Ocean Dive

Dive to the bottom of the ocean

Sink from a sunny Florida reef, through the twilight and midnight zones, all the way to the deepest spot on Earth. Tap every animal you meet!

Start the dive Read it as a list

Dive log

Every zone and animal, from top to bottom

The same dive as a list, for reading together or with a screen reader. Tap “Dive here” to jump to that spot in the picture.

Sunlight zone

0 to 660 feet deep (0 to 200 meters)

The top layer of the ocean. It holds most of the ocean's light, and the sun warms the water.

Light: Bright sunshine! Below 660 feet there is too little light for ocean plants and algae to make food.
Temperature: The top of the sea can be as warm as 97°F or as cold as 28°F.
Pressure: Every 33 feet you dive, the water squeezes you with one more atmosphere of pressure.

Bottlenose dolphin
About 3 feet down
Where it lives: Bottlenose dolphins live along the East Coast from Massachusetts to Florida, and all through the Gulf.
Wow! Scientists have watched the dolphins of Sarasota Bay, Florida, every year for more than 50 years!
Sargassum seaweed
About 3 feet down
Where it lives: Sargassum is a brown seaweed that floats at the top of the ocean and never attaches to the sea floor. Its rafts can stretch for miles!
Wow! Fish, sea turtles, crabs and shrimp hide in it. The sargassum fish lives its whole life inside these floating rafts!
West Indian manatee
About 5 feet down
Where it lives: West Indian manatees in Puerto Rico spend most of their time in shallow water, less than 30 feet deep.
Wow! Florida manatees rest 2 to 12 hours a day, floating near the surface or lying on the bottom.
Elkhorn coral
About 7 feet down
Where it lives: Elkhorn coral grows in clear, shallow water, only 1 to 15 feet deep, on reefs in Florida and the Caribbean.
Wow! One elkhorn coral can grow 12 feet wide and 6 feet tall!
Bluestriped grunt
About 18 feet down
Where it lives: Bluestriped grunts school over reefs, mangroves and seagrass beds, down to 98.5 feet deep.
Wow! Grunts are named for the grunting noise they make by grinding their teeth together! They grow almost 18 inches long.
Green sea turtle
About 24 feet down
Where it lives: Green turtles nest on beaches in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina.
Wow! They are named for the green color of their fat, not their shells!
Stoplight parrotfish
About 26 feet down
Where it lives: Stoplight parrotfish swim around coral reefs 10 to 164 feet deep, including in southern Florida.
Wow! At night it sleeps right out on the reef, ready to zoom away from danger.
Queen angelfish
About 30 feet down
Where it lives: Queen angelfish live on reefs from the shallows down to about 230 feet, where it gets too dark for coral.
Wow! A queen angelfish can grow 18 inches long. It munches on sponges!
Caribbean spiny lobster
About 37 feet down
Where it lives: Caribbean spiny lobsters live from North Carolina to Texas, from shallow water down to 295 feet deep.
Wow! It has no big front claws! It waves its long antennae to scare away enemies, and molts about 25 times while growing up.
Brain coral
About 39 feet down
Where it lives: Brain corals grow in the Caribbean, Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
Wow! Brain corals do not have brains, but they can grow 6 feet tall and live up to 900 years!
Florida's Coral Reef
45 feet down
Florida's Coral Reef stretches over 350 miles, from the Dry Tortugas to the St. Lucie Inlet.
The Florida Keys have North America's only coral barrier reef!
Most reef-building corals need bright light, so they grow no deeper than about 98 feet.
Spotted eagle ray
About 48 feet down
Where it lives: Spotted eagle rays glide over bays, reefs and open sea, down to about 200 feet deep. They are protected in Florida's state waters.
Wow! Its wings can stretch 10 feet across, and it can weigh 500 pounds! It sometimes leaps right out of the water.
Scuba divers
130 feet down
Recreational scuba divers go down to 130 feet. Going deeper takes special training called technical diving.
Moon jelly
About 165 feet down
Where it lives: Moon jellies drift in the open ocean. They are common along the California coast.
Wow! Only about 5 percent of a jellyfish is solid. The rest is water!
Sailfish
About 205 feet down
Where it lives: Sailfish swim in warm offshore water. Off southeast Florida, they come into shallow water to lay eggs in summer.
Wow! It is Florida's state saltwater fish! It grows 4 to 5 feet long in just one year, and can reach 11 feet.
Great hammerhead shark
About 250 feet down
Where it lives: Great hammerheads usually swim in coastal water down to 262 feet, and sometimes as deep as 984 feet.
Wow! The biggest great hammerhead ever caught weighed 991 pounds. It was caught off Sarasota, Florida!
Ivory tree coral
About 320 feet down
Where it lives: Ivory tree coral builds the Oculina Banks, deep reefs 230 to 328 feet down off Florida's east coast. These reefs grow this thick nowhere else!
Wow! It grows only 1 to 2 centimeters a year, but its mounds can rise 100 feet (30 meters) off the bottom!
Giant manta ray
About 390 feet down
Where it lives: Giant mantas feed in water less than 33 feet deep, but they can dive deeper than 3,280 feet!
Wow! It is the world's largest ray. Its wings can stretch 26 feet from tip to tip!
Leatherback sea turtle
About 470 feet down
Where it lives: Leatherbacks are super divers. The deepest dive ever recorded was nearly 4,000 feet!
Wow! It is the biggest turtle in the world, and some swim over 10,000 miles a year!
Black coral
About 470 feet down
Where it lives: Black corals grow in the deep sea. NOAA explorers found them off the Southeast US on the 2019 Windows to the Deep expedition.
Wow! A black coral found near Hawaii was about 4,265 years old, the oldest coral colony ever found!

