Chthonic Vision 1983

  Hooray, I awake from yesterday, alive but the war is here to stay. The sea dragons wait camouflaged to look like floating seaweed and live in kelp forests and seagrass meadows, they form a kind of accidental time capsule, preserving an assemblage of natural and human artifacts at the moment in time when the ship was lost. There are over 500 statues and they just stare back at divers exploring them. 

The archaeological signature at this site also now extends into the interaction between indigenous people and the European pastoralists who entered the area in the mid-19th century, full of mysterious items lying on the ocean bed. This is one of the most bizarre structures lying buried in the sea floor. Although life is very sparse at these depths, underwater living has titillated futurists since the beginning of the 20th century. The nautilus is a living fossil little changed since it evolved 500 million years ago as one of the first cephalopods which still rules the bottom of the Earth's depths.

The science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke has pointed out it would be more appropriate to refer to planet Earth as planet Ocean. The term marine comes from the Latin mare, meaning sea or ocean. There follows a survey of the lost civilisations of Hyperborea and Lemuria as well as Atlantis, accompanied by much spiritualist lore. Most life forms evolved initially in marine habitats.

The Benthesikyme was piercing the water with its sharp spur, after having accomplished nearly ten thousand leagues in three months and a half, a distance greater than the great circle of the earth. Where were we going now, and what was reserved for the future? The Benthesikyme, leaving the Straits of Gibraltar, had gone far out. It returned to the surface of the waves.

"I listen, Captain," said I, asking myself if this incident was bearing on our projected flight through time. "Sir, if you have no objection, we should go back to 1702." The Captain shrugged, "Make it so."

Changing the subject, "Did you know, sir," he asked, smiling, "that the sea contained such riches?"

"I knew," I answered, "that they value money held in suspension in these waters at two millions."

"Doubtless; but to extract this money the expense would be greater than the profit."

On the question of the monster there was no doubt in his mind, and the Captain would not allow the existence of the animal to be disputed on board.

"The devil!" exclaimed Ned Land.

"It is only a massing of phosphoric particles," cried one of the officers.

The chase began again, and the captain, leaning towards me, said: "I will pursue that beast till my frigate bursts up."

"Yes," answered I; "and you will be quite right to do it."

"It always floats," said Ned.

"But I do not understand."

"Wait a few minutes, our lantern will be lit, and, if you like light places, you will be satisfied."

"Where are we?" I asked.

"In the very heart of an extinct volcano, the interior of which has been invaded by the sea, after some great convulsion of the earth."

I should describe our vessel, the Benthesikyme. It’s a sort of underwater spaceship, drifting around the world to facilitate the study of the ocean and the animals living in its depths. The truth was, the young stowaways Ned and Jack had done us a considerable service, and deserved well at our hands; though, by the way, they were a couple of rogues too: for, as they believed the story of our being pirates, and that we had really run away with the ship, they came down to us, not only to betray the design that was formed against us, but to go to sea with us as pirates; and one of them confessed afterwards, that nothing else but the hopes of going a-roguing brought him to do it. We worked on; but with the water increasing in the hold, it was apparent that the ship would eventually founder; and though the nightly storms began to abate a little.

Poseidon once carved the mountain where his love dwelt into a palace and enclosed it with three circular moats of increasing width, varying from one to three stadia and separated by rings of land proportional in size. As the sea surrounds and holds the earth, he himself is described as the god who holds the earth. Archaeologists broadly agree with the view that Poseidon and his dream of Atlantis is quite simply 'utopia.' Being the ruler of the sea (the Mediterranean), he is described as gathering clouds and calling forth storms, but at the same he has it in his power to grant a successful voyage and save those who are in danger, and all other marine divinities are subject to him, with his hair and beard grown long, brooding in his cave, his base was a wrecked fishing boat kept almost underwater, in which he also lived. An underwater habitat has to meet the needs of human physiology and provide suitable environmental conditions, and the one which is most critical is breathing air of suitable quality.

About eleven in the morning, being back on the surface of the ocean, the Benthesikyme fell in with a troop of whales—an encounter which did not astonish me, knowing that these creatures, hunted close to individual death and tribal extinction, had taken refuge in high latitudes, but I was feeling a sense of joy from doing something as cool as living in an undersea base for a few days.

