Trench Tidbits

Sadie Mills, from the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research in New Zealand, keeps track of specimens being prepared by colleagues on the research vessel Thomas G. Thompson. Scientists on this NSF-funded cruise are collecting animals and sediment from the Kermadec Trench, a massive gully in the seafloor that plunges to nearly 6.25 miles deep. Fish traps set in the trench have been retrieved with rattails, cusk eels, and other deep-sea fish. The researchers are collecting bits of tissue, otoliths (ear stones), and other samples from the fish to learn more about the physiology of animals living in the hadal zone, the deepest part of the ocean.(Photo by Ken Kostel, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)