Where does life lurk under the ice of Antarctica? The answers keep surprising us. In January, for example, researchers found corals, sponges and even giant sea spiders some 750 feet under the waves — all suddenly unearthed when a glacier broke free during a Schmidt Ocean Institute voyage.
The find is hardly unusual; in 2021, another team uncovered sponges and other species underneath nearly 3,000 feet of ice in the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf — the first time any living creatures had been found there. But with global heating and climate change wreaking havoc on the ice caps of Antarctica, researchers are looking to a new map of the south polar region to better map global warming changes and their effects on subglacial life. These efforts won’t just inform how to protect these fragile ecosystems — they could act as a sort of road map for finding alien life on other worlds.
