Ocean Exploration Facts
The ocean exploration facts in this section provide short answers to common or intriguing ocean questions. The questions are organized in a series of categories; click on a category to learn more about these topics.
For many ocean exploration facts, content has been repurposed from essays posted elsewhere on the website; to access the original content, click on links available on individual ocean fact pages.
Some deep-sea coral colonies can survive for thousands of years, which makes them the oldest known colonial organisms. Corals are unique animals, though, so answering the question of exactly how long they live depends on how you count!
When considering which deep-sea creature has the biggest teeth, the answer depends on what you mean by “biggest!” The fangtooth Anoplogaster cornuta has the biggest teeth of any ocean animal compared to its body size, but its maximum body size is only 7 inches (17 centimeters) long.
The deepest confirmed fish sighting is of a snailfish filmed at a depth of 8,336 meters (27,000 feet) below the ocean surface. Other fish may live at similar depths, but it’s likely that no fish lives deeper than about 8,400 meters (28,000 feet) because of the deep ocean’s extreme pressure.
Maritime heritage is the legacy of human interactions with Earth’s large water bodies and their coasts throughout time.
Bathymetry is the study of the ocean floor and the bottoms of rivers and lakes.
Microdebitage refers to small fragments, less than one millimeter in size, produced when stone tools are created. These fragments can help archaeologists identify areas where stone tools were made, which in turn can help to locate archaeological sites in areas that could not be excavated by traditional methods, including underwater sites.
Mapping watchstanders act as sentries and data keepers while collecting, processing, and documenting high-quality ocean and seafloor data captured by sonar and oceanographic instruments.
Oxygen minimum zones are persistent layers in the water column that have low oxygen concentration due to biological, chemical, and physical processes.
A shakedown is an expedition that tests a ship’s mission systems and equipment before a field season.
Cold seeps are relatively stable, long-lived places in the ocean where hydrocarbon-rich fluid that is of a similar temperature to surrounding water seeps up from cracks in the seafloor while hydrothermal vents are volatile, short-lived openings in the seafloor created through volcanism where magma-heated, high-temperature water emerges.
The deep scattering layer (or DSL) is a region in the water column where there is a high density of marine organisms that reflect sound.
Marine meiofauna are a group of animals small enough to live in between the grains of sand and mud on the seafloor.