Abstract
The deep sea remains the least known biome. Despite this fact, anthropic activities have affected these regions in various ways. The objective of this study was to outline the scientific production scenario based on deep sea research and to analyze trends present in the literature. For this, the bibliographical resources available from the Web of Science (WoS) were surveyed. Between 1987 and 2016, 11,079 articles on the deep sea were published. Growth was over 100% from the first to second decade and 75% from the second to third. The most productive countries were the USA, Germany, France, England and Japan. Of the 404 journals that published articles on the deep sea, 10% accounted for approximately 60% of the total published articles. The keyword with the highest occurrence was "diversity". In the first two decades, the keywords with the greatest "strength" were related to research on mining, especially for hydrocarbons. The description of new species and the analysis of the effects of climate change appear to be emerging trends in deep sea research. Mining continues to be primarily responsible for driving the development of deep sea research.
Highlights
The bathymetric upper limit of the area known as the “deep sea” has historically been considered to be at the break of the continental shelf, approximately 200 m in depth (Sumida 2009)
A depth of 500 m was adopted by the World Register of Deep-Sea Species (WoRDSS) database for the inclusion of records of pelagic or benthic species, as it is the depth at which the influence of sunlight and the seasonal variation in physical parameters become minimal (Glover et al 2017)
The Web of Science (WoS) database was used because of its global coverage and because it is recognized for the analysis of data and the production of indicators
Summary
The bathymetric upper limit of the area known as the “deep sea” has historically been considered to be at the break of the continental shelf, approximately 200 m in depth (Sumida 2009). A depth of 500 m was adopted by the World Register of Deep-Sea Species (WoRDSS) database for the inclusion of records of pelagic or benthic species, as it is the depth at which the influence of sunlight and the seasonal variation in physical parameters become minimal (Glover et al 2017). The surface of the deep sea is less well known than that of the Moon (Danovaro et al 2017a)
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