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How Life Thrives in One of the Most Hostile Environments on Earth
NORTHWEST PACIFIC OCEAN, JUL 30 – Researchers documented extensive chemosynthetic communities relying on methane and hydrogen sulfide at depths up to 9,533 meters, found in 19 of 24 dives across Pacific hadal trenches.
- Between July and August 2024, researchers conducted 24 dives aboard the human-occupied submersible Fendouzhe, surveying 2,500 kilometers along the Kuril-Kamchatka Trench and the western sector of the Aleutian Trench in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, reaching depths from 5,800 to 9,533 meters.
- The expedition aimed to investigate life forms in hadal trenches, partly motivated by suspicions that chemical energy sources sustain diverse ecosystems deep beneath the ocean surface.
- The team discovered flourishing chemosynthetic communities, including tubeworms and mollusks, thriving via methane and hydrogen sulfide seepage from tectonic fault lines, and employed advanced sampling, video analysis, and isotopic techniques to characterize them.
- Researchers measured organism densities by manually counting individuals within 50 by 50 cm quadrats, calibrated using a laser scale projection system; their results question previous beliefs about how abundant life can be at the greatest ocean depths, as reported in Nature.
- These discoveries suggest hadal life is more widespread and complex than previously thought, prompting future studies on adaptation mechanisms and informing predictions about climate change impacts on fragile deep-sea ecosystems.
13 Articles
13 Articles
'Communities' of strange, extreme life seen for first time in deep ocean
4 hours agoShareSaveVictoria GillScience correspondent, BBC NewsShareSaveBeds of clams, mats of bacteria that look like ice and fields of tube worms – these are just some examples of the strange, extreme life that an expedition to the deepest parts of the ocean has observed, filmed and photographed.Diving in a human-occupied submersible to ocean trenches in the northwest Pacific Ocean, a Chinese-led research team captured pictures of life at dep…
Los Angeles Times
An underwater journey has revealed a network of creatures that thrive at the bottom of deep-sea ocean graves.
On board a manned underwater vehicle, a Chinese team has found in the northwest Pacific Ocean the deepest chemosynthetic communities: they do not receive their energy from sunlight, but from chemical reactions. Read
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