0 – 200 m · Epipelagic
The Sunlight Zone
Nearly all ocean life crowds into this thin, warm lid of light — a layer shallower than most city blocks are long. Below it, the sun begins to lose its grip.
A vertical journey · 10 935 metres
ABYSS
A descent to the deepest place on Earth.
dive↓
200 – 1 000 m · Mesopelagic
Twilight
Every evening, the largest migration on Earth rises through this water to feed — and sinks again before dawn. By 1,000 metres, sunlight is gone entirely.
1 000 – 4 000 m · Bathypelagic
The Midnight Zone
No sunlight has ever touched this water. Every light you can see is being made by something alive.
Keep your light moving. Things drift toward it.
0
bar
Pressure at full depth
0
°C
Water temperature
0
m
Everest — two km short of this trench
0
%
Of surface light remaining
4 000 – 6 000 m · Abyssopelagic
The Abyss
Food falls from above as pale, endless snow. Some hunters here have learned to make light of their own — and to follow yours.
6 000 – 10 935 m · Hadal
Named for Hades
Only the trenches go this deep. In 1960, Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh fell for nearly five hours inside a steel sphere to reach the bottom — and found life waiting.
You have arrived
10 935m
Challenger Deep
The floor of the Mariana Trench. If Everest stood on this spot, its summit would still lie two kilometres beneath the waves.