Antarctic sponges discovered under the ice shelf perplex scientists
The accidental discovery of strange life forms on a boulder beneath the ice shelves of the Antarctic has confounded scientists
© Dr Huw Griffiths/British Antarctic Survey Researchers drill boreholes and lower down cameras to observe what's happening below the huge mass of ice.
By Dominic Rech, CNN
Researchers were drilling through 900 meters of ice in the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf, situated on the southeastern Weddell Sea, when they stumbled upon unexpected creatures "firmly attached to a rock," living in the darkness and subzero temperatures.
A collection of stationary animals — sponges and potentially several previously unknown species — were among the discoveries.
Animals like these aren't expected to live in these extreme locations, because they are so far from sunlight and any obvious source of food.
It was "a genuine surprise to see these animals there," said marine biologist Huw Griffiths, lead author of a new study documenting the discovery. "It's about 160 kilometers further under the ice shelf than we had ever seen a sponge before."
The accidental discovery was made by a team of geologists, who were drilling through the ice to collect mud samples but came across the rock harboring these strange creatures.
The area beneath giant floating ice shelves is one of the least known habitats on Earth.
To get a glance at what is happening below a huge mass of ice, boreholes are drilled through it and cameras lowered down. The total area that humans have seen below the ice shelves adds up to about the size of a tennis court, according to Griffiths, who has worked with the British Antarctic Survey for more than 20 years.
Finding the sponges in this remote location, Griffiths said, was what made this discovery particularly perplexing.
If there was lots of sunlight and an abundance of food, filter-feeding animals like these would usually dominate, Griffiths said. In deep seas with a limited food supply, you're more likely to find crabs and mobile animals that scavenge for food, he added.
"Somehow, some really specialized members of the filter-feeding community can survive," he said. "They could be brand-new species or they could just be incredibly hardy version of what normally lives in Antarctica — we just don't know. My guess would be that they are potentially a new species."
Griffiths explained, "If they are living somewhere as tough as this, they are probably specially adapted to being there. There is a good chance they might go weeks, months and years without food — you have to be pretty hardy to cope with that."
This could be an opportunity to learn from these "hardy" organisms and how they survive in extreme conditions — be it for medical, engineering or other scientific purposes, he said.
Smarter technology and ideas are needed to get closer to these animals, he said, and more research is required to really get a better and bigger picture of what's going on beneath the ice.
"It's this idea that there is a whole world that we know nothing about. The idea that there are lots more of these rocks down there. ... That would constitute a huge habitat that we didn't know existed," Griffiths said.
"There are so many questions. There is life on Earth that isn't playing by the rules that biologists understand."
By Dominic Rech, CNN
Researchers were drilling through 900 meters of ice in the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf, situated on the southeastern Weddell Sea, when they stumbled upon unexpected creatures "firmly attached to a rock," living in the darkness and subzero temperatures.
A collection of stationary animals — sponges and potentially several previously unknown species — were among the discoveries.
Animals like these aren't expected to live in these extreme locations, because they are so far from sunlight and any obvious source of food.
It was "a genuine surprise to see these animals there," said marine biologist Huw Griffiths, lead author of a new study documenting the discovery. "It's about 160 kilometers further under the ice shelf than we had ever seen a sponge before."
The accidental discovery was made by a team of geologists, who were drilling through the ice to collect mud samples but came across the rock harboring these strange creatures.
The area beneath giant floating ice shelves is one of the least known habitats on Earth.
To get a glance at what is happening below a huge mass of ice, boreholes are drilled through it and cameras lowered down. The total area that humans have seen below the ice shelves adds up to about the size of a tennis court, according to Griffiths, who has worked with the British Antarctic Survey for more than 20 years.
Finding the sponges in this remote location, Griffiths said, was what made this discovery particularly perplexing.
If there was lots of sunlight and an abundance of food, filter-feeding animals like these would usually dominate, Griffiths said. In deep seas with a limited food supply, you're more likely to find crabs and mobile animals that scavenge for food, he added.
"Somehow, some really specialized members of the filter-feeding community can survive," he said. "They could be brand-new species or they could just be incredibly hardy version of what normally lives in Antarctica — we just don't know. My guess would be that they are potentially a new species."
Griffiths explained, "If they are living somewhere as tough as this, they are probably specially adapted to being there. There is a good chance they might go weeks, months and years without food — you have to be pretty hardy to cope with that."
