These organisms, which have fundamentally different metabolisms to normal microbes, are found in hydrothermal vents on the deep-ocean floor and in rocks and springs hundreds of metres below the surface of the Earth.
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And the other places we'll be able to go will be the shallower parts of deep-ocean trenches, and those are very active places where there are a lot of earthquakes and which are also associated with volcanoes.
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Given all the discoveries that we have made from an up-close investigation of these ocean ridges, we can't help but wonder what we might find at the far end of the same plate tectonic cycle where seafloor is drawn back into the Earth's interior at deep-ocean trenches.
But this is an emerging and highly complex area of science because of the interplay of natural factors and manmade greenhouse gases at a time when a key set of temperatures - in the deep ocean - is still relatively unknown.
"You pass a lot of agonizing hours watching somebody try to do something at the end of a cable a mile long -- down in the deep, dark ocean, " he says.
Which is a shame, because the U.S. has the largest federal water zone in the world, with more ocean area suitable for deep-water fish farming than the country has arable land area.
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Scientists have found creatures thriving in places that would poison or cook most life on earth--deep inside rock, under the ocean or in hot springs, places that are extremely salty, or acidic, or bathed in radiation or heavy metals.
Marine biologists working in the Pacific Ocean say they found a tasty deep-sea fish that is unexpectedly thriving.
But Dr Voight says the experience is a wake-up call to everyone working in the deep ocean.
"I looked at it as a four-legged stool with one leg very deep in the ocean, " recalls Fluxman, a tanned, toned South African who first came aboard as chief financial officer and chief operating officer, stepping up to chief executive officer six years ago.
In 1960, Piccard's father, Jacques, descended seven miles beneath the Pacific Ocean in another pressurized module to set a deep-dive record that has been matched only twice.
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It would be like risking the vinous equivalent of the bends, the decompression sickness of deep-sea divers who ascend too quickly from the bottom of the ocean.
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Mr Cameron says he does not want this dive to the deep to be a one-off, and wants to use it as a platform for ocean exploration.
This fact-filled Guide explores the ocean from the coastal zones to the frozen poles, the deep sea to the open ocean.
Although the Met Office has 1998 as the single warmest year, that coincided with strong El Nino conditions - the warming of surface waters in the eastern Pacific that releases heat stored in the deep ocean into the atmosphere, raising temperatures globally.
Deep Ocean Exploration and Research, with funding from Google's Eric Schmidt, is building two three-person submersibles.
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