Follow-up – WAA
Marine probes sent to a deep-sea watermount have revealed a previously unknown pristine ecosystem 900 miles (1,448 km) off the coast of Chile..
The 28-day expedition to the submerged mountain, part of the Nazca chain that runs along the deep Peru-Chile Trench, documented 20 entirely new sea creatures, including a new scorpionfish and a rare blue octopus..
Jotika Virmani, Executive Director of the Institute, said: Schmidt For the oceans: “Only 26% of the seafloor has been surveyed at this high resolution.”“.
“Given how little is known about this area, much of what we discovered there is new to science,” said Tomer Keter, a scientist involved in the expedition. “These benthic communities are surprisingly diverse and healthy.”“.
Using underwater robots, including remotely controlled vehicles (ROV) SuBastianThe research team was able to map the massive mountain, and photograph some of the life forms thriving there..
He uncovered a coral garden “the size of three tennis courts”, and found that these deep-sea corals provide shelter to a range of unusual organisms, including rockfish, brittle starfish and king crabs..
The team also captured the first ever camera footage of a squid. Promachoteuthis Alive, as it was noted that this genus of squid is extremely rare..
It is worth noting that this is the third expedition conducted in the region this year, as the previous two expeditions in January and February documented more than 150 new species..
The institute was able to Schmidtled by the research vehicle “Falcor (two)”, added about 200 new species to the 1,019 previously known species living in this part of the Pacific Ocean, in the past year alone..
However, it may take years for many of these sightings to be officially added to the World Register of Marine Species and other databases, as fully developed, scientifically confirmed new creatures..
Professor Alex David Rogers, Director of Science at the University of Oxford, said: Ocean Censuswho collaborated on the project, said his team is already confident that many of these new species will one day be fully confirmed by the scientific community..
Source: Agencies