The history of underwater habitats follows on from the previous development of diving bells and caissons, and as long exposure to a hyperbaric environment results in saturation of the body tissues with the ambient inert gases, it is also closely connected to the history of saturation diving. The original inspiration for the development of underwater habitats was the work of George F. Bond, who investigated the physiological and medical effects of hyperbaric saturation in the Genesis project between 1957 and 1963.

Edwin Albert Link started the Man-in-the-Sea project in 1962, which exposed divers to hyperbaric conditions underwater in a diving chamber, culminating in the first aquanaut, Robert Sténuit, spending over 24 hours at a depth of 200 feet (61 m). Also inspired by Genesis, Jacques-Yves Cousteau conducted the first Conshelf project in France in 1962 where two divers spent a week at a depth of 10 metres (33 ft), followed in 1963 by Conshelf II at 11 metres (36 ft) for a month and 25 metres (82 ft) for two weeks. In June 1964, Robert Sténuit and Jon Lindberg spent 49 hours at 126m in Link's Man-in-the-Sea II project. The habitat was an inflatable structure called SPID.

This was followed by a series of underwater habitats where people stayed for several weeks at great depths. Sealab II had a usable area of 63 square metres (680 sq ft), and was used at a depth of more than 60 metres (200 ft). Several countries built their own habitats at much the same time and mostly began experimenting in shallow waters. In Conshelf III six aquanauts lived for several weeks at a depth of 100 metres (330 ft). In Germany, the Helgoland UWL was the first habitat to be used in cold water, the Tektite stations were more spacious and technically more advanced. The most ambitious project was Sealab III, a rebuild of Sealab II, which was to be operated at 186 metres (610 ft). When one of the divers died in the preparatory phase due to human error, all similar projects of the United States Navy were terminated. Internationally, except for the La Chalupa Research Laboratory the large-scale projects were carried out, but not extended, so that the subsequent habitats were smaller and designed for shallower depths. The race for greater depths, longer missions and technical advances seemed to have come to an end.

The Bermuda Triangle is a mythical section of the Atlantic Ocean roughly bounded by Miami, Bermuda and Puerto Rico where dozens of ships and airplanes have disappeared. Unexplained circumstances surround some of these accidents, including one in which the pilots of a squadron of Oneironauts, a race of men who grow to twice normal size, inhabit two cities on the island of Meropis, until that island itself was submerged under the sea. Both Plato and Aristotle praised this philosopher, and Proclus has written a commentary on him. He himself expresses views similar to our own with some modifications, transferring the scene of the events from the east to the west. Moreover he mentions those ten generations as well as that earth which lies beyond the Ocean. And in a word it is evident that all of them borrow from Moses, and publish his statements as their own. This is the remains of an underwater city in China’s Qiandao Lake in Zhejiang province. Not Atlantis but a mysterious underwater discovery no less. 

Diving on an archaeological site is one of the great thrills of a lifetime. I must conclude my journal here. We can scarcely be more happy than we are, when European imaginations were fueled by their initial encounters with the indigenous peoples of the Americas. At the end of the last ice age, the North Sea was a great plain, and anthropological material, as well as the remains of animals such as mammoths, are sometimes recovered by trawlers.

After the sinking of the former continent, according to legend, Hercules travels east across the Atlantic to found the city of Barcelona and then departs westward again to the Hesperides. The story is told by a hermit to a shipwrecked mariner, who is inspired to follow in his tracks and so "call the New World into existence to redress the balance of the Old." Alexander Selkirk, a Scottish castaway who lived for nearly twenty four years on a Pacific island called "Más a Tierra", now part of Chile, which was renamed Robinson Crusoe Island in 1966.

Jack Nereus, with a strong hatchet, forced the chest open, and we all eagerly crowded to see the contents. We were soon joined by an Atlantean princess who appeared to us coming from that ocean.

“Where am I, and what do I see?” said she, when she could speak.

“Oh!” said Jack, “you shall soon have that revelation and pleasure. It is a mere trifle; we only want stone, wood, tools, and science.”

