Narrator: This is Science Today. While probing the cause of a catastrophic tsunami spawned by a 1946 earthquake off the coast of the Aleutian Islands in Alaska, biologists have identified previously undiscovered deep-sea habitats in the area. Over 3,000 meters below the water's surface, Lisa Levin of the University of California, San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography, discovered unusual communities called methane seeps.

Levin: Biologically, it refers to an assemblage of animals that rely on symbiotic bacteria to generate their food. And those bacteria oxidize sulfide, or in some cases, methane. This is an unusual lifestyle, in that the animals aren't relying on photosynthesis as most biological communities in the ocean do.

Narrator: These seeps were unlike others previously discovered in this area.

Levin: The kinds of information we generate on these cruises contribute to an understanding of biodiversity in the ocean. On some level, it's basic science, but an understanding of biodiversity maintenance contributes, I think, to the well-being of the planet.

Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.