Post by Schmidt Ocean Institute

Fish traffic While this area of the seafloor may not look terribly busy, it is, in fact, a bustling seafloor hotspot nestled within the Ocean’s Twilight Zone — an area that extends from about 100 to 1000 meters deep. (These scenes were recorded during two different dives at 318 and 488 meters offshore of Argentina.) Also known as the mesopelagic or midwater region, this sunless zone spans the globe, and scientists estimate that 10 billion tons of fish and half of the ocean’s zooplankton biomass live in this layer of our global Ocean. Capturing carbon and transporting it to the deep, sustaining commercial fisheries, and supporting seabirds and endangered marine mammals are just some of the ecosystem services provided by midwater residents. ROV pilots collected this footage during the #TaleofTwoCanyons expedition in the fall of 2025. Led by Dr. Silvia Romero, from Argentina’s Servicio de Hidrografía Naval, Universidad de la Defensa Nacional, and Universidad de Buenos Aires, the science team mapped and studied two underwater canyons along the Bonaerense and Patagonian shelf break to understand how the different shapes of the canyons alter the movement of water masses and influence productivity in the Ocean. Credit: ROV SuBastian / Schmidt Ocean Institute

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