Have you ever cooked lunch on underwater thermal vents?

The oceans are the single most important feature of our planet - they shape the climate, our culture and our future. Yet we know more about the surface of Mars than we do about Earth’s watery depths.

The new BBC HD television series, 'Oceans', with accompanying book and DVD draw on the most exciting stories from the fields of sub-aquatic archaeology, geology, marine biology and anthropology.

To whet your appetite, we asked Paul Rose, who is a presenter on the series and one of the book’s authors, to share some of Oceans’ amazing facts with us. Over 1,000 dives, the filming produced a number of ‘firsts’ – not least the discovery of a whole new species! It’s going to be an amazing series, and a fantastic book – here are Paul’s highlights…

We all love a challenge – none more than the Oceans team – and I am convinced that we all are at our very best when we have something to push against. But how to take on the oceans? Well, spending years travelling and months waiting for the ultimate experience or filming opportunity wasn’t for us. Our approach was to go on eight ocean-based expeditions, each one crammed full of ambitious, meaningful objectives. For each voyage we had a ship, diving equipment, a great crew and about three weeks.

This expedition-based approach has enabled us to convey on a human scale the vastness of the oceans and the enormous forces of nature associated with them. It’s simple, energetic, incredibly effective and fun!

Here are some of the highlights …

Sperm whale behaviour: a world-first –Very little is known about young, unattached, male sperm whales but in the Sea of Cortez we witnessed unique behaviour that hadn’t been filmed before – of young males congregating around females.

The birth of our oceans: We explored the depths of the ‘Black Hole’ off the Bahamas, which had only been dived twice before. This deep hole in the Atlantic is a uniquely important marine science site, as the undisturbed water in it provides us with a glimpse of what all the world’s seas might have been like 3.5 billion years ago. When I emerged from the water my hair was orange and we were all ill.

Eritrea corals: another world-first: We filmed fluorescence in Eritrea corals for the very first time. The purpose of this extraordinary phenomenon remains a mystery to scientists, who still don’t know whether it is part of the corals’ survival strategy. And in these rarely-dived Red Sea waters, we found a species of coral that scientists previously didn’t know grew off Eritrea’s coast.

The power and importance of the Arctic Ocean – and a new species: We dived underneath the polar pack ice to reveal the scale of the Arctic Ocean and just how fast it is changing. In our lifetimes the Arctic Ocean will change so much that it will become unrecognisable to us, a conservative estimate is that it will ice-free by 2040 if not earlier! On one of our dives we found an undescribed species of amphipod – a great find as these tiny creatures provide a crucial link in the entire Arctic Ocean food chain.

Not only this but we also:

* Saw the most protected shipwreck in the world (that isn’t a war grave).
* Saw an underwater volcano that is claimed by three nations and was bombed in 1986 by the Americans, who thought it was a submarine.
* Dived with indigenous people, the Seri Indians in the Sea of Cortez using home built dive gear of paint spray compressors and a beer barrel, connected to the diver by 50 metres of garden hose.
* Cooked lunch on underwater thermal vents

How we did it…

* Over 1000 dives
* Over 700 hours underwater
* 8 expedition ships – which ranged from a beautiful hand-built yacht, to a worn-out converted cargo ship, and finally a brilliant Norwegian icebreaker.
* Our 30 people travelled the world with 2 tons of equipment which we packed, carried, shipped, assembled, repaired loved and hated

BBC News; Grasping the scale of Earth's oceans

Paul Rose - Presenter and author of Oceans