Seamounts off the coast of Chile host a diverse, delicate ecosystem
22 FEB 20242:55 PM ETBYELI RAMOS
- 52 second video at link -
Some 3000 meters underwater off the coast of Chile, striking purple, green, and orange sponges burst from the rocks. Sea urchins with maroon spines gather in colonies, while poppy-colored crustaceans pick their way among them. Transparent, ghostly creatures undulate in the dark. A team of researchers captured these and dozens of other never-before-seen species—more than 100 in total—with a camera mounted to a deep-sea robot traversing largely explored underwater mountains, known as seamounts, with steep cliffs that rise from the sea floor.
Researchers from the Schmidt Ocean Institute recorded footage up to 4500 meters deep near the Nazca and Salas y Gómez ridges, which together stretch more than 3000 kilometers. Along with the variety of new organisms—including sponges, amphipods, urchins, crustaceans, and corals—the team mapped four seamounts in Chilean waters that were previously unknown to scientists, they report today in a press release. The tallest of these measured 3530 meters from sea floor to peak and was unofficially named Solito by the researchers.
Parts of these seamounts owe their extensive biodiversity largely to their status as protected marine parks, the researchers note. Large stretches of the region are protected by the Juan Fernández and Nazca-Desventuradas marine parks, administered by Chile. In addition to photographs, the robot also captured some of these deep-sea denizens, which will be used to identify their species or classify them as new ones. The new species could help
scientists learn more about the broader region’s intricate lineages, as well as the evolutionary twists and turns that shaped them.
https://www.science.org/content/article/massive-underwater-mountain-range-scientists-find-more-100-new-species
Eli Ramos
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