The deep ocean (defined as anything below a depth of about 650 feet) accounts for roughly 65 percent of the Earth's surface, but we know startlingly little about it. Indeed, we have better maps of the surface of Mars than we do of the ocean floor, to say nothing of our knowledge of the lifeforms that are found thousands of feet beneath the surface. As Oregon State University ocean ecologist Andrew Thurber put it, the discovery of new species is "the name of the game" in seabed ecology, which is great for science, but troubling insofar as it demonstrates the degree of our ignorance about the deep ocean.

"The deep ocean is interesting because it's one of the great unknowns, but is also an area we know is very important to society," Thurber told me. "So it's an area that's both unknown and actively being used for many different resources."