SURVEY VESSEL LUMEN · DIVE 01

NEON DEPTHS

Below two hundred metres, sunlight surrenders — and the ocean answers with light of its own making.

—200 M · MESOPELAGIC

TWILIGHT

The last blue photons scatter and die here. Nine in every ten creatures of this zone carry their own glow — a silent vocabulary of lures, alarms and love letters written in cold light.

90%of midwater animals are bioluminescent

1%of surface light remains

—1,000 M · BATHYPELAGIC

MIDNIGHT

No sun has ever reached this water. Anglerfish hang motionless, dangling a single burning ember into a darkness older than the continents. To shine here is to gamble your life.

0photons of sunlight

4°Cand falling

—4,000 M · ABYSSOPELAGIC

ABYSS

A slow blizzard of marine snow drifts down from the living world above — the abyss is fed entirely by falling ghosts. Pressure here would fold steel; the creatures are mostly water, and do not notice.

400×atmospheric pressure

75%of the deep seafloor lies in this zone

—10,911 M · HADAL

HADAL

The trench floor. More people have stood on the Moon than have rested here. And still, when a lamp passes — something faint, patient and luminous blinks back.

1,100atmospheres over your hull

the trench floor holds still · the survey catalogue continues below

SURVEY RECORD · 07 CONTACTS LOGGED

A BESTIARY OF LIGHT

Seven medusae answered the lamp on Dive 01. Each carries its own dialect of cold fire — a lure, an alarm, a disguise. Hold your cursor over a specimen to watch it breathe.

PRESSURE LOG · VERTICAL STRATA

READING THE COLUMN

Five true zones stack between the surface and the trench floor. These are the real numbers the descent was built on — sonar returns from a column of water eleven kilometres deep.

ZoneSonar returnFloor

SUNLIGHTEPIPELAGIC

Home to roughly 90% of all ocean life and every drop of photosynthesis. True sunlight fades within the first ten metres.

200m0–200 m

TWILIGHTMESOPELAGIC

Only 1% of surface light survives. Stage for the largest migration on Earth — billions rising to feed each night.

1,000m200–1000 m

MIDNIGHTBATHYPELAGIC

No sunlight has ever reached here. A steady 4°C dark where most inhabitants manufacture their own light.

4,000m1000–4000 m

ABYSSABYSSOPELAGIC

Covers about 75% of the deep seabed. Pressure nears 600 atmospheres; the water hovers at 2–3°C.

6,000m4000–6000 m

HADALTRENCHES

Named for Hades. Only the deepest trenches reach here, where pressure exceeds 1,000 atmospheres at the floor.

10,935m6000–10935 m

DIVE 01 · ASCENT AUTHORISED

SURFACE, OR STAY A WHILE

Every ray, mote and medusa here is pure mathematics — no textures, no models, evaluated per pixel sixty times a second. The full build is logged in the field guide.

READ THE FIELD GUIDE

move your lamp among the creatures · click to ping — every medusa the wave reaches blinks back