Twilight zone

660 to 3,300 feet deep (200 to 1,000 meters)

Sunlight is very faint here, so some animals begin to make their own glowing light.

Light: Only a tiny bit of sunlight gets this deep. The very last glimmers can reach about 3,300 feet.
Temperature: The water gets colder fast. Temperature changes more in this zone than in any other.
Big eyes: Many fish here have big eyes that point up, to spot the shadows of animals above them.

Marine hatchetfish
About 980 feet down
Where it lives: Hatchetfish live in the twilight zone. Some swim up from about 5,000 feet deep at night to eat, then sink back down at sunrise.
Wow! Lights on its belly glow to match the faint light from above, so hunters below cannot see its shadow! It is only 1.1 to 4.7 inches long.
Comb jelly
About 1,080 feet down
Where it lives: Comb jellies drift through the deep sea. NOAA explorers filmed this one in the North Atlantic in 2021.
Wow! It has 8 rows of tiny hairs called combs. They beat like oars, and they shimmer with rainbow colors in the light!
Lanternfish
About 1,250 feet down
Where it lives: Lanternfish live in the twilight zone. Most kinds swim up to the surface every night to eat.
Wow! Lanternfish make up 60 percent of all the fish in the deep sea!
Empire State Building ruler
1,454 feet down
The Empire State Building is 1,454 feet tall. Flip it upside down under the sea, and its tip would reach this deep!
Deep-sea coral reef
About 1,600 feet down
Where it lives: This white coral builds huge reefs off the Southeast US, most often 656 to 3,280 feet deep, where the water is a chilly 39°F.
Wow! In 2024, scientists mapped a deep coral reef from Miami, Florida, to Charleston, South Carolina. It covers 6.4 million acres, bigger than Vermont!
Swordfish
About 1,700 feet down
Where it lives: Swordfish swim from the surface down to below 2,000 feet deep.
Wow! Special heaters warm a swordfish's big eyes and brain, so it can spot prey in cold, dark water!
Siphonophore
About 1,850 feet down
Where it lives: Siphonophores drift in the open sea, from the surface down to about 2,300 feet deep.
Wow! It is not one animal! It is a team of many little bodies joined together, and each one has a job. This kind grows about 12 inches long.
Sperm whale
About 2,020 feet down
Where it lives: Sperm whales hunt on deep dives that often reach 2,000 feet and last 45 minutes.
Wow! They are the biggest whales with teeth. Males can be 52 feet long!
Giant squid
About 2,490 feet down
Where it lives: In 2019, scientists filmed a giant squid 2,490 feet deep in the Gulf of America.
Wow! It looked to be 10 to 12 feet long. Only one giant squid had ever been filmed in the wild before!
Cold seep tubeworms
About 2,660 feet down
Where it lives: At cold seeps in the Gulf of America, methane and oil ooze out of the sea floor and feed gardens of tubeworms.
Wow! Tubeworms at a Gulf seep were over 200 years old and about 6 feet long! They have no mouth or stomach. Bacteria inside them make their food.
Giant isopod
About 2,660 feet down
Where it lives: Giant isopods live on the deep sea floor. NOAA explorers filmed one in the Gulf of America in 2017.
Wow! It is a giant cousin of the pill bug, nearly 1 foot (30 centimeters) long!
Vampire squid
About 2,850 feet down
Where it lives: Vampire squid live 2,000 to 3,000 feet deep, where the water has very little oxygen.
Wow! It is not a vampire or a squid! It eats marine snow: sinking bits of dead plankton and poop.
Tripod fish
About 3,136 feet down
Where it lives: NOAA scientists saw this tripod fish standing on the sea floor 3,136 feet deep, off the Southeast US.
Wow! It stands on its long, stiff fins like a camera on a tripod!
Glass sponge
About 3,136 feet down
Where it lives: Glass sponges are common only in the deep ocean, standing on rocks and ledges.
Wow! Its skeleton is made of silica, the same stuff used to make glass! One kind, the Venus flower basket, traps shrimp inside once they grow too big to escape.