This could be an opportunity to learn from these "hardy" organisms and how they survive in extreme conditions — be it for medical, engineering or other scientific purposes, he said.
Smarter technology and ideas are needed to get closer to these animals, he said, and more research is required to really get a better and bigger picture of what's going on beneath the ice.
"It's this idea that there is a whole world that we know nothing about. The idea that there are lots more of these rocks down there. ... That would constitute a huge habitat that we didn't know existed," Griffiths said.
"There are so many questions. There is life on Earth that isn't playing by the rules that biologists understand."
© Dr Huw Griffiths/British Antarctic Survey Shown are the stationary animals inhabiting the boulder's surface that were discovered by scientists.
© Dr Huw Griffiths/British Antarctic Survey Geologists, who were drilling through ice in the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf on the Weddell Sea, came across this rock harboring sponges and potentially several previously unknown species.
Scientists find unexpected animal life far beneath Antarctica’s floating ice shelves
“Life finds a way,” the actor Jeff Goldblum playing scientist Ian Malcolm declared in the 1993 movie “Jurassic Park.”
© Provided by NBC News
Animal life was not what scientists were expecting to find in the pitch-black seawater beneath almost half a mile of floating Antarctic ice, but it seems to have found a way with the discovery of sea creatures living in the extreme environment.
Geologists taking sediment cores from the seafloor beneath the giant Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf on the southern edge of Antarctica’s Weddell Sea discovered what biologists believe are types of sponge. The finding was published Monday in Frontiers in Marine Science.
The geologists were more than 150 miles from the open ocean when they bored a hole through the 3,000-foot-thick ice with a hot-water drill and lowered a coring device and a video camera into the dark seawater below it.
They had expected the seafloor to be mud, but were dismayed when they hit a boulder, which meant they couldn’t get the intended sediment samples. But to their surprise, the camera showed colonies of “stationary” animals attached to the rock – probably sponges and related sea creatures.
© British Antarctic Survey Sponges and potentially several previously unknown species attached to a boulder on the sea floor (British Antarctic Survey)
“It was a bit of a disappointment to them – they’d spent weeks getting there and it didn’t work,” said marine biologist Huw Griffiths of the British Antarctic Survey, who is the lead author of the published study. “But for [biologists], it is amazing because no one has ever seen these [organisms] before.”
Antarctica is ringed with more than half a million square miles of ice shelves – the Filchner-Ronne is one of the largest, covering more than 160,000 square miles – but boreholes have revealed an area of seafloor beneath them only the size of a tennis court. “It’s a huge area, but we have a tiny widow into it,” Griffiths said.
© British Antarctic Survey After lowering the sediment corer through the borehole, the scientists then lowered it through about 1,600 feet of seawater below the floating ice shelf. (British Antarctic Survey)
Small mobile animals such as shrimp and crustaceans called sea fleas have been seen before beneath ice shelves, but no one expected to see stationary animals like these. “The only things you would expect to find … are things that can wander around and find food,” he said. “Whereas if you’re stuck to a rock and you’re waiting for food to come to you, then the one bit that comes past this year could go past you.”
The bloblike protrusions seen in the right of the video are clearly a type of sponge, while the stalked creatures on the left are similar to some other sponges found near the Antarctic, he said. There are also indications other animals may be fixed to the boulder, such as tube worms, stalked barnacles, or hydroids, which are related to jellyfish.
In order to survive, the organisms would have to feed on floating material from other animals or plants, because it is impossible for plants to photosynthesize in the sunless seawater. While the boulder is located about 150 miles from the ocean, the direction of the currents beneath the ice shelf suggests the nearest plant life is up to 1,000 miles away, Griffiths said.
But the question of how these animals get food will have to wait until another scientific expedition can visit the spot, perhaps equipped with a remotely operated underwater vehicle that can recover samples of the animals.
“All the ingredients for life exist beneath ice shelves,” said John Priscu, a professor of polar ecology at Montana State University, who has studied life under polar ice for almost 40 years but who was not involved in the latest study.
© British Antarctic Survey After drilling out the borehole, the scientists lowered a sediment corer and an attached video camera through the ice shelf. (British Antarctic Survey)
It seems the animals attached to the boulder drifted there as microscopic larvae, and then grew into their adult forms: “life is everywhere and the environment selects the species that eventually thrive.”
