EALING: Stunned researchers in Antarctica have discovered fish, crustaceans and jellyfish in a cold and dark underwater world of Antarctica, where a never-ending rain of rocks keeps the seafloor barren.The researchers used a submersible camera after drilling through nearly 2,500 feet of Antarctic ice.
According to lawek Tulaczyk, a glaciologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz and a chief scientist on the drilling project, they found the ecosystem beneath the Ross Ice Shelf, 530 miles (850 kilometers) from the open ocean.
Tulaczyk describe the place as one of the world’s most extreme ecosystems.
Tulaczyk and his team worked with the Whillans Ice Stream Subglacial Access Research Drilling (WISSARD) to drill holes through the ice shelf. They discovered the marine habitat on January 8.
With the remote camera that the researchers are using, they snapped a video of the fish and amphipods living underneath. One species they found was these translucent pink fish, which are about 8 inches (20 centimeters) long.
Tulaczyk said that, “Forms of life that are sedentary will be stoned to death. The only things that can successfully explore food resources are things that can swim.”
The scientists believe that the debris might be the one delivering nutrients to the fishes with its carbon-rich marine sediments.
“It could be we’re looking at an old ecosystem eroding from the ice,” Tulaczyk explained.
In addition, the researchers also took samples of the sediment and seawater to investigate the effect of rising ocean temperature to the Antarctica’s ice.