Midnight zone

3,300 to 13,100 feet deep (1,000 to 4,000 meters)

It is always dark here. The only light comes from animals that glow.

Temperature: The water stays a chilly 39°F, all day and all year.
Pressure: At 13,100 feet, the water presses more than 5,850 pounds on every square inch!
Visitors: Sperm whales can dive all the way down to this zone to find food.

Deep-sea crown jelly
About 4,300 feet down
Where it lives: Crown jellies live 1,600 to 16,400 feet deep, mostly in the midnight zone.
Wow! Its red color looks black in the deep. When attacked, it flashes spinning blue lights like an alarm!
Deep-sea anglerfish
About 5,600 feet down
Where it lives: Deep-sea anglerfish live 980 to 13,200 feet deep.
Wow! Only the females have a glowing lure. They can swallow animals twice their size!
Bamboo coral
About 6,500 feet down
Where it lives: Bamboo corals grow on deep rocks. NOAA explorers saw one 8,547 feet deep that was nearly 6.5 feet tall!
Wow! Like a tree, it adds a growth ring every year. One big bamboo coral may have lived for 400 years!
Gulper eel
About 7,000 feet down
Where it lives: Gulper eels stay 1,600 to 9,800 feet deep.
Wow! Its giant mouth puffs open like a net to scoop up shrimp!
Giant tubeworms
About 8,000 feet down
Where it lives: Giant tubeworms live at hot vents on the sea floor, 6,200 to 11,800 feet deep.
Wow! They can grow almost 5 feet long in less than 2 years!
Hot vents
8,000 feet down
In 1977, scientists found the first hot springs on the sea floor, about 8,000 feet down near the Galapagos Islands.
Vent water can be hotter than 700°F, but it does not boil because of the huge pressure.
Dumbo octopus
About 11,150 feet down
Where it lives: Dumbo octopuses live near the deep sea floor, 9,800 to 13,000 feet down.
Wow! It flaps fins that look like elephant ears. Scientists filmed one swimming off southern Florida!
Grenadier (rattail)
About 11,250 feet down
Where it lives: Grenadiers swim just above the deep sea floor, from 600 to 13,100 feet deep.
Wow! It sniffs out dead animals, and a feeler on its chin finds worms in the mud. It can grow 3.2 feet long!
Average ocean depth
12,080 feet down
The average depth of the whole ocean is 12,080 feet.
Gulf of America's deepest spot
12,300 to 14,400 feet down
The deepest part of the Gulf of America is the Sigsbee Deep. Scientists still disagree: it is about 12,300 or 14,400 feet deep.
Titanic shipwreck
12,500 feet down
The wreck of the Titanic lies 12,500 feet deep, about 350 nautical miles off Newfoundland, Canada.

The abyss

13,100 to 19,700 feet deep (4,000 to 6,000 meters)

Pitch black and near freezing. Its name comes from a Greek word that means no bottom.

Temperature: The water here is always close to freezing.
Sea floor: Three quarters of the deep sea floor is in this zone!
Abyssal plains: Abyssal plains are wide, flat parts of the deep sea floor, covered in soft sediment.

