxide and take that with them when they sink to the bottom, often to be buried in deep-sea sediment. This is known as a carbon sink. It’s important to know the rates at which this happens, because this partially offsets the carbon we’re adding to the atmosphere.
It’s been said many times that we know more about the moon than our own ocean. But is it really true that we’ve explored only a tiny portion ...
