This chair looks like it escaped from a classroom and plunged into the Monterey Canyon, where it now sits, nearly 10,500 feet down. Image copyright 2003, MBARI.

Cardboard resting at nearly 13,000 feet deep, near Point Conception in southern California. The white organism near the right is a sea sponge in the genus Hyalonema, which grow on stalks in the deep sea. The specific species is unknown. Image copyright 2007, MBARI.

This can of Coors has boldly gone where no Coors can has gone before (we think): It's resting on lava, 8,444 feet down, at Taney Seamounts off central California. Image copyright 2010, MBARI.

A metal box submerged in nearly 8,000 feet of water is now in the realm of crabs and octopi. Image copyright 2006, MBARI.

This Coke bottle, already a long way from home, now lives 60 miles offshore and 5,666 feet below the surface at Davidson Seamount. Image copyright 2006, MBARI/NOAA

There aren't any cars down here, at 2,850 feet below the surface in Monterey Canyon. Image copyright 2009, MBARI

Plastic draped on deep-sea gorgonian coral, nearly 7,000 feet below the surface in Astoria Canyon, off the coast of Oregon. Image copyright 2006, MBARI

A young rockfish hides in a discarded shoe, 1,548 feet deep in San Gabriel Canyon, off Southern California. Image copyright 2010, MBARI

In 2004, 15 shipping containers fell off the Med Taipei, just outside of Monterey Bay. In 2011, scientists revisited the container, which is now resting at 4,200 feet deep in the Monterey Canyon. Image copyright 2011, NOAA/MBARI

Crab trap resting in Astoria Canyon, off the coast of Oregon, beneath 3,580 feet of water. Image copyright 2006, MBARI