March 15, 2021 –Welcome to the Twilight Zone It’s a real place — but under the sea.
The mesopelagic zone, also known as the “twilight zone,” is a mysterious region of the ocean between 200 and 1,000 meters in depth. It’s sandwiched between the sunlit surface and pitch-dark deep ocean.
A new study shines a light on its formation over geologic time scales, revealing the process is intimately linked with global temperature.
Currently, this is a boon to the creatures that live there. But, as anthropogenic climate change heats up the ocean, this finding suggests the twilight zone and its integral role in the carbon cycle may be negatively affected.
This is bad news not just for the animals that live there, but for people too — a twilight zone in balance is essential for keeping billions of tons of carbon out of our planet’s atmosphere.