These amazing images from the bottom of the sea reveal a mysterious world scientists are just starting to explore

Few places on Earth are as unexplored as the deep sea.

The ocean floor is constantly in flux, sculpted by volcanic eruptions, altered by complex chemical processes, and colonized by rich biological communities.

For many years, the only way scientists could get a glimpse of these mysterious places was by going on occasional expeditions by ship and sending submersibles into the deep.

But not anymore.

The University of Washington, NSF-OOI, and Canadian Scientific Submersible Facility provided these images of the new observatory and the mysterious sights in these dark reaches of the ocean: