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At depths of 4,000–6,000 m (13,000–20,000 ft), [2] this zone remains in perpetual darkness. [ 3 ] [ 4 ] It covers 83% of the total area of the ocean and 60% of Earth's surface. [ 5 ] The abyssal zone has temperatures around 2–3 °C (36–37 °F) through the large majority of its mass. [ 3 ]
Sonar mapping of the Challenger Deep by the DSSV Pressure Drop employing a Kongsberg SIMRAD EM124 multibeam echosounder system (26 April – 4 May 2019). The Challenger Deep is a relatively small slot-shaped depression in the bottom of a considerably larger crescent-shaped oceanic trench, which itself is an unusually deep feature in the ocean floor.
Historically, the hadal zone was not recognized as distinct from the abyssal zone, although the deepest sections were sometimes called "ultra-abyssal".During the early 1950s, the Danish Galathea II and Soviet Vityaz expeditions separately discovered a distinct shift in the life at depths of 6,000–7,000 m (20,000–23,000 ft) not recognized by the broad definition of the abyssal zone.
The depth was estimated from a conversion of pressure measured and calculations based on the water density from sea surface to seabed. [23] This was followed by the uncrewed ROVs KaikÅ in 1996 and Nereus in 2009. The first three expeditions directly measured very similar depths of 10,902 to 10,916 m (35,768 to 35,814 ft; 5,961 to 5,969 fathoms).
The mesopelagic zone is the disphotic zone, meaning light there is minimal but still measurable. The oxygen minimum layer exists somewhere between a depth of 700 metres (2,297 ft) and 1,000 metres (3,281 ft) deep depending on the place in the ocean. This area is also where nutrients are most abundant.
The ocean depths still remain a largely unexplored part of the Earth, and form a relatively undiscovered domain. Scientific deep-sea exploration can be said to have begun when French scientist Pierre-Simon Laplace investigated the average depth of the Atlantic Ocean by observing tidal motions registered on Brazilian and African coasts circa the ...
The largest species, the 90-cm (3-ft) long abyssal halosaur (Halosauropsis macrochir) is also one of the most deep-living fish, recorded at depths of 3,300 m (11,000 ft). Halosaurs have developed certain adaptations to life at these extreme depths, where no light penetrates.
The eyes of Winteria telescopa differ slightly from those of other opisthoproctids by their more forward-pointing gaze.. Barreleyes, also known as spook fish (a name also applied to several species of chimaera), are small deep-sea argentiniform fish comprising the family Opisthoproctidae found in tropical-to-temperate waters of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans.