New research shows that deep beneath the frozen Antarctic ice shelf, there is more life than we thought.
In an exploratory survey, scientists drilled through 900m of ice in the Filchner-Ronne ice shelf located southeast of the Weddell Sea, according to a study recently published in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science. At a location 260km above the surface of the open ocean, under intense darkness and -2.2 degrees Celsius, it is almost impossible to find any animals that can live in this condition.
This community of organisms may be 1,500km from the nearest source of photosynthesis. (Illustration).
However, this study is the first to detect the existence of non-moving animals, similar to sponges. This species clings to a rock on the seabed.
Dr Huw Griffiths, a biogeographer with the British Antarctic Survey, said: ‘This discovery is one of those lucky coincidences that has shown us exceptional Antarctic marine life. and how incredible it is because of its ability to adapt to icy environments.”
According to Griffiths, the findings raise more questions. For example, how did this species get there? What do they eat? How long have they been there? How many rocks of this type have such creatures clinging to? Are they the same species we see off the ice shelf or are they new? What happens to them if the ice shelf collapses?
Floating ice shelves are the area with the most unexplored life in the Antarctic Ocean. The ice shelf covers more than 1.5 million square kilometers of the Antarctic continental shelf, but humans have only studied an area the size of a tennis court through eight previously drilled holes.
Current hypotheses and what life forms may exist under the ice shelf suggest that the deeper you go, the further away you are from light and open water, the less life there is. Previous studies have found certain types of carnivores and small carnivores, such as fish, worms, jellyfish or krill in these environments. However, it is thought that organisms that rely on food above to survive will be the first to disappear if they go deeper than the ice.
So the team of geologists was surprised when they drilled through the ice to collect sediment samples, and they bumped into rocks instead of mud on the ocean floor. They were even more surprised when through the video, they saw a large rock covered by this strange creature.
This is the first time that a community of hard substrates has been discovered deep beneath the ice shelf, and it seems to contradict all previous assumptions about what kind of life might exist there.
Considering the runoff in the area, the researchers calculated that this community of organisms could be 1,500km from the nearest photosynthetic source. Other organisms normally derive their nutrients from melting ice or chemicals from percolating methane, but researchers can’t learn more about the newly discovered organisms until they have tools to collect their samples. they. This is a big challenge.
“To answer the question, we will have to find a way to get closer to these species and their habitats,” said Griffiths. That’s 900m above the ice, 260km from our ship. This means that polar scientists will have to find new ways to study them.”
Griffiths and his team also note that as the climate crisis unfolds and the ice shelves are increasingly collapsing, the time to study and protect these ecosystems is running out.