Clam fields at deep, low-temperature Mariana vents

Japan's Shinkai 6500 submersible lent its name, which means deep sea, to the newly discovered seep field

Located east of Mariana Islands in the western Pacific and at the deepest part of the ocean, the 1,580-mile long Mariana trench is where the Pacific Plate is pushed under the Mariana Plate. A research team, which included HIGP researcher Fernando Martinez, was exploring an area on the inner trench slope of that convergent margin during September 2010. They discovered abundant vesicomyid clam communities associated with a low-temperature hydrothermal vent system, and named the area after the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology manned submersible Shinkai 6500 used in the dives.
Read more about it at UH News.