Researchers have discovered that there may be something monstrous living below Antarctica's icy surface, as big as 5 million square kilometres. The frozen continent is usually thought of as a hostile climate with only certain breeds of animals such as penguins, seals and fish being able to live there, the Daily Star reports
However, scientists have been studying blooms of photosynthetic algae, which emerges in the summer months when the ocean ice dissolves. It's been believed for a long time that the algae only appeared in the warmer months as Antarctica's hefty layer of solid ice would stop any sunlight from getting through.
However, new research carried out by a team from Brown University in the US and New Zealand's University of Auckland implies there could be a colossal mass of it living permanently under the surface of the continent, Newsweek reported. Christopher Horvat, who led the study, told the publication: "Finding these blooms helps challenge the paradigm that regions under sea ice are devoid of life, and introduces important new questions about the food webs that might lie under the ice in Antarctica.
"We think they could cover up to 5 million square km of the under-ice region in the Southern Ocean." The research which was discovered using data obtained from NASA'S Earth surveillance satellites and on-site ocean floats has now been published in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science.
The Southern Ocean's sea ice is composed of sheets of packed ice with small patches of open water in between. Researchers are of the opinion that it is those areas of water that let light pass through even in the winter months, giving the algae power to photosynthesise all year round.
Huw Griffiths, a marine biogeographer with the British Antarctic Survey explained the ice which is usually between three and ten feet thick is also thin enough to allow some light through. However, previous studies have proven that life exists on the sea floor where there is no light at all.
"Most ice shelves are so thick that no light reaches the sea floor below," Griffiths said. Last year, a team led by Griffiths found life on a boulder 3000ft under the surface of the ocean on the sea floor which was being sheltered by an Antarctic ice shelf.
"We know very little about life under Antarctica's floating ice shelves. Ice shelves cover around a third of the continental shelf—1.5 million square kilometres—but our knowledge is based on a handful of records from boreholes drilled through the ice shelves," he said. These holes give us small snapshots of what lives on the seafloor and the water column, but the majority of what we know comes from short video clips and photographs covering a very small area.
"Current theories on what life could survive under ice shelves suggest that all life becomes less abundant as you move further away from open water and sunlight," he continued. Past studies have found some small mobile scavengers and predators, such as fish, worms, jellyfish or krill, in these habitats.
"Our study found the first ever record of a hard substrate—a boulder—community deep beneath an ice shelf, made up of probable filter-feeding animals such as sponges."
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