  We investigate the 3-dimensional Edwards-Anderson spin glass model at low
temperature on simple cubic lattices of sizes up to L=12. Our findings show a
strong continuity among T>0 physical features and those found previously at
T=0, leading to a scenario with emerging mean field like characteristics that
are enhanced in the large volume limit. For instance, the picture of space
filling sponges seems to survive in the large volume limit at T>0, while
entropic effects play a crucial role in determining the free-energy degeneracy
of our finite volume states. All of our analysis is applied to equilibrium
configurations obtained by a parallel tempering on 512 different disorder
realizations. First, we consider the spatial properties of the sites where
pairs of independent spin configurations differ and we introduce a modified
spin overlap distribution which exhibits a non-trivial limit for large L.
Second, after removing the Z_2 (+-1) symmetry, we cluster spin configurations
into valleys. On average these valleys have free-energy differences of O(1),
but a difference in the (extensive) internal energy that grows significantly
with L; there is thus a large interplay between energy and entropy
fluctuations. We also find that valleys typically differ by sponge-like space
filling clusters, just as found previously for low-energy system-size
excitations above the ground state.
