In another comment on this thread, in another context, I mentioned the architect, Eugene Tsui. He designed a house based on the tardigrade, which is apparently "the world's most durable organism". This relates to your comment because one way to study the oceans is to use examples from other species, such as the tardigrade, a tiny animal which "can withstand pressure of 6,000 atmospheres, which is nearly six times the pressure of water in the deepest ocean trench." We should be able to figure out how they can do this, and then apply the knowledge to our explorations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tardigrade http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Tsui