Arctic Ocean Survey May Reveal Lost World

core plexus writes " A new survey of the depths of the ice-capped Arctic Ocean as reported at Reuters, BBC, and others, could reveal a lost world of living fossils and exotic new species from jellyfish to giant squid, scientists said on Thursday. They speculated that Arctic waters might hide creatures known only from fossils, such as trilobites that flourished 300 million years ago. The international scheme will include probing a 12,470-foot abyss off Canada described by project leaders as the "world's oldest sea water -- a vast, still pool unstirred for millennia, walled by steep ridges and lidded with ice." Bring on the "Jurassic Park" references."

Comments

The horrors of the deep

[Anonymous Coward]

They expect only jellyfish and squids?! Have we learned nothing? What if we awaken some age-old form of life that has been lying dormant in the Earth's seabeds for thousands of years, just waiting fot the perfect opportunity to leap out and assimilate us all?

Well... dunno about you, but I, for one, pre-emptively welcome our new dark-and-gooey overlords!

Re:The horrors of the deep

[orthogonal]

What if we awaken some age-old form of life that has been lying dormant in the Earth's seabeds for thousands of years, just waiting fot the perfect opportunity to leap out and assimilate us all?


You mean in the sunken city of R'lyeh?

A pulpy, tentacled head surmounted a grotesque and scaly body with rudimentary wings... It represented a monster of vaguely anthropoid outline, but with an octopus-like head whose face was a mass of feelers, a scaly, rubbery-looking body, prodigious claws on hind and fore feet, and long, narrow wings behind. This thing, which seemed instinct with a fearsome and unnatural malignancy, was of a somewhat bloated corpulence...

-- H.P. Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu

"That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange æons, even death may die"

Sound Familiar?

[s0rbix]

Just as long as Ed Harris isn't leading the expedition...

Must we?

[AndyMouse GoHard]

"... -- a vast, still pool unstirred for millennia..."

Until we taint it with our presence.

Re:Must we?

[Eudial]

Until we taint it with our presence.

True,the modern bacteria we're going to bring will literarlly obliderate any life that exists in there.

Re:Must we?

[AndyMouse GoHard]

Dude, are *you* serious? I made a point, which you seem to have grossly misinterpeted. I admit that perhaps the question was better written "Should we?", but I only want the question asked.

I really have no idea how science really works. Guess what, I'm not a scientist. No, not going to learn how real scientists go about their work either... we all specialize in our respective careers. I'm sure the majority live by a code of ethics that I would approve of, while a minority don't. So don't ask me to be naive and trust all scientists to behave ethically.

By asking "must we?", I would hope that your question of "how?" gets careful and serious consideration. I believe we both share the feeling that it should be done carefully, right?

Now, as far as "reactionary"? You, sir, fairly exploded on me.

Bill

ah the ocean

[spacerodent]

as an ocean engineer I feel compelled to point out that exploring the depths of the ocean is an assload harder than exploring space. Accordingly we've explored far less of it than space. Technologies are advancing but most of them are directed towards making existing technologies more efficient. We really don't have any improvments for reaching really deep areas and are still using technology pioneered in the 70s.

Re:ah the ocean

[Anonymous Coward]

Accordingly we've explored far less of it than space.

I think there is a lot more space than there is ocean. we've explored nearly 0% of space, significantly lower than the percentage of ocean explored.

Re:ah the ocean

[ptomblin]

Futurama quote:

"We're taking over 150 atmospheres of pressure!"

"How many atmospheres can this ship take?"

"Well, it's a spaceship, so I'd say anywhere between 0 and 1."

Re:ah the ocean

[Sique]

You could use a different approach. Consider a geometrical inversion of the world at the surface of the earth, thus the center of the earth gets mapped to infinity, by setting the radius of the earth to 1 and mapping every vector of the length d to a certain point A to the vector in the same direction, but of 1/d length, thus pointing to A'.

For instance the moon is about 50 times the radius of the earth away, so his image would be projected somewhere at 1/50 of the earth's radius, or just 85mls from the center of the earth. You can use other scaling functions but you will always end with a similar discrepancy. If you use 1/sqrt(d), A' will be somewhere at about 700mls from the center of the earth... still far away from everything we reached until now.

There have been men on the moon, but no one deeper than 8mls from the earth's surface. Basicly we barely have scratched the surface of the earth yet, with even the deepest holes ever drilled lurking somewhere at the 7mls point (don't have the current number right here).

Re:ah the ocean

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the degree to which we have probed space with light and radio telescopes FAR exceeds that of the world's oceans. A vaccuum allows most forms of energy to travel through it, while water does a great job of attenuating most EM radiation, leaving sound to be the primary method of remote imaging.
Of course we could never have those beautiful global shaded relief seafloor images if it wasn't for satellite alimetry, so i guess its all related.

Re:ah the ocean

[Darby]

as an ocean engineer I feel compelled to point out that exploring the depths of the ocean is an assload harder than exploring space.

Yeah, but do you run into problems converting between imperial assloads and metric assloads?

pandora's box?

[Garion Maki]

considering that that pool is completely sealed from the outside world would mean that anything in it isn't resistant to infections from the outside world or the other way around...

so couldent it be that once humans put a crack in that icy shield that protects the pool, that some human deseases, to which humans have already build a resistance, that these deseases infect the ancient inhabitants of that pool, creating a slaughter among them... or the other way around...

so... altho the stuff they'll find can prove valuble to science, I would aproach with caution if I was them...