A future stage will be to determine if the animals are similar to those in the open ocean, or if they had evolved to live where they are now, Priscu said in an email. “[If] the organisms evolved to live beneath ice shelves, they may provide us with a molecular clock that can be used to gauge past climate driven changes in Antarctic ice.”
The discovery shows that life can exist in environments where science suggests it should not: “There are still things that we have to learn,” Griffiths said. “There are still animals out there that can break the rules that we have written for them.”
“Life finds a way,” the actor Jeff Goldblum playing scientist Ian Malcolm declared in the 1993 movie “Jurassic Park.”
© Provided by NBC News
Animal life was not what scientists were expecting to find in the pitch-black seawater beneath almost half a mile of floating Antarctic ice, but it seems to have found a way with the discovery of sea creatures living in the extreme environment.
Geologists taking sediment cores from the seafloor beneath the giant Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf on the southern edge of Antarctica’s Weddell Sea discovered what biologists believe are types of sponge. The finding was published Monday in Frontiers in Marine Science.
The geologists were more than 150 miles from the open ocean when they bored a hole through the 3,000-foot-thick ice with a hot-water drill and lowered a coring device and a video camera into the dark seawater below it.
They had expected the seafloor to be mud, but were dismayed when they hit a boulder, which meant they couldn’t get the intended sediment samples. But to their surprise, the camera showed colonies of “stationary” animals attached to the rock – probably sponges and related sea creatures.
© British Antarctic Survey Sponges and potentially several previously unknown species attached to a boulder on the sea floor (British Antarctic Survey)
“It was a bit of a disappointment to them – they’d spent weeks getting there and it didn’t work,” said marine biologist Huw Griffiths of the British Antarctic Survey, who is the lead author of the published study. “But for [biologists], it is amazing because no one has ever seen these [organisms] before.”
Antarctica is ringed with more than half a million square miles of ice shelves – the Filchner-Ronne is one of the largest, covering more than 160,000 square miles – but boreholes have revealed an area of seafloor beneath them only the size of a tennis court. “It’s a huge area, but we have a tiny widow into it,” Griffiths said.
© British Antarctic Survey After lowering the sediment corer through the borehole, the scientists then lowered it through about 1,600 feet of seawater below the floating ice shelf. (British Antarctic Survey)
Small mobile animals such as shrimp and crustaceans called sea fleas have been seen before beneath ice shelves, but no one expected to see stationary animals like these. “The only things you would expect to find … are things that can wander around and find food,” he said. “Whereas if you’re stuck to a rock and you’re waiting for food to come to you, then the one bit that comes past this year could go past you.”
The bloblike protrusions seen in the right of the video are clearly a type of sponge, while the stalked creatures on the left are similar to some other sponges found near the Antarctic, he said. There are also indications other animals may be fixed to the boulder, such as tube worms, stalked barnacles, or hydroids, which are related to jellyfish.
In order to survive, the organisms would have to feed on floating material from other animals or plants, because it is impossible for plants to photosynthesize in the sunless seawater. While the boulder is located about 150 miles from the ocean, the direction of the currents beneath the ice shelf suggests the nearest plant life is up to 1,000 miles away, Griffiths said.
But the question of how these animals get food will have to wait until another scientific expedition can visit the spot, perhaps equipped with a remotely operated underwater vehicle that can recover samples of the animals.
“All the ingredients for life exist beneath ice shelves,” said John Priscu, a professor of polar ecology at Montana State University, who has studied life under polar ice for almost 40 years but who was not involved in the latest study.
© British Antarctic Survey After drilling out the borehole, the scientists lowered a sediment corer and an attached video camera through the ice shelf. (British Antarctic Survey)
It seems the animals attached to the boulder drifted there as microscopic larvae, and then grew into their adult forms: “life is everywhere and the environment selects the species that eventually thrive.”
A future stage will be to determine if the animals are similar to those in the open ocean, or if they had evolved to live where they are now, Priscu said in an email. “[If] the organisms evolved to live beneath ice shelves, they may provide us with a molecular clock that can be used to gauge past climate driven changes in Antarctic ice.”
The discovery shows that life can exist in environments where science suggests it should not: “There are still things that we have to learn,” Griffiths said. “There are still animals out there that can break the rules that we have written for them.”
Video shows discovery of sea-sponges living nearly half a mile beneath Antarctica ice
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