Around 70 percent of the earth’s surface consists of seas and oceans. Nevertheless, we still know far too little about what is in the depths. Many organisms living on the seabed are still unknown. For a long time, the deep sea was not scientifically researched because it was wrongly assumed that the seabed was lifeless.
It was not until the 1960s – with the first submersibles that could dive several thousand meters deep – that knowledge about the biodiversity in the depths of the oceans changed. New records were also set with the submersibles. The first to venture into the Mariana Trench, the deepest known point in the ocean, were Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh in 1960. Both dived with the “Trieste” almost eleven kilometers deep.
Since then, new and modern submersibles have been built to explore the still unknown areas of our seas. This photo series presents some of these underwater companions.
Sources: Munzinger Online, “The New Zurich Times”, “quark”, “National Geographic”, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, “Space Adventure”, HU-06 SHINKAI, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, “Mirror”, Ifremer