SEATTLE - Scientists at the University of Washington plan to dig deeper into the mysteries of the ocean by building the world's largest underwater laboratory.

The National Science foundation will help fund the $130 million lab named "Neptune". If all goes to plan, the Neptune should be up and running in six years.

When UW oceanographers dropped a high-definition cameras captured a spectacular site - eruptions of underweater volcanoes more than 7,000 feet down on the floor of the Juan de Fuca plate.

What if they could that anytime they want? That's the dream of John Delaney, the UW oceanographer leading the Neptune project.

"Through robots and sensors and cameras and very sophisticated instruments, we will actually be able to project a human presence throughout the entire volume of the ocean," Delaney said.

Just off the coast, Neptune would cover the ocean bottom with 850 miles of cable, capturing and feeding live video and data live over the internet back to the scientists on land. A group from the University of Victoria is working on a similar project to the north.

UW engineer Gary Harkins says the constructing the underwater lab may pose some new challenges.

"As an engineer we've made a lot of components that go into the system, but we've never faced a situation where we had to put them all together under 10,000 feet of water," he said.

Neptune will help scientists better understand a number of natural phenomena, from earthquakes to weather patterns. By learning about creatures that thrive in the extreme deep-ocean environment, scientists believe they could even develop new medicines.

"Turns out we know more about the surface of Mars than we do about the sea floor right now," said UW oceanographer Deborah Kelley. "It's an amazing place. There's a lot of life down there that we know almost nothing about."

But with the eyes and ears of Neptune on the job, the deep sea may finally give up some of its mysteries.