A giant ocean observatory has captured thousands of hours of video revealing some crazy natural phenomena

The most ambitious undersea science project in history includes a network of cables spanning 530 miles along the Pacific seafloor.

In 2009, the project became the world's first online ocean observatory, and ever since it has captured some pretty crazy phenomenon, like this swarm of thousands of crabs crawling against the current on the seafloor in the Northeast Pacific Ocean. Check out the video here.

The project is called the North-East Pacific Time-series Undersea Networked Experiment - NEPTUNE for short - and anyone around the world with internet can access the thousands of hours of deep sea life captured by NEPTUNE's 180 instruments. The project is part of the larger Ocean Networks Canada initiative.

NEPTUNE's instruments include hydrophones that collect the sounds of the sea. You can hear everything from whale and dolphin conversations to passing motorboats.

These instruments are connected to shielded cables on the seafloor that link them to the internet and are designed to continue capturing video until the year 2034.

"These observatories collect data on physical, chemical, biological, and geological aspects of the ocean over long time periods, supporting research on complex Earth processes in ways no previously possible," the NEPTUNE website states.

For more information about this fascinating long-term science experiment, the producers at Column Five - an agency that specializes in informative graphics - made this awesome compilation of what this projects is all about:

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