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Scientists Accidentally Discover Strange Creatures Under a Half Mile of Ice
On a rock, apparently in the middle of nowhere, life is teeming
Under 3,000 feet of ice, hundreds of miles from regular food sources, scientists found a lone rock covered with life that you didn't need a microscope to see.
Besides a layer of bacteria known as a microbial mat on the rocks surface, strange looking sponges and other stalked animals could be seen dangling from the rock, while stouter, cylindrical sponges hugged the surface. The rock also had wispy filaments, either bacterial mats or an animal known as a hydroid.
Its not known how old the colony is, or how the creatures got there. The food sources for creatures living in the deep ocean waters get a lot of food from what rains down starting from the surface and anything that dies in the waters above them. For the creatures living on the rock, it looks like the food could be coming from currents that run horizontally under the ice, perhaps for hundreds of miles.
On a rock, apparently in the middle of nowhere, life is teeming
Under 3,000 feet of ice, hundreds of miles from regular food sources, scientists found a lone rock covered with life that you didn't need a microscope to see.
Besides a layer of bacteria known as a microbial mat on the rocks surface, strange looking sponges and other stalked animals could be seen dangling from the rock, while stouter, cylindrical sponges hugged the surface. The rock also had wispy filaments, either bacterial mats or an animal known as a hydroid.
Its not known how old the colony is, or how the creatures got there. The food sources for creatures living in the deep ocean waters get a lot of food from what rains down starting from the surface and anything that dies in the waters above them. For the creatures living on the rock, it looks like the food could be coming from currents that run horizontally under the ice, perhaps for hundreds of miles.