A team of Australian scientists on a deep sea research voyage exploring vast underwater mountains and undiscovered marine species has arrived in remote territory off Christmas Island.
The 35-day, 13,000km Museums Victoria mission set off aboard CSIRO research vessel Investigator from Darwin on September 30.
Its task will be to conduct biodiversity surveys of life at abyssal depths of more than 5500 metres around both Christmas and the Cocos (Keeling) islands before returning to Fremantle on November 3.
Chief Scientist Tim O'Hara says the group expects to discover multiple deep-sea species and collect data and information to support the management of new marine parks in Australia's Indian Ocean Territories.
Announced last year, the parks to Australia's northwest, will help protect an area up to 740,000 sq km.
"We surprisingly actually know little about the animals that live on the sea floor there," Dr O'Hara said.
"We're not just talking about a deep dive here or a scuba dive. We're not even talking about the depth a submarine would go to. We're talking kilometres down."
At such extremities lie huge sea mountains created between 40 million and 120 million years ago.
"They're ancient volcanoes and they're massive," he said.
"They can be 70km across, 5km high and the landscape is studded with these enormous monsters yet we know nothing about them."
The fact the mighty peaks also sit in the confluence of currents between the Indian and Pacific oceans, makes them an ideal candidate for discovery.
The researchers will use multi-beam sonar to map the structure of the sea floor and cameras, nets and sleds to sample habitats from 60 metres all the way down to 5500 metres.
By extracting DNA, they will also be able to identify new species from specimens added to the Museums Victoria State and national biological collections.
"We expect maybe a third of all the animals we bring back will be new species," Dr O'Hara said.
Parks Australia acting director Jody Swirepik said along the way Investigator would transit through the relatively unexplored Oceanic Shoals and Argo-Rowley marine sanctuaries.
On October 4, the expedition reported tracking between aptly-named underwater peaks "Roo Rise" and "Joey Rise", east of Christmas Island Marine Park.
On its return leg, it is also expected to navigate a section of ancient submerged West Australian coastline within Abrolhos Marine Park, southwest of Geraldton.
