That there is life around thermal vents on the bottom of the ocean probably won't surprise you but the variety of it may. (Science Daily: Exciting new creatures discovered on ocean floor)
Chimney Jabberwocky.
Credit: Image courtesy of University of Southampton
"Jabberwocky" was the name of the poem and not the beastie but they're scientists, forgive them.
So long as we're popping bubbles, you can't get twenty thousand leagues under the sea either. The best you can do is barely two. If you went down twenty thousand leagues, you would come out the other side of Earth and keep on going.
It's a medium bubble burster that I didn't really get why creatures don't get crushed down there. I knew they don't carry bubbles inside them but I thought water would have to equalize. It doesn't since it doesn't change in size when the pressure increases so the cells don't get crushed nor explode. There's more to it than that but now it makes sense to me.
The unique marine life was discovered around hydrothermal vents at a place called Longqi ('Dragon's Breath'), 2000 kilometres southeast of Madagascar and is described in the journal Scientific Reports.
A research team, led by Dr Jon Copley, explored an area the size of a football stadium on the ocean floor, pinpointing the locations of more than a dozen mineral spires known as 'vent chimneys'. These spires, many of which rise more than two storeys above the seabed, are rich in copper and gold that is now attracting interest for future seafloor mining. However, the spires are also festooned with deep-sea animals, nourished by hot fluids gushing out of the vent chimneys.
The team, which includes colleagues at the Natural History Museum in London and Newcastle University, carried out genetic comparisons with other species and populations elsewhere to show that several species at Longqi are not yet recorded from anywhere else in the world's oceans.
Chimney Jabberwocky.
"Jabberwocky" was the name of the poem and not the beastie but they're scientists, forgive them.
So long as we're popping bubbles, you can't get twenty thousand leagues under the sea either. The best you can do is barely two. If you went down twenty thousand leagues, you would come out the other side of Earth and keep on going.
It's a medium bubble burster that I didn't really get why creatures don't get crushed down there. I knew they don't carry bubbles inside them but I thought water would have to equalize. It doesn't since it doesn't change in size when the pressure increases so the cells don't get crushed nor explode. There's more to it than that but now it makes sense to me.
In the movie, Alice had to kill the Jabberwock and that could easily happen here since trawlers destroy the seabed and they're itching to get into this area. For the moment they cannot because scientists have not completed their assessment of the potential damage.
- Insert lengthy editorial about how trawlers are not fishermen but destroyers of benthic life -
Scientists at the University of Southampton have discovered six new animal species in undersea hot springs 2.8 kilometres deep in the southwest Indian Ocean.
The unique marine life was discovered around hydrothermal vents at a place called Longqi ('Dragon's Breath'), 2000 kilometres southeast of Madagascar and is described in the journal Scientific Reports.
A research team, led by Dr Jon Copley, explored an area the size of a football stadium on the ocean floor, pinpointing the locations of more than a dozen mineral spires known as 'vent chimneys'. These spires, many of which rise more than two storeys above the seabed, are rich in copper and gold that is now attracting interest for future seafloor mining. However, the spires are also festooned with deep-sea animals, nourished by hot fluids gushing out of the vent chimneys.
The team, which includes colleagues at the Natural History Museum in London and Newcastle University, carried out genetic comparisons with other species and populations elsewhere to show that several species at Longqi are not yet recorded from anywhere else in the world's oceans.
- Science Daily
Read the article for the fullness of it but the excerpt summarizes the situation.
There's been a general theme lately of life will find a way but we will add an extension of no matter how weird that way may be.
Just because we love you, here's another Jabberwock:
- John Tenniel
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