The Tasmanian government made a head’s start here in 1997 by protecting 12 seamount chains from any kind of fishing action. The catalytic reaction of the enzyme luciferase oxidises into the unstable protein luciferin, a reaction by which light is created without the loss of energy through heat dissipation. Apart from bacteria there are other deep sea organisms which can go through this process, such as certain algae and fish species. When living in an ecosystem of complete darkness the creation of light can bring on immense benefits. Apparently lifeless biotopes are being inhabited by animals, ranging from the ‘ice worm’ at the methane hydrates to the ‘pompeii worm’ at the 300 °C hot hydrothermal vents. Such rich communities were not only found close to hydrothermal vents but also in oxygen-free zones of methane collection, cold vents and old whale skeletons.

The landscapes of the deep sea

These nodules provide a mosaic of hard substrate for a variety of organisms such as corals and sponges, and support diverse deep-sea communities. Nodules also host a vast array of microbial communities that play a critical role in nutrient and carbon cycling. Shared effort is crucial to develop the knowledge and necessary tools for an efficient protection of most vulnerable ecosystems. Less than 150 years ago, scientists factored out the possibility of marine life below 500 meters under the sea level.

Deep Ocean

About 80 commercial species live on seamounts, and many are only found near this habitat. Deepocean habitats – the abyssal plains, hydrothermal vents and cold seeps,cold-water corals, seamounts and the deep-water column – all have distinctfaunas with widely divergent ecological and life history characteristics. Curator Karen Osborn wants to know how and why animals adapt in order to survive in a cold, dark, and pressurized environment. Many animals that live in this largest of the earth’s habitats are very bizarre and dramatically different from their closest relatives.
But we’re now able to explore more and more parts of this remote realm—thanks to a new generation of incredible underwater vehicles. But in fact, producing light in the deep is the norm rather than the exception. Some creatures produce their own light to snag a meal or find a mate in a process called bioluminescence. The extreme saltiness causes significantly denser water than the average ocean water and, like water and air, the two do not mix.

Canyons and Seamounts

The worms, called Osedax worms, ride ocean currents as larvae and then settle on the exposed bone. The first of these larvae develop into females, with one end tunneling into the bone and forming what looks like roots growing through the bone. The other end grows into a feathered fan that lets them extract oxygen from the water. Larvae that arrive later or land on another worm, become males, but never really grow beyond the larval form.

Finding Food

• When dense, nutrient rich ocean currents hit the seamount they deflect up toward the surface, allowing marine life to thrive on the newly supplied food.
• As these depths were thought to be entirely without currents and oxygen which lead to the lifeless space in the ocean.
• Only with the further exploration of the deep and the capture of sea cucumbers at the telegraph cable at a depth of 1,000 metres made it evident that the deep sea is full of life.
• It is being assumed that this reservoir could cover the world’s population’s demand for nickel, copper, cobalt and manganese.
• They clearly showed that the Atlantic depths were rich with unknown forms of life.
• Some are specialized burrowers that dig within the bone for the fat, while others pick apart the surface layers.

Ocean depths greater than 1,000 meters (3,280 feet) are completely devoid of light and photosynthesis does not take place. What we do know is that the deep ocean is immensely important to Earth systems. At the same time it is extremely fragile, and increasingly vulnerable to the effects of human activity such as deep sea fishing, deep sea mining and plastics pollution. They make use of the meager resources that reach these depths, such as whale carcasses, fish excreta, and dead surface plankton blooms. Many invertebrates, like amphipods, survive on the ‘food-fall’ from the surface, and, in turn, become prey for other larger species.

