Scientist from New Zealand have made a surreal discovery underneath the ice continent of Antarctica. A 10.4 km or 6.5-mile-long river is ensuring a thriving ecosystem of marine life untouched 16,000 feet below the continent’s largest shelf, the Ross Ice Shelf. The scientists reported this river being 800 feet in depth and spanning 900 feet in width.
The unlikely discovery of an entire river was the result of the scientists getting a peak through a hole them made in the shelf by melting ice. For this, they used a hose piping out hot water. The river was compared to the Sydney Harbour but only “below 600 meters of ice and snow” by Craig Stevens, who is an oceanographer with the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA), New Zealand.
The river is too far from the surface to have any sunlight, so it is extremely cold and pitch dark. However, the river was full of shrimp-like crustaceans called amphipods which was surprising as the conditions wouldn’t be called ideal for life to thrive. The small creatures were illuminated by the lights of the scientists’ camera.
The scientists will now intensify their research by analysis of water samples to find out about the nutrients in the river, as discovery of an ecosystem in such an extreme place is significant, it was reported by CNET.
The discovery comes a year after British Antarctic Survey researchers chanced upon stranger living organisms like sponges around 4,000 feet below the continent.
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