{"id":1896,"date":"2018-06-08T10:59:06","date_gmt":"2018-06-08T09:59:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/stem\/?p=1896"},"modified":"2018-06-13T16:25:36","modified_gmt":"2018-06-13T15:25:36","slug":"pacific-discoveries-show-wealth-of-life-still-present-in-our-oceans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/stem\/2018\/06\/08\/pacific-discoveries-show-wealth-of-life-still-present-in-our-oceans\/","title":{"rendered":"Pacific discoveries show wealth of life still present in our oceans"},"content":{"rendered":"

To celebrate #WorldOceansDay we hear from Dr Alan Jamieson and Dr Thom Linley about their most recent exciting discoveries in the deepest parts of the Pacific.<\/h3>\n

We live in a time where the marine environment<\/strong> is rarely reported in the media without mention of the negative impacts of human activity.\u00a0 As important as this awareness is, we must be conscience that it does not overshadow the beauty and splendour of the oceans and the fascinating research being done in science and exploration<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

One of the last great frontiers in marine science are the deepest places on Earth, the Hadal Trenches<\/strong>, mostly located around the Pacific rim in areas where tectonic plates collide and plunge the seafloor to depths close to 11,000 metres<\/strong> (~7 miles).<\/p>\n

Groundbreaking technology<\/h4>\n

At Newcastle University<\/strong>, we have been pioneering technology for the exploration of these ultra-deep environments and have to date completed nearly 250 deployments of their \u2018lander\u2019 systems<\/strong>. Recently we embarked on an expedition on board the German Research vessel\u00a0Sonne<\/i><\/strong>\u00a0to the Atacama Trench<\/strong> in the SE Pacific off the coast of Peru and Chile where we deployed our baited camera system 27 times across the depths of the trench including the deepest point, Richards Deep, at just over 8000 metres<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

On our previous missions the group have\u00a0amassed\u00a0multiple successes<\/strong> such as obtaining the first ever video footage<\/strong> of fish in the hadal zone (greater than 6000m deep), and video the deepest living fishes in many Pacific trenches and more recently, described the deepest fish in the world.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Life in the deep<\/h4>\n

These record breaking fishes are of the\u00a0Liparidae<\/strong>\u00a0family, commonly known as\u00a0snailfishes<\/strong>.\u00a0 They are small, semi-transparent, pink in colour with small black eyes and do not conform to\u00a0the preconceived stereotypical image of what a deep-sea fish should look like.\u00a0 In fact they look and behave a lot like their shallow water counterparts<\/strong>, some of which can be found in estuarine systems, even the River Tyne<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The Atacama Trench expedition produced a wealth of new information about the species inhabiting these extreme depths which is also interesting in that the trench is very isolated<\/strong> from the other Pacific deeps, by ~12,000 kilometres of deep sea floor.<\/p>\n

Discovery of new species<\/h4>\n

Perhaps the most fascinating result of the latest expedition was the discovery of three new species<\/strong> of\u00a0snailfish\u00a0living between 6500 and 7500 metres<\/strong>.\u00a0These species are so new they haven’t been officially classified yet and are currently affectionately known as the pink, blue and purple Atacama\u00a0snailfishes<\/strong>. We obtained hours of footage of these new\u00a0snailfish\u00a0swimming, foraging, preying upon small crustaceans, and on one dive filmed all three in a single video.<\/p>\n