Scientists believed that this is the sea floor in Antarctica. But she is filled with life

When the crew learned on the ocean science journey that the iceberg of Chicago was separated from the ice shelf in Antarctica, they knew that they had to stop what they were doing immediately and verify that.

After all, it provided a unique opportunity to explore the sea floor in an area of ​​the ocean before to humans.

Despite their enthusiasm, the team at the Schmidt Ocean Institute’s ship did not believe that they would find a lot of life under ice, out of the reach of the sun.

It turns out, they were wrong.

Patricia Escoye, the campaign’s chief scientist at the time of discovery, says the first image that reached the ship’s control room from the team vehicle that is running away from a large sponge with crabs crawling on it.

“It was a lot of excitement. ” As it happens Host Nil Köksal. “Then, hour and day after day, we continued to see more.”

Esquete and its colleagues have documented an amazing fertile and varied marine ecosystem, which includes coral reefs, sponge, fish, giant marine spiders, octopus, and more, some of which are likely to be new in science.

But it is still ambiguous how a lot of life can flourish in the depths of the dark ocean, about 1300 meters under the George VI ice shelf, one of the huge floating ice rivers associated with the island’s ice dish in the Antarctic.

It is also not clear what will happen to this ecosystem that was mainly changed due to the loss of this ice.

“It is a very interesting discovery and I cannot wait to see all the new species that have been discovered and understand what preserves biological diversity in these ecosystems,” said Guadalopy Prayesca.

Esquete, a deep environment scientist and a classification scientist from Aveiro University in Portugal, says that the crew was exploring the floors of the ocean in the sea of ​​Bellingshausen along the western side of the Antarctica Peninsula in January when they saw, through satellite images, that a new ice was separated from George VI.

“We immediately knew that we had to go there and explore this particular area,” she said. “Our expectations were a very poor environmental system because, as you know, a marine ecosystem is usually fed through sun energy.”

This is true even in the deepest depths, as the nutrients of light organisms are slowly raining to maintain ecosystems below.

But for centuries, this area was about 150 meters ice covered. Before that, the ice was so dense that it did not touch the ocean floor.

“This means that optical representation cannot happen … and that food will not be produced,” Escoye said. “So we were expecting some of the forms of life fed by food that is transferred sideways by currents, but we did not expect much.”

If food and energy are not raining from the top, what is it running and feeding this life that is filled with life?

“This will really be the most exciting research that we can do,” Escoye said.

The team collected pictures, as well as some samples and geological samples. She said that scientists will look at the geology of the region, as well as the peripheral currents, to try to get rid of “how the entire system works”.

But the first step, says Esquete, will be the classification of all the creatures they noticed.

She said: “Therefore, a complete morphological study for all the species we found, then genetic analysis.”

Dozens of them are suspected of being new in science.

“we They were in a very little explosive area. We know that when you explore the deep sea, when you try the depths of the sea, you will always find new types. “

While Mount ice fades when and where he did so was the coincidence of the crew, it did not come out of any place. The ice cover was dissolved and shrinking for decades due to climate change.

The biologist at Victoria Naval University, Verina Tonkleviv, who has not participated in the campaign, is wondering how this newly discovered ecosystem will change now after it has been exposed.

“They have seized an extraordinary opportunity to explore a world that has been hidden under the very thick ice for thousands of years,” said Tonkleviv, a research head in Canada in Deep Ocean.

“This campaign is able to create a set of” baseline “data: original habitats and ecological system. How will it change now the curtain is withdrawn again? We hope that it will remain available in the coming years to measure changes, and thus understand the unique conditions under the thick ice.”

Esquete, at the same time, is excited to detect some marine puzzles.

“What makes it possible is that the group of life is something that we really want to discover,” she said.