With 30 minutes left in her submersible dive, geochemist Mengran Du steered toward one last stretch of the deep trenches between Russia and Alaska — and found life where almost no one expected it. Published in 2025, the discovery revealed a 2,500-kilometre ecosystem of clams and tubeworms as deep as 9,533 metres, powered not by sunlight but by methane and hydrogen sulfide seeping from the seafloor.

With 30 minutes left in her submersible dive, geochemist Mengran Du steered toward one last stretch of the deep trenches between Russia and Alaska — and found life where almost no one expected it. Published in 2025, the discovery revealed a 2,500-kilometre ecosystem of clams and tubeworms as deep as 9,533 metres, powered not by sunlight but by methane and hydrogen sulfide seeping from the seafloor. | FLIP NEWS