Re:pandora's box?

[Gilgaron]

It is more likely you'd transfer fish or invertebrate pathogens than human pathogens.

Most microorganisms have a fairly narrow band of temperatures at which they can grow. The S. aureus on your skin will not like growing in artic temperatures and a psychrophile living in the arctic will probably not like living on your skin much, either.

Now, with fish from just outside this region and fish inside this region your concerns could be more valid, since they would be under similar environmental conditions and have different immunities.

Re:pandora's box?

[Sique]

On the other hand: All parasites, virii and bacteria in this pool are completely adapted to the lifeforms in this pool for millions of years and thus probably completely unable to cope with lifefroms from the outside. Ergo: No infection, because of far reaching incompatibility.

Re:pandora's box?

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

Yes, any neanderthals holding their breath down there are screwed.

"Its a Unix system..

[Cyno01]

I know this!" Oh, other Jurassic Park references?

(and before anyone replies, i know that the 3d file manager for irix actually does exist...)

Link to a previous expedition

[Internet Ninja]

Canada Basin has already been checked out in a mission in 2002 which you can read about here. I guess this time round it's so they can have a jolly good look. I wonder if they'll find any aluminium cans or plastic bags at the bottom :)

As one reader pointed out, exploring the deep ocean is harder than space. I guess that's why they felt compelled to put a flag at the bottom. :)

This May Hurt A Bit

[SEWilco]

Remove the icy lid with a nuclear bomb.
Sometimes the world needs Godzilla.

Living fossils

[niktesla]

This is the world's refrigerator where change has happened far more slowly than in other oceans

If its anything like my fridge, they'll find new life alright! But seriously, I think its funny how many "living fossils" were discovered by accident. Examples: ratfish, coelacanth, wollemi pine, etc.

Practicle joke

[wazzzup]

I wish I could play a good practical joke on these guys a la the Dino the Dinosaur placed in front of a webcam at some New Zealand volcano.

Perhaps a printout from Outlook conspicously placed on the ocean floor that reads "J3llyF1sh, Squ1d - 1ncr3ase your t3ntacle s1ze by at l3ast one f0ot."

Arctic climate change

[dankelley]

One of the big worries about the Arctic is climate change. Much of the ecosystem relies on the presence of ice, and this ice seems to be disappearing. See fig 16.3 of the IPCC report for a timeseries going back 100 years. In the past few decades we have had adequate measurements of wate temperature in the Actic, and it appears to be rising; see the diagrams in a recent essay at the NOAA site, for example.

As ice changes, so does the ecosystem. Polar bears cannot walk on water, for example.

There are also global consequence of Arctic change that worry climate scientists. For one thing, there is a nonlinear feedback loop since ice has a high albedo. Thus, ice reflects solar radiation back to space, which keeps the system cool. But water has a much lower albedo than ice. This yields a nonlinear feedback loop. Melting ice creates open water, which absorbs more heat, which melts more ice. There was a time when USSR scientists suggested we could open up a northwest passage through the Arctic simply by painting the ice black, setting this feedback loop into action. Of course, if the ice melts, navigation will be easier through the Arctic. Traffic may avoid Panama and go through a more direct route. Part of this traffic could be oil tankers, which can run aground, causing great damage to a system already damaged by the climate change.

30 million year old germ

[vijaya_chandra]

You can check this for info about some bacteria that survive in vacuum and some bacteria that have actually been declared "living" after 30 million years

The article says about spores,
"In terms of our computer analogy, a bacterial spore is like a handheld calculator that has repackaged itself into its original protective shipping carton and turned itself off."

I would love to have one such calculator

the deep is full of some strange stuff

[circletimessquare]

here are some pages pictures taken from norfanz, the last major survey of deep aquatic life

as reported here of course

those are some weird looking animals

hmm

[Raagshinnah]

"a vast, still pool unstirred for millennia, walled by steep ridges and lidded with ice."

You mean quebec?

Re:The Mirror Ocean from "Megalodon"

[prof_peabody]

Giant squid are quite common, perhaps you refer to Colossal Squid? They found a complete one last year, it was all over the news. Plus we keep finding sperm whales with scars from the colossal. They had interesting hooks on their tentacles that no other squid has, so evidence of attcks on whales is easy to identify.

Familier?

[Bandman]

I think I saw an X Files about this...

it didn't end well.

On the other hand, I'd like a miniature pet trilobyte...

Re:The Mirror Ocean from "Megalodon"

[vranash]

The PhD's, or the babies? ;p

-- vranash

Re:There is nothing down there

[Peaceful_Patriot]

That was the popular belief before they found entire thriving ecosystems living thousands of feet deep, deriving their energy from geothermal vents in the sea floor. No light, little or no oxygen, and yet these creatures get all they need from the chemical soup pouring from these vents.

I am not suggesting there are vents in this area, just that nature can surprise us.

"Life will find a way."

They will find death.

[GISGEOLOGYGEEK]

They won't find great new ecologies full of living fossils.

They will find the remains of those ecologies, that have died in only the last 50 -60 years ... poisoned from the massive dumping of radioactive waste into the Arctic Ocean basin by the former Soviet Union.

Re:Beer companies will be all over this

[petsounds]

Actually, you can already drink water that old. Trinity Water is taken from a 2.2 mile deep spring under Idaho. It's been carbon-dated at over 16,000 years old and is basically as pure as it was then due to the granite formation protecting the source below from groundwater contamination. Best water I've had..something about the unique mineral content.