A recent discovery was made in the deep ocean as of recently: a teeming ecosystem of organisms in one of the deepest reaches of the ocean. A recent submersible expedition to the bottom of found astounding findings as ABC News described that “Researchers traveling along the Kuril–Kamchatka and Aleutian trenches in the northwest Pacific Ocean used a submersible to find tubeworms and mollusks flourishing at over 31,000 feet (9.5 kilometers) deep. The deepest part of the ocean goes down to about 36,000 feet (11 kilometers).”
Prior findings suggested that only small microbes thrived at such depths, but not much else was known about the existence of larger marine life at those depths until this recent discovery was made. “Look how many there are, look how deep they are,” said deep sea microbiologist Julie Huber, “They don’t all look the same and they’re in a place that we haven’t had good access to before.”
The wide range of organisms that were found utilize chemosynthesis, which is a process often used by deep sea organisms to gather energy from a wide variety of chemicals that seep from the ocean floor rather than energy that moves its way up in the food chain and originates from the sun. According to MSN, marine geochemist Mengran Du stated that “What makes our discovery groundbreaking is not just its greater depth—it’s the astonishing abundance and diversity of chemosynthetic life we observed.” Further study and exploration into the unknown may just uncover more about the ocean depths that we are still yet completely unaware of.
