by From Will Dunham
(Reuters) Showers who dive in two oceanic trenches in the northwestern Pacific have discovered flourishing communities of sea creatures that do not receive their food through the food of organic matter like most animals, but by transforming chemicals into energy.
They found these chemosynthesis -based animal communities – dominated by pipeworms and mussels – during a series of dives on board an occupation that are immersed in the bottom of the Kuril Kamchatka and alarms. These creatures are nourished by liquids that are rich in hydrogen sulfide and methane that in this dark and cold empire seeps out of the sea floor outside the range of the sunlight.
These ecosystems were discovered in depths that are larger than the height of the highest summit on earth. The deepest was 9,533 meters (31,276 feet) below the surface of the sea in the Kuril-Kamchatka-Graben. This was almost 25% lower when such animals had previously been documented everywhere.
“What makes our discovery groundbreaking is not just its greater depth – it is the amazing abundance and diversity of chemosynthetic life we have observed,” said Marine Geochemist Mengran du of the Institute for Science and Engineering of Tiefse Journal of Nature in the journal Research are involved, published in the diary.
“In contrast to isolated organisms, this community meets like a lively oasis in the vastness of the deep sea,” you added.
While some marine animals were documented in even larger depths, almost 11,000 meters (36,000 feet) below the surface in the Mariana ditch of the Pacific, these were not chemical eaters.
In the new research, the scientists used their diving machine, which are called Fendouzhe to travel to the so -called Hadal zone. In the Hadal zone, one of the continent size is plated, from which the crust of the earth slips in a process as a subduction under a neighboring plate.
“The ocean environment below is characterized by cold, total darkness and active tectonic activities,” said Idsse Marine Geologist and studies co-author Xiaotong Peng, head of the research program.
In this environment it was found that Peng “the deepest and most extensive chemosynthetic communities that are known to exist on our planet”.
The Kuril-Kamchatka-Graben runs about 2,900 km and is located off the southeast of the Kamchatka Peninsula. The Aleuten trench runs about 3,400 km off the southern coast of Alaska and the Aleuten.
The newly observed ecosystems were dominated by two types of chemical-eating animals, which were red, gray or white, and about 20-30 cm long and mussels that were white and up to 23 cm (nine inches) long. Some of them seem to be unknown species, you said.
“Although these life forms lived in the hardest environment, they found themselves in the way to survive and flourish,” said you.
Some non-chemical-eating animals, which were maintained by eating organic substances and dead marine creatures, which were filtered from above, were also lived in these ecosystems, including sea anemones, spoon worms and sea cucumbers.
You, the chief scientist of the expedition, described how it was to visit this remote aqueous sphere.
“Diving in the diving areas was an exceptional experience -as time has traveled through time. Every descent transported me to a new deep sea, as if I revealed a hidden world and struggled to,” said, while he said about the remarkable resilience and beauty of the creatures that the scientists experienced.
The study shows how life can thrive in some of the most extreme conditions in the world – and possibly beyond.
“These results expand the depth limit of the chemosynthetic communities on earth. Future works should concentrate on how these creatures adapt to such extreme depth,” said Peng.
“We suggest that similar chemosynthetic communities can also exist in extraterrestrial oceans, since chemical species such as methane and hydrogen often occur there,” added Peng.
(Dunham reporting in Washington, editing of Rosalba O’Brien)
