Creatures of the Deep! | Science | Smithsonian (Kelly Durkin)
Creatures of the Deep!  A new book of photographs taken in the
ocean depths reveals a world abounding in unimagined life
Smithsonian Magazine | Subscribe  The first signs that life can
exist in the deepest seas were nets full of mangled goo. The
Challenger Expedition, an around-the-world oceanographic study
led by Scottish naturalist Charles Wyville Thomson in the 1870s,
trawled as deep as 26,000 feet and pulled up more than 4,000
unknown species. The strange creatures, many of which were
gelatinous and didn't survive the trip to the surface,
overturned the scientific wisdom of the time, which
held—reasonably enough—that nothing could survive in a world
without light, at temperatures just above freezing and at
crushing pressures. It's still hard to believe.  Since then,
people have explored the deep ocean—the region below about 650
feet—from inside tethered metal balls called bathyspheres and
modern mobile submersibles, and they've sent down remo