The story of humanity’s relationship with the deep sea – how we imagine, explore and exploit it. Everyone and every living thing needs the deep. The book captures the golden age of discovery now underway, uncovering the deep’s tremendous living wonders – from furry Yeti crabs on scorching hydrothermal vents, to underwater mountains clad in thousand-year-old corals, to deep-diving giants and elegant glowing worms that pirouette through the midnight zone. The book also makes an urgent call to protect the deep – looking at environment issues such as overfishing, pollution and deep-sea mining – and examines what we can do about them.

“It’s easy to imagine that the oceans could be bottomless.”

Helen Scales “The Brilliant Abyss: True Tales of Exploring the Deep Sea, Discovering Hidden Life and Selling the Seabed”. Published by Bloomsbury Sigma in 2021. Donated to the library by the publisher ❤️

Photos by Anna Iltnere / Sea Library