A grinning octopus sketched in blue pencil, a cheerful purple jellyfish, several starfish surrounded by hearts… The children's drawings displayed at the Argentine Museum of Natural Sciences in Buenos Aires in August testified to the excitement generated by the expedition of Argentine scientists in the South Atlantic, at a depth of 3,900 meters (about 12,800 feet), which ended on August 10. "We are very surprised; We didn't expect this," said Daniel Lauretta, the head of the mission, during a press conference on Monday, August 18.

For nearly three weeks, a team of researchers – mainly Argentinians from the Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET, the main public research organization) – partnered with the Schmidt Ocean Institute (SOI), a US non-profit organization, to explore a canyon 300 kilometers off the coast of the seaside city Mar del Plata. The area, known for its rich biodiversity, teemed with corals and marine life. The team's mission was to survey plastic pollution, but above all, to document the seafloor and the species of the South Atlantic.

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