The History of Oceanography blog has a new article, “The Abyss: Resurrecting Deep-Sea Biology in the Mid Twentieth Century”. This adds some interesting historical context to Lovecraft’s ‘turn to deeps’ in his fiction…

“After the publication of the last Challenger Report in 1895, deep-sea biology fell out of favor with marine biologists. [… then] after 1900 deep-sea biology disappeared from the scientific stage and the lights dimmed on biological work in deep water for close to half a century […] Biology — [then in the process of] professionalizing in universities and in government — moved on the one hand toward [lab-work investigating marine] cellular structure and mechanism, and on another hand toward solving [the] practical problems of fisheries. Deep-sea biology became a side-issue, pursued by very few. […] Only after World War Two did deep-sea biology come back into favor.”