This TED Talk features ocean scientist, inventor, and explorer Heidi M. Sossack, recorded live at TED 2018.

This idea is part of the Audacious Project.

Ted's new initiative to inspire global change.

Learn more at audaciousproject.org.

I bet all of you are familiar with this view of the ocean.

But the thing is, most of the ocean looks nothing like this.

Below the sunlit surface waters,

there's an otherworldly realm known as the twilight zone.

At 200 to 1,000 meters below the surface,

sunlight is barely a glimmer.

Tiny particles swirl down through the darkness,

while flashes of bioluminescence

give us a clue that these waters team with life.

Microbes, plankton, fish, everything that lives here

has amazing adaptations for the challenges of such an extreme environment.

These animals help support top predators such as whales, tuna, swordfish and sharks.

There could be 10 times more fish biomass here than previously thought.

In fact, maybe more than all the rest of the ocean combined.

There are countless undiscovered species in deep waters,

and life in the twilight zone is intertwined with Earth's climate.

Yet the twilight zone is intertwined with Earth's climate. Yet the twilight zone is virtually unexplored.

There are so many things we still don't know about it.

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