Collection · 46 videos
Ocean Exploration
A route from the sunlit surface down to the deep sea, choosing footage that shows how scientists actually reach and record each depth.
Sunlight fades fast in seawater: NOAA notes there is rarely significant light below about 200 metres, and none below 1,000. Below that, almost everything we know comes from vehicles, cameras and sampling gear. This collection is ordered by depth. Each note says what the footage shows and how it was gathered, so you can tell an expedition dive from a studio reconstruction.
Remora fish that follow grazing dugongs
BBC Earth
A decorator crab carrying a sponge
NOAA Ocean Exploration
A large squid passes the ROV
NOAA Ocean Exploration
A metre-wide hydroid on a deep seamount
NOAA Ocean Exploration
A "cow-tongue" ribbon worm in open water
NOAA Ocean Exploration
The largest sponge on record
NOAA Ocean Exploration
A rarely seen dumbo octopus
NOAA Ocean Exploration
Life around an active underwater volcano
NOAA Ocean Exploration
A spiral deep-sea coral
NOAA Ocean Exploration
A bottom-dwelling deep-sea anglerfish
NOAA Ocean Exploration
A faceless cusk eel ignores the ROV
NOAA Ocean Exploration
A "dandelion" siphonophore clinging to rock
NOAA Ocean Exploration
Why so many deep-sea animals are red
NOAA Ocean Exploration
A tiny juvenile fish in the deep sea
NOAA Ocean Exploration
The "golden orb" from the deep, identified
NOAA Ocean Exploration
A barreleye fish with a see-through head
MBARI (Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute)
A bluntnose sixgill shark
NOAA Ocean Exploration
A close look at a deep-sea octopus
NOAA Ocean Exploration
A deep coral forest on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge
Schmidt Ocean Institute
A deep red jellyfish drifting at 1,000 metres
NOAA Ocean Exploration
A deep-sea octopus nursery
NOAA Ocean Exploration
A hagfish and its slime pores
NOAA Ocean Exploration
A high-temperature hydrothermal vent on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge
NOAA Ocean Exploration
A metre-long halibut in Prince William Sound
NOAA Ocean Exploration
A sea cucumber that swims
NOAA Ocean Exploration
A skate gliding at 2,400 metres
NOAA Ocean Exploration
A small blind deep-sea lobster
NOAA Ocean Exploration
A transparent glass squid
NOAA Ocean Exploration
A whiplash squid trailing its tentacles
NOAA Ocean Exploration
An octopus chases the ROV lasers
Ocean Exploration Trust (Nautilus)
Autumn-coloured coral gardens in the deep
Ocean Exploration Trust (Nautilus)
Crowned sea cucumbers, the deep-sea clean-up crew
MBARI (Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute)
Deepwater stingrays off Nīhoa
Ocean Exploration Trust (Nautilus)
First looks at life in the Romanche Fracture Zone
Schmidt Ocean Institute
Spearing mantis shrimp in their burrows
Ocean Exploration Trust (Nautilus)
Strange creatures of the midnight zone
BBC Earth
The big red jelly
NOAA Ocean Exploration
Two newly named deep-sea siphonophores
MBARI (Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute)
Two squids in Prince William Sound
NOAA Ocean Exploration
Why mapping the seafloor comes first
NOAA Ocean Exploration