Sea pig
About 16,730 feet down
Where it lives: Sea pigs live on abyssal plains, 3,300 to 19,500 feet deep.
Wow! A sea pig is a see-through sea cucumber that walks on long, stilt-like tube feet!
Gummy squirrel sea cucumber
About 16,730 feet down
Where it lives: NOAA saw this sea cucumber on the abyssal sea floor, 5,100 meters deep. That is about 16,700 feet!
Wow! Its nickname is gummy squirrel! It is about 2 feet long, counting its tall tail.

The trenches

19,700 to 35,876 feet deep (6,000 to 10,935 meters)

The deepest zone of all. It is found in deep ocean trenches and goes to the very bottom.

Temperature: The water stays just above freezing.
Pressure: At the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the water above weighs more than 8 tons on every square inch!
Life: Even at the very bottom of the ocean, there is life!

Submarine Alvin
21,325 feet down
The research submarine Alvin carries 2 scientists as deep as 21,325 feet, on dives up to 10 hours long.
Alvin can reach 99 percent of the ocean floor!
Mariana snailfish
About 26,200 feet down
Where it lives: Mariana snailfish live as deep as about 26,200 feet in the Mariana Trench, near Guam.
Wow! The water pressure down there is like an elephant standing on your thumb!
Deepest fish ever filmed
27,000 feet down
The deepest fish ever filmed was a snailfish, 8,336 meters (27,000 feet) down.
Scientists think no fish can live deeper than about 28,000 feet, because the pressure is too crushing.
Puerto Rico Trench
27,560 feet down
The Puerto Rico Trench is the deepest part of the Atlantic Ocean: more than 8,400 meters, or 5.2 miles!
Scientists mapped the whole trench in 2002 and 2003. It is 8,400 meters deep, about 27,560 feet!
Trench sea cucumber
About 35,876 feet down
Where it lives: Below about 28,000 feet, every animal found so far has no bony skeleton, like sea cucumbers.
Wow! In 2005, tiny one-celled living things called foraminifera were found right here in the Challenger Deep!
Challenger Deep
35,876 feet down
Challenger Deep is the deepest place in the ocean: 35,876 feet down in the Mariana Trench.
It lies southwest of Guam, a US territory in the Pacific Ocean.
If Mount Everest stood on the bottom here, there would still be over a mile of water above it!
You would need to stack more than 24 Empire State Buildings to reach the bottom!
Challenger Deep, the deepest part of the Mariana Trench, is about 7,000 feet deeper than Mount Everest is tall.

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New adventures with Mr. Michael

Episodes, songs, crafts, stories and movement breaks, made for curious young explorers and the grown-ups beside them.

More to learn →

Dive to the bottom of the ocean 🌊

Every zone and animal, from top to bottom

☀️ Sunlight zone

Bottlenose dolphin

Sargassum seaweed

West Indian manatee

Elkhorn coral

Bluestriped grunt

Green sea turtle

Stoplight parrotfish

Queen angelfish

Caribbean spiny lobster

Brain coral

🪸 Florida's Coral Reef

Spotted eagle ray

🤿 Scuba divers

Moon jelly

Sailfish

Great hammerhead shark

Ivory tree coral

Giant manta ray

Leatherback sea turtle

Black coral

🌆 Twilight zone

Marine hatchetfish

Comb jelly

Lanternfish

🏙️ Empire State Building ruler

Deep-sea coral reef

Swordfish

Siphonophore

Sperm whale

Giant squid

Cold seep tubeworms

Giant isopod

Vampire squid

Tripod fish

Glass sponge

🌑 Midnight zone

Deep-sea crown jelly

Deep-sea anglerfish

Bamboo coral

Gulper eel

Giant tubeworms

♨️ Hot vents

Dumbo octopus

Grenadier (rattail)

📏 Average ocean depth

🇺🇸 Gulf of America's deepest spot

🚢 Titanic shipwreck

🌊 The abyss

Sea pig

Gummy squirrel sea cucumber

🕳️ The trenches

🛸 Submarine Alvin

Mariana snailfish

🐟 Deepest fish ever filmed

🇵🇷 Puerto Rico Trench

Trench sea cucumber

🏁 Challenger Deep

New adventures with Mr. Michael

Dive to the bottom of the ocean

Sunlight zone

Florida's Coral Reef

Scuba divers

Twilight zone

Empire State Building ruler

Midnight zone

Hot vents

Average ocean depth

Gulf of America's deepest spot

Titanic shipwreck

The abyss

The trenches

Submarine Alvin

Deepest fish ever filmed

Puerto Rico Trench

Challenger Deep