Researchers traveling along the Kuril–Kamchatka and Aleutian trenches in the northwest Pacific Ocean used a manned submersible to find tubeworms and mollusks flourishing at over 31,000 feet deep. The deepest part of the ocean goes down to about 36,000 feet.

A recent underwater expedition has revealed a thriving network of creatures at the bottom of deep-sea ocean trenches. These extreme environments, with crushing pressure, scant food, and no sunlight, pose immense survival challenges. While tiny microbes are known to prosper, evidence of larger marine life has been scarce.

In these extreme environments, the crushing pressure, scant food and lack of sunlight can make it hard to survive. Scientists know that tiny microbes prosper there, but less is known about evidence of larger marine life.