Six Miles Down: Deepest-Known Sea Animal Communities Found
- Editor OGN Daily
- Aug 5
- 1 min read
An abundance of marine life has been discovered in the Mariana Trench, almost six miles below sea level.
The new study revealed it is the deepest colony of animals ever observed, namely thousands of mollusks and worms in a hadal trench - also known as the hadopelagic zone, it's the deepest region of the ocean, lying within oceanic trenches. The scientists also observed free-floating marine worms, spiky crustaceans, sea lilies, sea cucumbers and other invertebrates.
“Hadal trenches, some of the Earth’s least explored and understood environments, have long been proposed to harbour chemosynthesis-based communities. Despite increasing attention, actual documentation of such communities has been exceptionally rare,” the authors wrote in the findings of the study. “Here we report the discovery of the deepest and the most extensive chemosynthesis-based communities known to exist on Earth."
The team of scientists said the discovery in the deepest underwater valley on Earth suggests there could be even more life thriving in hostile conditions far below the surface of unexplored oceans, because of the geological similarities with other hadal trenches.
The newly discovered communities primarily consist of siboglinid Polychaeta and Bivalvia spanning a distance of 1,553 miles at depths from 3.6 to 5.92 miles.
No sunlight penetrates at the depths the creatures were found, so instead of getting nutrients through photosynthesis, they live off chemicals like methane that seep through cracks in the ocean floor using a process called chemosynthesis, reported Phys.org.
They said the findings challenge the current models of deep-ocean carbon cycling and life at extreme limits.
