On Earth, sunlight could penetrate only about a thousand meters beneath the ocean's surface. Pandora was clearly no exception.
The region from one thousand to four thousand meters below Pandora's surface was the deep zone. Since starlight couldn't reach this far, it was extremely dark... Especially for the creatures living in Pandora's deep ocean. Having lived in such darkness for so long, their eyes had mostly atrophied.
But strangely, most of the creatures living here had evolved bioluminescent and light-sensitive organs, which they used to lure small fish and shrimp or find their way around. This was one of the peculiar sights Annie had seen.
No one could have expected that such a colorful place existed in this deep sea, filled with all sorts of beautiful, glowing marine plants and animals. It was like a dazzling fairy-tale world or a wondrous paradise on Earth!
In fact, could the depths of Pandora's entire ocean simply be one magical, dazzling world, every bit as beautiful as the land?
Even more surprising, though, was that a vast underwater base and mine lay hidden here, deep in the trench, carved out of these undulating seafloor "mountains," which seemed to consist mostly of superconducting ore. It had been built by humans from Earth, who had hollowed out the seabed, and now sat quietly concealed beneath the waves.
As everyone knew, the ocean held an abundance of natural resources. But underwater mining had always been an extremely difficult scientific challenge, regardless of the era or the planet.
That was because the depths of the ocean presented all kinds of punishing high-pressure conditions. For every ten meters of depth, the pressure increased by roughly one standard atmosphere. As the pressure rose, the demands on mining equipment's resistance and seals increased several times over.
So, if they could