Hadal Zone

The hadal zone is the deepest region of the ocean, made up of narrow, V shaped trenches that plunge from about six to eleven kilometers below sea level. Despite covering less than a quarter of one percent of the world's seafloor, these trenches account for more than forty percent of the ocean's total depth range, and most of the forty six known hadal habitats lie in the Pacific Ocean. The zone is defined by total darkness, hydrostatic pressure exceeding eleven hundred atmospheres, near freezing cold and severe nutrient scarcity. Even so, researchers have documented more than four hundred species living in hadal trenches, many carrying physiological adaptations found nowhere else, built to withstand pressure and cold that would overwhelm life from shallower waters.