Two weeks into a world-first exploration of a deep-sea abyss, Australian scientists have uncovered all sorts of weird and wonderful creatures, including a "faceless fish".

Crew onboard the CSIRO's Investigator are surveying Commonwealth marine reserves from northern Tasmania to central Queensland.

Scientists are towing small nets and an underwater camera deep inside the eastern abyss, which reaches depths up to four kilometres.

Di Bray from Museums Victoria said the finds had so far ranged from curious to bizarre.

"We've seen some awesome stuff," she said.

"On the video camera we saw a kind of chimaera that whizzed by - that's very, very rare in Australian waters.

"We've seen a fish with photosensitive plates that sit on the top of its head, tripod fish that sit up on their fins and face into the current."

But off Jervis Bay on the weekend, at a depth of 4,000 metres, the crew caught a very unusual "faceless fish".

"That's kind of the highlight so far for us," Ms Bray said.

"It's this fish with nostrils and a mouth and no face.

"Apparently, it's got eyes way under the surface but really you can't see any eyes."

The fish has been caught before in the Coral Sea - way back in the 1870s by the pioneering scientific crew of HMS Challenger.

"We're collecting things we don't know from Australian waters," Ms Bray said.

"We think a lot of them are going to be new ... and we're not even scratching the surface of what we know about our abyssal plain fishes."

Appeal for supporters to chip in

This is the first time the eastern abyss has been surveyed, providing an opportunity for scientists to collect baseline data about its biodiversity.

Weird creatures thrive in the oceans' crushing depths. ( Supplied: John Pogonoski )

"It's an unusual life," chief scientist Dr Tim O'Hara said.

"Down there it's crushing pressures ... there's no light and it's really cold, we're recording temperatures of about 1 degree Celsius."

The data is likely to be used to measure the impacts of climate change in decades to come.

"We know nothing about the abyss, and we need to know," Dr O'Hara said.

"We're custodians of that piece of the Earth - lots of things could happen to the deep sea with climate change.

"What I'm really hoping is one of the [ABC's] listeners - one of your rich listeners or viewers - feel like donating some money to Australian science so we can have our own submarine," Dr O'Hara laughed.

"I'm being a bit flippant, but these things are very expensive, and for the moment we've got video technology and other sampling units that do a terrific job.

"The technology is always improving."