Scientists find fish 740 m beneath Antarctic ice shelf
Digital Reporter
Saturday, January 24, 2015, 10:21 AM - When a pale fish swims into view in the video above, the assembled scientists clearly break out in cheers.
Why the hullabaloo? It's because that fish, found almost three quarters of a kilometre beneath an Antarctic ice shelf, wasn't an expected find in one of the most life-hostile environments on Earth.
Scientists with the Whillians Ice Stream Subglacial Access Research Drilling Project (WISSARD), funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) through the U.S. Antarctic Program, used a hot-water drill to bore 740 m beneath the Ross Ice Shelf earlier this month, at about the point where the ice sheet, the ocean and the land meet.
According to this review in Scientific American, the robot they sent down to survey the sea floor sighted the fish, and counted "20 or 30" more, along with two other kinds of fish and a few dozen shrimp-like crustaceans.
Image credit: WISSARD / NSF
All this in water averaging -2oC in temperature, and completely dark, conditions not believed to be conducive to ecosystems including species as large as fish.
The researchers say the discovery could shed light on how life can thrive in extreme landscapes. The NSF says while fish aren't unknown beneath the ice sheets of Antarctica, this is the furthest south they've ever been found.
But there's a climate change aspect also. The area where the floating ice sheet meets the land beneath it, known as the "grounding zone," can be affected by warming ocean waters entering the area, possibly causing melting at the ice shelf's base, but also impacting what scientists now know is an unexpectedly thriving ecosystem.
Get the full report from the NSF here.
WATCH BELOW: First footage of deep sea, mega-mouthed monstrosity:
