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takyon writes:

A deep-sea expedition, "Sampling the Abyss", near the coast of Australia has turned up over 300 previously undiscovered species:

Last week, a month-long expedition to explore the deep sea off the coast of eastern Australia came to an end. According to Calla Wahlquist at The Guardian, the expedition, entitled Sampling the Abyss, racked up a final tally of finds that includes about 1,000 freaky deep sea creatures—a third of which have never been described before by science.

According to a press release, the venture was a collaboration between Museums Victoria, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) as well as other museums and agencies. For 31 days, a crew of 40 scientists aboard the research vessel Investigator looked into the "abyssal" areas from Tasmania to central Queensland—unexplored habitat 13,000 feet under the surface of the ocean.

"The abyss is the largest and deepest habitat on the planet, covering half the world's oceans and one third of Australia's territory, but it remains the most unexplored environment on Earth," Tim O'Hara of Museums Victoria and the project's chief scientist says in the press release. "We know that abyssal animals have been around for at least 40 million years, but until recently only a handful of samples had been collected from Australia's abyss."

Also at the Washington Post.

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