A surprising lesson from Antarctica: Life flourishes even under 500 feet of ice
When an iceberg the size of Chicago broke off from one of Antarctica's massive floating glaciers in January, a team of scientists working nearby quickly pivoted, steering their ship to explore the newly-revealed seafloor.
What they found surprised and amazed them.
“We didn’t expect to find such a beautiful, thriving ecosystem. Based on the size of the animals, the communities we observed have been there for decades, maybe even hundreds of years," said Patricia Esquete of the Centre for Environmental and Marine Studies and the Department of Biology at the University of Aveiro, Portugal.
She was part of an international team of scientists from the Schmidt Ocean Institute working in the Bellingshausen Sea. When they got word that a new iceberg, named A-84, had broken off, they shifted their work to see what was revealed on a seabed that had been covered by almost 500 feet of ice for centuries.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/surprising-lesson-antarctica-life-flourishes-100242952.html