This beautiful octopus (Graneledone boreopacifica) was observed by ROPOS during cable route surveys between

Endeavour Node and the north Regional Circulation Mooring (RCM) instrument platform at Endeavour Ridge, 20
September 2010. (N47 58.1264' W129 2.8567', depth: 2327m)
Photograph by: .. , Photos: courtesy of UVic/CSSF
For more photos related to this story, click here
The Endeavour hydrothermal vents have been described in scientific papers as one of the most remarkable places
on Earth, a sub-sea site as strangely beautiful as it can be toxic.
To those lucky few who have personally visited the vents, the trip never gets old.
Even the 10th time was just as good as the first, says Kim Juniper, associate director of science for the University of
Victorias underwater observatory network, Neptune. It still takes my breath away.
The Endeavour Hydrothermal Vents Marine Protected Area, about 250 kilometres off Vancouver Island, became the
first offshore deepsea marine protected area in the world in 2003.
Part of the Juan de Fuca Ridge a stretch of shifting tectonic plates extending to Washington and Oregon
Endeavour spans 82 square kilometres across five vent fields each less than one hectare in area.
The vents can get as hot as 400 C, and contain microbes that are reshaping our understanding of life.
Inhabiting the sites less-hot waters are specialized life forms such as worms, snails, sea spiders, crabs, and fish
including 12 species which are found nowhere else on Earth.
There is nothing ordinary about getting to Endeavour, either.
The journey typically begins aboard a couple of vessels the Canadian Coast Guard ship John P. Tully or the
University of Washingtons Thomas G. Thompson, which serve as research platforms for two-week expeditions
and ends some 2,250 metres below the oceans surface inside a submersible operated by the Woods Hole
Oceanographic Institution.
Unmanned trips to Endeavour occur in Ropos, a remotely operate vehicle, supplied by Canadian Scientific
Submersible Facility.
A crew of one pilot and two scientists can make the descent in about 90 minutes, but its a tight squeeze.
You get into a two-metre-diameter sphere, explains Juniper, describing the space as equivalent to two telephone
booths without the same standing room. The practical problems dont end there.
There is the washroom issue, he continues. Remember not to drink coffee. We have an emergency bleach bottle
with a funnel for the ladies.
As the sub slowly descends, the fluid world outside visibly changes.

The productive, sunlit ocean surface slowly fades to the twilight zone for several hundred metres where you just see
shadows, Juniper recounts.
Then youre into the total dark deep sea where now and again bioluminescent creatures bump into the sub on the
way down and emit some light.
The subs sonar and depth gauge eventually announce the approaching ocean bottom, an inhospitable world of
volcanic rock that soon explodes with life forms as the submersible approaches the toxic vents.
Its like people from the peaceful countryside being drawn into the smelly polluted city because there is work,
Juniper says.
Lights on the sub extend for five metres, leading the way to a fantastic world, an oasis of life in a largely sterile
environment surrounded by chilling ocean temperatures of about 2 C.
Plumes of hot liquid filled with toxic chemicals from beneath the ocean floor spew out from hundreds of black smoker
chimneys measuring about 10 metres across and up to 30 metres tall.

Far from being barren wastelands, deserts are biologically rich habitats with a vast array of animals and plants that
have adapted to the harsh conditions there. Some deserts are among the planet's last remaining areas of total
wilderness. Yet more than one billion people, one-sixth of the Earth's population, actually live in desert regions.
Deserts cover more than one fifth of the Earth's land, and they are found on every continent. A place that receives
less than 10 inches (25 centimeters) of rain per year is considered a desert. Deserts are part of a wider classification
of regions called "drylands." These areas exist under a moisture deficit, which means they can frequently lose more
moisture through evaporation than they receive from annual precipitation.
And despite the common conceptions of deserts as dry and hot, there are cold deserts as well. The largest hot desert
in the world, northern Africa's Sahara, reaches temperatures of up to 122 degrees Fahrenheit (50 degrees Celsius)
during the day. But some deserts are always cold, like the Gobi desert in Asia and the desert on the continent of
Antarctica. Others are mountainous. Only about 10 percent of deserts are covered by sand dunes. The driest deserts
get less than half an inch (one centimeter) of precipitation each year, and that is from condensed fog not rain.
Desert animals have adapted ways to help them keep cool and use less water. Camels, for example, can go for days
without food and water. Many desert animals are nocturnal, coming out only when the brutal sun has descended to
hunt. Some animals, like the desert tortoise in the southwestern United States, spend much of their time
underground. Most desert birds are nomadic, crisscrossing the skies in search of food. Because of their very special
adaptations, desert animals are extremely vulnerable to introduced predators and changes to their habitat.
Desert plants may have to go without fresh water for years at a time. Some plants have adapted to the arid climate by
growing long roots that tap water from deep underground. Other plants, such as cacti, have special means of storing
and conserving water. Many desert plants can live to be hundreds of years old.
Some of the world's semi-arid regions are turning into desert at an alarming rate. This process, known as
"desertification," is not caused by drought, but usually arises from the demands of human populations that settle on
the semi-arid lands to grow crops and graze animals. The pounding of the soil by the hooves of livestock may
degrade the soil and encourage erosion by wind and water.

Global warming also threatens to change the ecology of desert. Higher temperatures may produce an increasing
number of wildfires that alter desert landscapes by eliminating slow-growing trees and shrubs and replacing them
with fast-growing grasses.