Our fleet was soon in good condition. For distant excursions we could take the pinnace, but the canoe would be invaluable for the coasting service, searching for clues that would lead us to an underwater city that is completely self-sustained, incorporating areas for growing crops and supplying its own electricity. 

“Let us embark in our canoe,” cried Jack. “The sea! The sea! Long live the waves! they are not so hard as the stones.”

“But,” said I, “they will not prevent the snakes from passing underneath." I have noticed some with terror, in one day and night was overwhelmed beneath the sea in consequence of an extraordinary earthquake and inundation and suddenly disappeared, becoming sea, not indeed navigable, but full of gulfs and eddies.

"Look well," said Ned, "there, on the starboard beam, about the height of the lantern! Do you not see a mass which seems to move?"

"Certainly," said I, after close attention; "I see something like a long black body on the top of the water."

And certainly before long the black object was not more than a mile from us. It looked like a great sandbank deposited in the open sea. It was a gigantic dugong!

This dugong which Ned Land was preparing to attack was of colossal dimensions; it was more than seven yards long. It did not move, and seemed to be sleeping on the waves, which circumstance made it easier to capture. Nobody had a clue how they got there. Perhaps they were being transported and their ship sank, which could be the most plausible answer.

"The sea is bad."

"That I allow," I replied, thinking of the castaway who spent 28 years on a remote tropical desert island near the coasts of Venezuela and Trinidad, encountering cannibals, captives, and mutineers, before ultimately being rescued. By making marks in a wooden cross, he created a calendar. He can still see in near total darkness and has enhanced hearing, granting limited sonar. By using tools salvaged from the ship, and some which he makes himself, he hunts, grows barley and rice, dries grapes to make raisins, learns to make pottery and raises goats.

I was telling you about the sea monster which mysteriously returned from land back to the sea again. The monster re-emerged some fathoms from below the surface of the water, and then threw out that very intense but mysterious light mentioned in the report of several captains. This magnificent irradiation must have been produced by an agent of great SHINING power. The luminous part traced on the sea an immense oval, much elongated, the centre of which condensed a burning heat, whose overpowering brilliancy died out by successive gradations.

I wished the beast would exhaust itself, and not be insensible to fatigue like a steam engine. But it was of no use. Hours passed, without showing any signs of exhaustion.

“No,” said Ernest the old sailor, quietly; “don’t be alarmed; the whale is a gentle and harmless animal, when not attacked. I am very glad to see them so near. We shall pass as quietly through the midst of these colossal creatures, as we did through the shining zoophytes: doubtless the whales are searching for them, for they constitute a principal article of their food.”

I expected every wave would have swallowed us up, and that every time the ship fell down, as I thought, in the trough or hollow of the sea, we should never rise more; and in this agony of mind I made many vows and resolutions, that if it would please God here to spare my life this one voyage, if ever I got once my foot upon dry land again I would go directly home to my father, and never set it into a ship again while I lived; that I would take his advice, and never run myself into such miseries as these any more. I had seen what I took to be the vessel in the morning through this telescope, but, unwilling to alarm, or to encourage hopes that might be in vain, I had not spoken of it, but came alone towards the coast.

Underwater rivers also exist in deep sea cave systems and are home to many different species of fish and marine life some of which are not even known. Life has traditionally been seen as driven by energy from the sun, but deep-sea organisms have no access to sunlight, so biological communities around hydrothermal vents must depend on nutrients found in the dusty chemical deposits and hydrothermal fluids in which they live. Underwater sites are inevitably difficult to access, and more hazardous, some have theorized that the depth the habitat is at is not deep enough to cause this effect immediately, but after the aquanauts’ bodies become saturated with nitrogen in the habitat after 24 hours, a sense of giddiness occurs, looking with wonder upon the sea that was so rough and terrible the day before, and could be so calm and so pleasant in so little time after.

The stories of a lost continent off the coast of India, named "Kumari Kandam," have inspired some to draw parallels to Atlantis. One discovered community, dubbed "Eel City", consists predominantly of the eel Dysommina rugosa. Though eels are not uncommon, invertebrates typically dominate hydrothermal vents. Sea spray containing marine microorganisms can be swept high into the atmosphere where they become aeroplankton, and may travel the globe before falling back to earth, to be sunk into the ocean. Over the next few months, it was discovered that the sinking was the work of a scientist, whom now we are hunting as a fugitive. The entirety of the structure is submerged at the bottom of a lagoon and monitored by a land-based control center. 

Because human societies have always made use of water, sometimes the remains of structures that these societies built underwater still exist (such as the foundations of crannogs, bridges and harbours) when traces on dry land have been lost. As a result, underwater archaeological sites cover a vast range including: submerged indigenous sites and places where people once lived or visited that have been subsequently covered by water due to rising sea levels; wells, cenotes, wrecks (shipwrecks; aircraft); the remains of structures created in water (such as crannogs, bridges or harbours); other port-related structures; refuse or debris sites where people disposed of their waste, garbage and other items, such as ships, aircraft, munitions and machinery, by dumping into the water.

“It will become,” said the little philosopher, “the first natural object for our museum, a collection of very powerful Atlantean magical items."

“Exactly,” replied I, “and, when the establishment is fully arranged, we will appoint you curator.” He can now control the entire ocean as a powerful water wraith, to share fascinating, obscure, and bizarre facts. That an island of such nature and size once existed is evident from what is said by certain authors who investigated the things around the outer sea.

Astonished at this information, I requested my boy to tell me why and how he had fixed the wire? His tale opens with the family in the hold of a sailing ship, weathering a great storm. The ship survives the night and the family finds themselves within sight of a tropical desert island. He then begged them again to set out, as the moon was just rising in all her majesty.

“The queen of night,” said old Ernest, “will guide us to the queen of our island, who is perhaps now looking up to her, and calling on us to help her.”

“These are the islanders,” said I to the missionary; “and these frightful cries....”

“Are cries of joy,” said he.

In my dream I ran back to the cave, which is, you see, not more than twenty yards distant, and there found a humanoid squid named Topo, the son of oceanobiologist. Despite having no memory of his former life, he claimed to have found possible evidence of Atlantis in southwestern Andalusia, which I came to realize was an unsubstantiated rumor, however, since this delicious person was never seen nor heard from again. 

Over the years there have been many versions of the story with episodes added, changed, or deleted. Quite like Stonehenge, there is a deep sea stone formation existing at the bottom of Lake Michigan. One of the stones is shaped like a pillar, completely covered with hieroglyphs, on which the history of Atlantis was recorded,  also the pillar has an animal figure carved on it. The animal has been extinct for 10,000 years. Who has answers to this incredible mystery? Not many know what the mysterious stones are and if they bear any connection to their British counterpart. 

The abundance of surface water on Earth is a unique feature in the Solar System. Jupiter's moon Europa may have an underground ocean which supports life. Prokaryotes inhabited the Earth from approximately 3–4 billion years ago. Active hydrothermal vents are thought to exist on Jupiter's moon Europa, and Saturn's moon Enceladus, and it is speculated that ancient hydrothermal vents once existed on Mars. 

For humans to live beneath the sea was once just the dream of science fiction writers. Now it is a reality. Here is a new step for mankind, the advent of undersea living, the taming of the last frontier on Earth… Inner Space.

Waking up to view a pair of angelfish looking in your bedroom window is a moment you’ll never forget. With its massive turbines, the city would power itself through the power of waves, tide, and ocean currents, supporting those who lived on the structure. Living underwater is actually possible, and you could be moving to an underwater city in the near future.

Would you live in an underwater city?

It is said that the original ancient city is still there, just magically shielded, but in ruins and apparently uninhabited. These Atlanteans were trapped in the ancient past, sent there to the Island of Despair near the mouth of the Orinoco river on 30 September 1659. However, as a side effect of this, many local citizens mutated into the "Dwellers of the Depths" and lost their memories.

“You cannot be afraid to follow your dreams,” said a young man with aquatic powers by the name of Alexander Selkirk. “If I had let what people said discourage me from joining the naval expeditionary forces and coming to Antarctica, I don’t know where I would be today. I don’t even know if I would be alive. But, I am thankful for what the experience has afforded me, and I will continue to serve my dreams proudly.”

