'Thriving' ecosystem found 30,000 feet undersea

Undated illustration shows the deepest chemosynthetic communities of organisms at the bottom of a deep-ocean trench

The existence of these creatures challenges 'long-standing assumptions about life's potential at extreme depths'

(Image credit: Illustration by Chinese Academy of Sciences via Reuters)

published 31 July 2025

What happened

A Chinese-led team of researchers exploring 9.5 kilometers (31,000 feet) below sea level in the northwest Pacific Ocean discovered "thriving communities" of tubeworms, mollusks and other creatures living in some of the ocean's deepest trenches, as reported Wednesday in the journal Nature. Traveling in a submersible called Fendouzhe for hours at a time, the international team covered 1,500 miles of the little-explored Kuril–Kamchatka and Aleutian trenches over 40 days last summer.

Who said what

It's "exciting" to "go to a place that human beings have not explored," study co-author Xiaotong Peng told the BBC. "And what we saw was quite amazing." The researchers photographed and filmed beds of clams and "dense clusters of tubeworms with tentacles tinged bloodred" being scaled by "iridescent snails" as "bristly, white creatures" wriggled between them "like rush-hour commuters," The Washington Post said. Some of them are believed to be unknown species.

The existence of these creatures, living in the frigid, pitch-black waters under high pressure, challenges "long-standing assumptions about life's potential at extreme depths," the authors said. They posited that the trench-dwelling invertebrates survived off the chemosynthesis of near-freezing methane and hydrogen sulfide seeping from the ocean floor.

What next?

Future studies will "focus on how these deep-sea creatures adapted to survive in such extreme conditions and how exactly they harness chemical reactions for food," The Associated Press said. "They must have some trick, or they must have some unique metabolic pathway, to adapt to the high pressure," said study co-author Mengran Du.

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.