Space may be the final frontier, but what lurks below the waves is one of the last unexplored areas of the planet.
This summer, the most thorough exploration of the mid-Atlantic to date has uncovered a host of new species and fresh information about the ocean.
Though many of their findings still need to be analyzed, scientists on the MAR-ECO cruise probably discovered a dozen new species, including two new species of squid.
The squid are part of a group not seen since the Challenger expedition more than 100 years ago, said Ron O'Dor, chief scientist for the Census of Marine Life, a 10-year-long examination of the world's oceans.
Fishermen have known for years that the Mid-Atlantic Ridge was productive, but scientific exploration was limited by technology.
A new high-tech five-beam split-system echo sounder allowed scientists to see deep into the ocean to track fish in the world's largest mountain range, eliminating some of the uncertainty of finding species in the ocean, said John Horne, a scientist from the University of Washington, who operated the echo sounders on the first leg of the June to August expedition.
"This was an opportunity to take the unique (technological) asset and take it to an interesting place," O'Dor said. "You could sense this was a very important piece of water."
Finding species with traditional methods was like catching a butterfly in a jungle with a 3km net, but technology allowed the international team to pinpoint species more accurately, he said.
The advance of technology has significantly improved animal observation methods. O'Dor said he remembers when scientist tied themselves to anchors underneath boats to count passing jellyfish.
Echo sounders located everything from sea worms a few centimeters long up to large marine mammals. Scientists also videotaped species and caught samples.
The technology also provided clearer images of the underwater mountain ranges, with mountains that begin 5km below the water's surface and reach up to 2km above the surface in Iceland and the Azores.
"It's one of the most spectacular mountain ranges you can ever imagine: rugged peaks and deep valleys," Horne said.
The expedition also uncovered new traffic patterns that created vertical rings of marine life. Such formations may have been caused by currents running through underwater mountains, O'Dor said.
"It's the first time we've seen vertical rings, and that we've seen three to four of them in a row," Horne said.
The discovery of so much new life kept life on the ship exciting, Horne said.
"There were a lot of people who had very little sleep, because everyone wanted to know what was going on," he said, describing it as one of the most exciting voyages he has been on in two decades of scientific research.
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