SUNY Geneseo Researchers Name Three New Species of Deep-sea Fishes

Biologically rich ecosystems such as seamounts are ploughed through, often crushing corals, sponges and other lifeforms and structures as they go. In the surface waters, marine plants called phytoplankton use the sunlight to grow by photosynthesis. This is the primary source of food for many animals that live on or near the surface. As plankton dies, it sinks and becomes food for animals that live deeper in the water column. This is because the number of animals that live in the surface waters is high, and so much of the food is used up before it has a chance to sink into the deep ocean.
A cold seep gets its name not because the liquid and gas that emerge are colder than the surrounding seawater, but because they are cooler than the scalding temperature of the similar hydrothermal vent. But as the Rocky Mountains began to rise and subsequently erode, the extra weight of the sediment flushed into the Gulf of Mexico via the Mississippi River was enough to break the seal. Salt is naturally lighter than soil and as it became squeezed by the soil above, it began to rise. Near the earth’s surface it began to mix with the seawater that was able to percolate into the sediment. According to the press release, researchers have identified over 400 species of snailfish.

• Fangtooth fish are voracious predators and are thought to use contact chemoreception to find prey in the deep, dark ocean, relying on luck to bump into something edible.
• Most are familiar with the surface layer, which extends down 650 feet (200 m) and receives the most sunlight, allowing photosynthetic organisms like phytoplankton to convert sunlight to energy.
• For that purpose, we have crawlers – autonomous tracked vehicles that can be precisely deployed on the seafloor by free fall or in a cable-tethered frame.
• Marine snow clumps are also swarming with microbes—tiny organisms ranging from algae to bacteria—that form communities around the sinking particles.
• These worms house bacteria within their “roots” that take advantage of the sulfur in the bones to make energy in a process called chemosynthesis.
• Long-term environmental monitoring stations, like Station M, are critical for understanding ecosystem function and changes over time, Gerringer noted.
• Still other species have yet to be found alive like the giant squid, arch.

Instead they live within the females’ bodies as parasites—sometimes over a hundred live in one female host. Scientists have found about 25 species of bone eating worms since they were first discovered in 2002, and many more are thought to exist. Some are specialized burrowers that dig within the bone for the fat, while others pick apart the surface layers. A 60,000 km underwater mountain range stretches around our planet, formed as the plates that make up the Earth’s crust move against, or apart from, each other.

For years scientists have been examining the ‘hydrate ridge’ off the coast of Oregon, USA, a region about the size of the Harz Mountains. The expedition was crowned with success for Gerhard Bohrmann and his research team from the Geomar Institute in Kiel. Especially through the use of automated and video-recorded sampling data regarding the distribution of methane and Deep Sea hydrogen sulphide as well as first measurements of the gas-flow were gathered. The take home message of the collaboration for deep sea protection (TUSCH) seems to be an appropriate worry for the marine ecosystem in case manganese nodules are to be mined industrially. As the highest species density can be found in the first few centimetres of the seafloor the penetration of even a few centimetres of the collectors into the sediment will destroy communities found directly in the path of the system.
As technology improves, it will allow us to more closely observe deep-sea animals for longer periods of time and certainly teach us even more about the great and wonderful adaptations that have evolved in the world’s oceans. Sharks and rays are neutrally buoyant because they have large oily livers (that float) and soft watery flesh (that sink). Some bony fishes have ‘swim bladders.’ These are gas cavities that constantly have gas pumped in or out as the fish moves up and down in the water column. This means they can make their bodies heavier if they want to go down, or lighter if they want to swim up. In the deep-sea species Coryphaenoides, the Grenadier fish, there is both a large swim bladder, and a large oily liver.
But the apparently endless stocks seem to have reached their end and so-called ‘new species’ are being offered to the consumer. The round-nosed grenadier (Coryphaenoides rupestris), for example, can be caught in quantities of 13,000 to 17,000 tonnes per year, according to an estimate from 1996 made by the Scottish Institute for fisheries. The French used to fish blue ling (Molva dypterygia) predominantly, but have now switched their attention to the grenadier and the orange roughy.
Then, when the sun comes out and there is enough light for predators to see them again, the zooplankton return to the deep darkness. Diel vertical migrations are likely the largest daily migration on the planet. The cracks release buried petroleum-based gas and liquid from deep underground where they formed over millions of years. These liquids and gases are made up of hydrogen and carbon molecules, like methane.