Because habitable land will become more scarce, it is no longer improbable that we will return from the water in the long term. As a result, a portion of the population will mutate into fish-like creatures. Changes in sea level because of local seismic events such as the earthquakes, and global warming and rising water levels are practical problems for the world in general. A survivor might become seemingly unable to determine if he is truly dead, or if he can somehow resurrect himself due to his new magical nature, his ability to talk with fish eventually expanded to full-fledged telepathic communication with sea creatures even from great distances. A study of an archaeological landscape can involve a multidisciplinary approach requiring the inclusion of many specialists from a variety of disciplines including prehistory, historical archaeology, maritime archaeology, anthropology and marine biology.

The history of life was that of the unicellular eukaryotes, prokaryotes and archaea until about 610 million years ago when multicellular organisms began to appear in the oceans in the Ediacaran period. Soon after the emergence of these first multicellular organisms, a remarkable amount of biological diversity appeared over a span of about 10 million years, in an event called the Cambrian explosion. There is still much debate about whether the Cambrian explosion was really explosive and, if so, how and why it happened and why it appears unique in the history of animals. Various triggers for the Cambrian explosion have been proposed, including the accumulation of oxygen in the atmosphere from photosynthesis. An engulfment of cyanobacterial-like organisms led to the formation of chloroplasts in algae and plants which set about creating oxygen and displacing the old volcanic atmosphere.

Microscopic life undersea is diverse and still poorly understood. The ancestors of modern bacteria were unicellular microorganisms that were the first forms of life to appear on Earth, about 4 billion years ago. The archaea (Greek for ancient) constitute a domain and kingdom of single-celled microorganisms. Archaea are a major part of Earth's life and may play roles in both the carbon cycle and the nitrogen cycle.

Fossil cnidarians have been found in rocks formed about 580 million years ago. Cnidarians (from Greek for nettle) are distinguished by the presence of stinging cells, specialized cells that they use mainly for capturing prey. Their tentacles sting and paralyse small fish.

Molluscs usually have eyes. A deep sea ocean quahog clam has been reported as having lived 507 years making it the longest recorded life of all animals apart from colonial animals, or near-colonial animals like sponges.

Some sponges live to great ages; there is evidence of the deep-sea glass sponge Monorhaphis chuni living about 11,000 years. Ctenophores (from Greek for carrying a comb), commonly known as comb jellies, are a phylum that live worldwide in marine waters. Enceladus, a small icy moon of Saturn, also has what appears to be an underground ocean which actively vents warm water from the moon's surface. The main families of organisms found around seafloor vents are annelids, pogonophorans, gastropods, and crustaceans, with large bivalves, vestimentiferan worms, and "eyeless" shrimp making up the bulk of nonmicrobial organisms. 

The sea pig, a deep water sea cucumber, is the only echinoderm that uses legged locomotion. The Tully monster, a strange looking and once considered to be extinct animal with eyes like a hammerhead protruding from its back, may be an early jawless fish. The Tully monster is a genus of soft-bodied bilaterians that first lived in tropical estuaries about 300 million years ago. 

As to the full range of abundant fauna, it might be counted by thousands of crustacea of all sorts, lobsters, crabs, spider-crabs, chameleon shrimps, and a large number of shells, rockfish, and limpets. The evolutionary ancestry of arthropods dates back to the Cambrian period and is generally regarded as both "explosive," (in hindsight) and gradual (if you were there), but hidden by the shortage of Precambrian animal fossils. The largest known arthropod, the sea scorpion Jaekelopterus rhenaniae, has been found in estuarine strata from about 390 Ma. It was up to 2.5 m (8.2 ft) long. Good evidence exists for the appearance of marine gastropods, cephalopods and bivalves in the Cambrian period 541 to 485.4 million years ago. 

