Diagram of the drilling zone

Certainly no animal, would we answered there decades before discovering deep ecosystems more diverse than expected. In 2007, the fragmentation of the enormous Larsen ice shelf, east of the Antarctic Peninsula, had unearthed the ecosystem that lived there. modern home design and plans Scientists had there were over a thousand species, including fish, arthropods and molluscs, twenty being previously unknown.

Diagram of the drilling zone. The well reached open water thin to where Ross glacier in its movement towards the sea, separated from the ground. © Rachel Xidis, NIU

This time, no fragmentation: the team led by Ross Powell (well named) against the Ross Sea drilled through technical hot water, a well 800 m in the ice and it introduced a ROV (Remote Operated Vehicle) for the Deep Scini (Submersible Capable of under ice Navigation and Imaging. As its acronym suggests, the machine is able to navigate and film under the ice.

Zoological harvest is excellent. Amphipods, crustaceans cousins of our beaches scuds, accustomed to great depths where they are sometimes giants were well go with a large number of species. There was also fish, which now no longer surprised. However, the functioning of this ecosystem - just south of the planet, because the site is not far from the center - located in a high stress environment remains poorly understood. Scientists now want to know the carbon cycle in this remote area.