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| Photo at courtesy of sams.ac.uk |
Robots have been
custom built by scientists from the Oban-based Scottish Association for Marine
Science (SAMS) to explore the deepest parts of the ocean to discover details on
how life is sustained in that environment.
The research team will
be led by Professor Ronnie Glud and SAMS will study and sample organisms in
their own environment (in situ),
thousands of metres below the surface.
These extreme regions
of the ocean are known as 'hadal zones' and occur as a result of one tectonic
plate sliding under another to form a deep trench in the seafloor.
Three purpose-built
robots are required for the Hades Project and will operate at depths of up to
11 kilometres.
Previous expeditions
led by Professor Glud have revealed notably high levels of biological activity
at these depths.
But how is life
sustained in these extreme conditions? Furthermore, how does its activity
affect the biogeochemical functioning of the oceans and the Earth? That's what
the Hades Project aims to find out.
"It is extremely
difficult to investigate what actually happens in the extreme deep. Organisms
that are removed from their natural extreme environment and studied in a
laboratory will inevitably be affected – and potentially killed – by the large
pressure difference during sample recovery. In on board laboratories
researchers generally only study organisms that can withstand the recovery -
and they are not necessarily the ones that are most important in the deep. It
is therefore important to examine the organisms and their metabolic activity in
that environment.”
The three trenches to
be visited by the researchers are in the Pacific Ocean: the Atacama Trench off
Chile (maximum depth 8068 metres), the Japan Trench south and east of Japan
(maximum depth 9,504 metres) and the Kermadec Trench north of New Zealand
(maximum depth 10,047 metres).
These three trenches
have been selected due to the expectation that they receive very different
amounts of organic matter (food), as a result of different nutrient conditions
in the overlying surface waters and differences in physical-oceanographic
conditions.
It has been deemed
necessary by the team to investigate more of the unexplored trenches and their
specialised microbial communities in the hopes of understanding how organisms can
function at such extreme pressures and what their role is in the global carbon
cycle.
Dr
Robert Turnewitsch, Principal Investigator in Marine Geochemistry at SAMS, said:
"This
will be a very interesting challenge for all of us. Taking such comprehensive
readings in situ has not been done before at these depths.
"The hadal zone
is an extreme environment that hardly anyone has looked at, so there are many
unknowns. The opportunity to work on a project like this is very exciting. I
want to be surprised; I want to find something that challenges our views and
perceptions of the deep sea and we now have a great opportunity to do
that."
Read more HERE.
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