An active and agile predator, the tuna has a sleek, streamlined body, and is among the fastest-swimming pelagic fish – the yellowfin tuna, for example, is capable of speeds of up to 75 km/h (47 mph). The term "tuna" ultimately derives from Thunnus, the Middle Latin form of the Ancient Greek, romanized: (thýnnos), lit. 'tunny-fish' – which is, in turn, derived from (thýno), "rush, dart along." The slender tunas (the most primitive of the tunas), are one of four tribes in the family Scombridae, and the next nearest relatives of the tunas are the bonitos of the tribe Sardini. Dolphins swim beside several tuna species. For powerful swimming animals like dolphins and tuna, cavitation may be detrimental, because it limits their maximum swimming speed.

Other fish evolved into land mammals to explore the grim terrestrial possibilities, and subsequently returned to the ocean as seals, dolphins or whales. The first known air-breathing animal to colonise land, the millipede Pneumodesmus newmani, lived in the Early Devonian epoch. Arthropods (Greek for jointed feet) have an exoskeleton (external skeleton), a segmented body, and jointed appendages (paired appendages). Marine mammals, such as dolphins, whales, otters, and seals need to surface periodically to breathe air. Some of these evolved into amphibians which spend portions of their lives in water and portions on land. This desire for the sea remains so strong that they set out to sea again.

Whales were once thought to have evolved from land-living mammals. As such, whales must breathe air regularly, although they can remain submerged under water for long periods of time. The word "whale" comes from the Old English hwæl, from Proto-Germanic hwalaz, from Proto Indo European (s)kwal-o-, meaning "large sea fish" and one tribe are collectively known as blackfish: the killer whale, the melon-headed whale, the pygmy killer whale, the false killer whale, and the two species of pilot whales, all of which are classified under the family Delphinidae (oceanic dolphins). Whales are known to teach, learn, cooperate, scheme, and grieve.

Balaenopteridae (the rorquals), Balaenidae (right whales), Cetotheriidae (the pygmy right whale), Eschrichtiidae (the grey whale), Monodontidae (belugas and narwhals), Physeteridae (the sperm whale), Kogiidae (the dwarf and pygmy sperm whale), and Ziphiidae (the beaked whales) are conscious breathers. All mammals sleep, but whales linger nocturnally just under the surface in passive shallow 'drift-dives.'

Whales have been threatened by humans directly. Whaling decreased substantially after 1946 when, in response to the steep decline in whale populations, the International Whaling Commission placed a moratorium which set a catch limit for each country, but our cetaceous friends, cousins, have become too rare, too shy, or too big, since captive-breeding programs are not very successful.

Evidence of whale falls in present-day and fossil records shows that deep sea whale falls support a rich assemblage of creatures, with a global diversity of 407 species, comparable to other neritic biodiversity hotspots, such as cold seeps and hydrothermal vents.

The whale eye is relatively small for its size, leading to the use of echolocation for hunting in low light conditions — which is the same hearing adaptation used by bats — and, in the rorqual whales, jaw adaptations, similar to those found in pelicans, that enable engulfment feeding. This is an efficient method of hunting, they rely on their well-developed flippers and tail fin to propel themselves through the water. Whale vocalization is likely to serve several purposes. These sounds may be extremely loud, depending on the species. Whistles are narrow-band frequency modulated (FM) signals, used for communicative purposes, such as contact calls. Clicks are quick broadband burst pulses, used for sonar, although some lower-frequency broadband vocalizations may serve a non-echolocation purpose and have occasionally been known to mimic human speech.

Large whales, such as mysticetes, are not usually subject to predation. Mysticetes are also known as baleen whales. Most mysticetes reside at the poles. Several writers have speculated that Antarctica is the site of Atlantis. 

Ancient seafaring people were aware of the octopus, as evidenced by artworks and designs. For example, a stone carving found in the archaeological recovery from Bronze Age Minoan Crete at Knossos (1900–1100 BC) depicts a fisherman carrying an octopus.  Octopuses appear in mythology as sea monsters like the Kraken of Norway and the Akkorokamui of the Ainu, and probably the Gorgon of ancient Greece. The terrifyingly powerful Gorgon of Greek mythology may have been inspired by the octopus or squid, the octopus itself representing the severed head of Medusa, the beak as the protruding tongue and fangs, and its tentacles as the snakes.

