The scientific goal of the burial at sea was to create a place that researchers can spend years monitoring the biology of a "whale fall."

Scripps scientists, in association with the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, discovered the worms living upon whale carcasses that had fallen to the ocean floor off Monterey, Calif. These "whale falls" spawn unique communities of marine animals that can feed off the carcass for decades.

Second, these "whale falls" had to be common enough to cover the vast area between vents densely and thus provide a practical route of traveling from one tiny spot to another in an enormous ocean.