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At Kaikoura— name meaning “feast of crayfish” in Maori—mountains meet the sea, their roots reaching deep into the Pacific. The sea floor drops off sharply less than a mile (1.6 kilometers) from shore, forming a wall of the Kaikoura Canyon. This abyss is part of an enormous geologic complex whose trenches plunge as deep as 22,000 feet (6,705 meters) beneath the sea. The silt on the canyon floor periodically flows, carrying sea mud and its inhabitants on a migration through the complex. |