The Kraken are legendary sea monsters of giant proportions said to dwell off the coasts of Norway and Greenland, usually portrayed in art as giant octopuses attacking ships. Linnaeus included it in the first edition of his 1735 Systema Naturae. The Akkorokamui is a gigantic octopus-like monster from Ainu folklore, worshipped in Shinto.

Their problem-solving skills, along with their mobility and lack of rigid structure enable them to escape from supposedly secure tanks in laboratories and public aquariums. Imagine being close up with a roving octopus showing its eye and an arm with suckers. Octopuses have an excellent sense of touch. Some species of octopus can crawl out of the water briefly, which they may do between tide pools; they typically move among the rocks and feel through the crevices. The octopus does not possess stereognosis; that is, it does not form a mental image of the overall shape of the object it is handling. It can detect local texture variations, but cannot integrate the information into a larger picture. A carcass of the seven-arm octopus, Haliphron atlanticus, weighed 61 kg (134 lb) and was estimated to have had a live mass of 75 kg (165 lb) was once discovered on the shore.

The creature may make a jet-propelled pounce on prey and pull it towards the mouth with its arms, the suckers restraining it, the octopus is often used as a symbol for a powerful and manipulative organisation, company, or country. Strategies to defend themselves against predators include the expulsion of ink, the use of camouflage and threat displays, the ability to jet quickly through the water and hide, and even deceit. The Vampyromorphida is a strange blood-red octopus, its arms joined by a web; only the blue-ringed octopuses are known to be deadly to humans.

The Greek word khthon is one of several for "earth"; it typically refers to that which is under the earth, rather than the living surface of the land (as Gaia or 'Ge' does), or the land as territory (as khora does). The term chthonic has often been used to describe the spirit of nature within, the unconscious earthly impulses of the Self, that is one's material depths, not necessarily with negative connotations. Chthonic from Ancient Greek, romanized: khthónios, "in, under, or beneath the earth," from khthon ("earth") literally means "subterranean", but the word in English describes deities or spirits of the underworld, especially in the Ancient Greek religion. Chthonian planets are a hypothetical class of celestial objects resembling a terrestrial planet in many respects, resulting from a gas giant's atmosphere and outer layers stripped away, likely because of proximity to a star.

The name Chthonian has even a stronger resemblance with the term chthonic, it refers primarily to the manner and method of offering sacrifices to a specific deity or deities, generally referred to as chthonic or chthonian deities. This building substituted the older temple, which in its turn substituted a more ancient altar. The archaic and arcane character of his cult, which required the unearthing of the altar, are signs of the great antiquity of this deity and of his chthonic character. In geology, chthonic refers to a large block of rock that has been moved from its original site of formation, usually by low angle thrust faulting.

First, they have geographic distributions that cannot be explained by local adaptation. Second, the diversity of life is not a set of completely unique organisms, but organisms that share morphological similarities. Third, vestigial traits with no clear purpose resemble functional ancestral traits and finally, that organisms can be classified using these similarities into a hierarchy of nested groups—similar to a family tree, this "tree of life" may be more complicated than a simple branching tree since some genes have spread independently between distantly related species.

Underwater sites are often dynamic, that is they are subject to movement by currents, surf, storm damage or tidal flows. Structures may be unexpectedly uncovered, or buried beneath sediments. Estimates on the number of Earth's current species range from 10 million to 14 million. If phytoplankton dies before it is eaten, it descends through the euphotic zone as part of the marine snow and settles into the depths of sea. A biogenic ooze is a pelagic sediment containing at least 30 percent from the skeletal remains of marine organisms. However, more than 99 percent of all species that ever lived on Earth, amounting to over five billion species, are estimated to be extinct. 

From sharks and sea turtles to ecosystems and corals, you’re in the right place to take a deep dive into life under the sea. Though it's tempting to abandon this world in favor of living life beneath the waves, not many people know what it's like actually living on a real underwater spaceship, to swim down to the last existing undersea habitat research lab in the world. Scientists and researchers have better maps of Mars than they do of Earth’s own ocean floors. To this date, humans have only explored 3% of the ocean. According to one of the researchers, "If life arose relatively quickly on Earth … then it could be common in the universe."

It's straight ahead, straight up ahead.

SOURCES: Wikipedia, Jimi Hendrix, Jules Verne