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.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by KGIII on Thursday June 22 2017, @04:25AM (4 children)
This is Australian. Chances are good that most of them are venomous and deadly.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday June 22 2017, @07:03AM (3 children)
The country where you don't need to worry about human assassins because the chance is that anything that can move, will make an attempt on your life. It must be that the Australian government wants to protect foreigners from their native assassins that they have such hard immigration policy ;)
Even the sun is after you there..
(Score: 2) by KGIII on Thursday June 22 2017, @07:07AM (2 children)
I have been there twice. My second trip was for six weeks. The lady I was with kept pointing out the deadly flora and fauna. It's a lovely place but it's full of shit that wants to kill you.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday June 22 2017, @07:30AM (1 child)
What specifics of the flora and fauna did she warn you about?
(Score: 2) by KGIII on Thursday June 22 2017, @08:15AM
Snakes, spiders, some flowering plants - and I think a tree, and birds. Specifically, the magpie. I don't recall the names of the rest but I do remember the magpie. What the hell? A magpie. They are, I guess, pricks - though probably not deadly. Oh, and kangaroo. They are also pricks.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 22 2017, @05:18AM
More important than these whacko fishes are all the garbage pulled up, piled on for three centuries by the limeys shipping their imbecile criminals to the island.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 22 2017, @05:41AM
Catch a niggerfish by the tail
If it squeals throw it back
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday June 22 2017, @06:58AM (7 children)
Weren't some high profile academia sure that life on the deep bottom of the sea was completely dead a few decades ago?
Kind of like there was no continental plate movement..
(Score: 3, Insightful) by KGIII on Thursday June 22 2017, @07:19AM (6 children)
Longer than a few decades, yes. We've long since known that we find life in most areas we look. Extremophile research has been pretty good. When they first went into the Mariana Trench, they noted life every time they turned on the exterior lights, even at the bottom.
Some bodies of water will have a dead zone but it isn't really dead. It just means that it doesn't support complex life. There is a name for it, but I forgot. But, yeah, there is a lot of life at great depths. Nature abhors a vacuum. There are even living organisms inside some rocks. They are even found in rock that is a mine shaft. They've never even seen the Sun. They just live embedded in rock. They aren't fully understood. I am not really qualified to say this, but my hunch is that they are somehow prey for something.
I am absolutely not a biologist.
Related: We have mapped the moon more completely than we have mapped the ocean floor.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 22 2017, @07:52AM (1 child)
Of course the moon is not covered by water.
(Score: 2) by KGIII on Thursday June 22 2017, @08:10AM
While true, it's notable that we only see one side of the moon from the planet. I'd bet the moon is further away from us than the bottom of the ocean is. It's not all that difficult to map the floor of the ocean, from a tech viewpoint. Someone was working on doing it automatically by means of a drone. I believe that didn't pan out.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday June 22 2017, @09:21AM (1 child)
Really? Tell this to the interplanetary/interstellar/intergalactic space - there's a lot for the nature to abhor.
You recon that's why it generated dark stuf...? mmmater, I mean... and energy as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by KGIII on Thursday June 22 2017, @05:03PM
I presume space is excludes when they write cliches about our planet.
On a grander scale, entropy is the end boss.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday June 22 2017, @05:59PM (1 child)
Some bodies of water will have a dead zone but it isn't really dead. It just means that it doesn't support complex life. There is a name for it, but I forgot.
Hypoxia [noaa.gov]
(Score: 2) by KGIII on Friday June 23 2017, @01:13AM
That looks right. They also exist in some fresh water bodies as well, if I recall.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Friday June 23 2017, @01:02AM
The summary says "13,000 feet under the surface " but because it's Australians, they're actually "4000 metres below the surface." which you will see in the Museums Victoria press release.p.
What is it with Americans and their stupid feet and inches? It stopped being the 1950's a long time ago.