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July 22, 2005

Collapsed Ice Shelf Exposes Life

[View from east to west nunataks Grey, Bruce, and Bull. Photo courtesy of Pedro Skvarca, Instituto Antártico Argentino]

According to researchers, and as reported in Wired News, an expansive ecosystem of knee-high mud volcanoes, snowy microbial mats and flourishing clam communities lies beneath the collapsed Larsen Ice Shelf in Antarctica. The discovery made in February in a deep glacial trough in the northwestern Weddell Sea was detailed this week in Eos, the weekly newspaper of the American Geophysical Union.

The researchers described it as "a cold-vent, or cold-seep, ecosystem, fed by chemical energy from the Earth, rather than one driven by photosynthesis from the sun or hot emissions rising from inside the planet. Domack said the likely energy source was methane from deep underwater vents raked open by receding glaciers."

Posted by Hyscience at July 22, 2005 12:26 PM

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