Featured Species
The extreme environment of the Mariana Trench National Wildlife Refuge sustains very unique lifeforms unlike any other in the world.
One mud sample taken from Challenger Deep by oceanographers from the Kaiko yielded approximately 200 different microorganisms. It is an extreme environment, under 16,000 pounds per square inch of hydrostatic pressure. The ocean floor at such depth consists of a type of pelagic sediment known as biogenous "ooze." Biogenic pelagic sediment is composed of the shells (tests, frustules) of microscopic plankton, both animal (zooplankton) and plant (phytoplankton) plankton.