In the ocean, it never stops snowing. The ‘snow’ is a shower of dead microscopic organisms, faeces, mucous, fish scales and other organic detritus, falling constantly to the inky depths.
On the way down, much is captured by filter-feeding animals, with the rest settling on the ocean floor as a thick, oozy layer of silt. It is ‘manna from heaven’ for deep-sea urchins, worms and other creatures. Marine snow, by cycling carbon through different layers of the ocean, is what enables most deep-sea communities to exist.