During the day, but not at night, the devil rays tend to loiter within 2m of the water surface for periods before and after their deepest expeditions.
The Explorers Club and two companies, Quark Expeditions and Deep Ocean Expeditions, are using the Mirs as part of a commercial cruise to take adventure tourists to the North Pole, where for $50,000 they can dive into the abyss.
Besides maintaining structural integrity of its submersible under millions of pounds of pressure, there are many high-tech elements that go into a deep ocean expedition.
I'm here for two weeks on the Deep East Expedition off the Atlantic seaboard.
The deep sea expedition marks the first time scientists have carefully studied the biodiversity of these ecosystems.
Spherulites were isolated from snap frozen A. willeyana individuals collected around Lizard Island (Great Barrier Reef, Australia) and during the Deep DownUnder Expedition (http://www.deepdownunder.de) at various reefs on the Queensland Plateau (Australia).
Adventure Network International 's flight to the South Pole has a $26,000 price tag, while Quark Expeditions ' nuclear icebreaker voyages to the North Pole start at $16,000 and Deep Ocean Expeditions ' trip via submersible to the Titanic wreck runs $36,000.
This giant worm, discovered on hydrothermal vents at the Galapagos Rift in 1977 became the poster-child of deep-sea discovery, the 'lost world' of unknown animal lineages that scientists on the Challenger deep-sea expedition 100 years previously had so wanted, but failed, to find.
"It's gone up a lot," conceded Mike McDowell, the founder of Deep Ocean Expeditions and a star of adventure tourism.
"Your Mir will glide over the top of the wreck to look down into the cavern where Titanic's famous grand staircase was once located," Deep Ocean Expeditions promises on its Web site.
