Scientists expose Antarctic sea life that was trapped under ice for over 50 years

After an iceberg cracked off of the Antarctic Ice Sheet and began drifting through the Weddell Sea, researchers got a glimpse of the marine life living deep below the ice. This was exposed after five decades of ice cover. By using the German research vessel Polarstern, the researchers managed to get hours of footage and thousands of photos of the reclusive creatures living 18 miles below the surface. 

According to the reports by Live Science, the researchers discovered a community of mollusks, filter feeders, sea stars, sea cucumbers, and at least five species of fish and two squid species. German Federal Research Minister Anja Karliczek said, “It is a unique opportunity offered to researchers on board Polarstern to explore the Antarctic Ice Sheet. I am grateful to the crew of the Polarstern for taking on the associated hardships and also risks. Polar research makes a decisive contribution to better understanding and foreseeing climate change and its consequences for our earth. We need this knowledge in order to be able to take effective countermeasures against climate change. The effects of climate change in Antarctica, among others, are worrying”. 

Analysing the seafloor 

The research was essential in understanding the processes that the events set in motion. Such massive icebergs only calve roughly once every 10 years in the Antarctic. As per the AWI experts, the Antarctic is currently losing ice mass at a higher rate than before 2000. The researchers, in order to create simulations, need data from the specific regions. 

Dr Hartmut Hellmer, a physical oceanographer at the AWI and head of the expedition said, “It’s extremely fortunate that we were able to respond flexibly and explore the calving event at the Brunt Ice Shelf in such detail”. He added, “That being said, I’m even happier that we successfully replaced a number of moorings, which will continue to record elementary data on temperature, salinity, and ocean current directions and speeds once we’ve left. This data forms the basis for our simulations of how the ice sheet will respond to climate change. As a result, we can say with a higher degree of certainty how quickly the sea level will rise in the future – and provide the political community and society at large with sound data for making decisions on necessary climate change adaptation measures”.

The deep-sea research team observed numerous organisms that had settled on stones of various sizes. The stones come from the Antarctic continent and are transported to the ocean by glaciers. The majority of the organisms on them are filterers. As per AWE, in the future, new technologies like autonomous underwater robots will be used to investigate such habitats.