- An expedition to survey life under the Arctic ice has
surprised scientists with an abundance of ocean creatures, including several
new species.
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- Researchers working on a 10-year census of marine life
explored the "hidden ocean" 400 miles north of Barrow, Alaska,
which has been sheltered for millennia by a lid of ice between 3ft and
65ft thick.
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- High numbers of large jellyfish, squid, an Arctic species
of cod and other animals were found thriving in the extreme cold when the
ice was opened up by the US Coast Guard cutter Healy.
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- Among the animals found were a dozen species believed
to be new to science, including jellyfish, sea cucumbers and brittle worms,
together with 50 species, such as squid and octopus, never before recorded
in the Arctic.
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- The expedition, funded and co-ordinated by the US National
Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration, surveyed marine life in the Chukchi
and Beaufort Seas and the Canada Basin, a vast underwater bowl. The scientists,
from the United States, Canada, Russia and China, sampled the entire water
column, from the ice itself -where a species of cod hides from seals and
where crustaceans feed - down to depths of 11,000ft.
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- Working 24 hours a day, the explorers used a variety
of techniques, including scuba diving and a remotely operated underwater
vehicle, to photograph and capture creatures.
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- Dr Bodil Bluhm, of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks,
said: "The densities of animals are much higher than expected. It
now appears possible to confirm that the rich biodiversity surprising deep-sea
explorers worldwide exists as well in deep Arctic waters."
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- Dr Ron D'Or, the chief scientist of marine census, said
the "hidden sea" under the ice had previously been thought of
as "rather devoid of life".
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- In fact, along with underwater sea mounts and the seas
under the Antarctic ice, which have been much better studied, they turn
out to be one of the last retreats of biological diversity.
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- "One of the reasons for doing this, which I find
a little worrying, was to get a baseline because the ice is expected to
melt in the next 20 years," said Dr D'Or. "We found so many species
never described before in the Arctic that it makes you wonder if warming
trends are not bringing in species from outside the Arctic already."
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- Dr D'Or said that the Arctic was, surprisingly, less
well studied than the Antarctic, partly as a result of being closer to
the major powers.
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- "The Arctic Ocean was where Russian and US nuclear
submarines played tag under the ice," he said. "But now things
have opened up and we scientists have been able to get in there."
There had been major expeditions to the Arctic Ocean on the European side,
but none had been equipped to survey the whole water column, he said. None
had found the same abundance of life.
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- The census will now switch to the Antarctic, where scientists
from about 30 countries, including Britain, are expected to sample life
in the Antarctic circumpolar current, a powerful force from west to east
moving 190 million cubic yards of water per second, more than the force
of all the world's rivers.
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- Biologists want to examine the current's role as a cradle
of genetic diversity.
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- © Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2005.
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- http://telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/20
05/07/30/warctic30.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/07/30/ixworld.html
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