Scientists have found 274 new species of corals, starfish, sponges, shrimps, and crabs 1.2 miles (2 kilometers) beneath the surface of the ocean around Antarctica. (See photos.)
"We know very little about the deep sea," said lead scientist Nic Bax, a marine biologist with Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) in Hobart, Tasmania.
"Finding out how much live coral is down there, and how large those communities are, is very exciting," he added.
Some of the corals were found to be about 2,000 years old, said Bax.
CSIRO made the discoveries in two separate voyages to marine reserves located 100 to 200 nautical miles off the southern coast of the island of Tasmania, Australia.
This is the third large group of marine species recently discovered in Australian waters. (See "113 New Sharks and Rays Announced in Australia" [September 21, 2008] and "Hundreds of New Reef Creatures Found in Australia" [September 18, 2008].)
Jackpot of Marine Life
Using powerful cameras, scientists shot 8,000 pictures and more than 100 hours of video footage of the seafloor.
They also discovered 145 undersea canyons and 80 new seamounts, or underwater mountains.
Seamounts can sprawl 15.6 miles (25 kilometers) across and rise thousands of feet from the seabed.
In the deep sea, where the ocean bottom is nothing more than muddy sediment, rocky seamounts offer a stable habitat that provides shelter and food for sea life, Bax said.
As such, seamounts support a jackpot of rich marine life in a quiet, dark world.
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