Barbie - pink sea copper , grenadier Pisces , and a unicumber : these were the unexpected stars of a late expedition into the Clarion - Clipperton Zone ( CCZ ) where scientist are studying biodiversity . The region ’s beast life is of especial interest because it ’s also the proposed site of abstruse - sea minelaying , being home to a huge volume of “ ocean potatoes ” that contain the precious metals we take for the green revolution .
Amperima “ sea cop ” and “ unicumbers ” were perhaps the most alien of the critter capture on television camera by the team led byDr Adrian Glover , a deep - sea researcher at London ’s Natural History Museum ( NHM ) . This included the blistering - pink " Barbie pig " whose nickname was coined by Southampton PhD student Bethany Fleming after most of the team watched the movie on the plane to Costa Rica . The rummy creatures may even be new - to - science species , attain their debut in these first - ever in high spirits - definition photograph .
" We can assume that many of these species will be new to science,“Regen Drennan , a post - doctorial maritime life scientist at London NHM , told IFLScience . " Sometimes they have been see / keep an eye on / know before , but not collected or formally described . For object lesson , the sea pig nicknamed the unicumber had been seen in premature seabed imagery surveys , but not collected or imaged in high definition to the best of our knowledge . "
The “Unicumber”, a see-through sea cucumber.Image credit: © #NHMDeepSea Group, Natural History Museum, UK
" All the specimen that have been collected will be fetch back to the museum , where they will be identify and studied by the researchers here , " addedEva Stewart , a PhD student base at the NHM . " Some may be described as novel species , and lots of the specimen will be used for research looking at radiation diagram of diversity across the seafloor in this area . "
The squad also spotted rattail fish , one of the few craniate that can outlive at such great depths . They analyse life 4,000 - 5,000 meter ( 13,000 - 16,000 feet ) below the surface of the central Pacific as part of theSMARTEXproject to explore the CCZ , keeping an oculus out for what curious life survive here . The expedition , funded by NERC , was a joint labor with the National Oceanography Centre who own the ship the squad go out on .
It ’s a question of global interest due to the great discipline ofsea potato , also love as deep - ocean tubers ormanganese nodules , that can be find here . These disgraceful rock do n’t look like much , but they are one of the richest - know origin of atomic number 27 , nickel , and manganese on the planet : three thing we ’re going to necessitate a fate of if we ’re going to turn all the satellite ’s accelerator pedal - guzzle car into battery - power ones .
Rattail fish, one of the few vertebrates that can survive at these depths.Image credit: © #NHMDeepSea Group, Natural History Museum, UK
“ [ Ninety ] per centum of the world ’s exploration contracts for nodule are in the Clarion - Clipperton Zone , which stand for less than half of 1 pct of the global seafloor , ” The Metals Company PR and Media ManagerRory Ushertold IFLScience . “ But this constitute the big source of manganese , Ni , and cobalt , anywhere on the planet and that dwarfs everything on land by many Order of order of magnitude . There are enough metalsin situat two of the sites that would fulfill the need of 280 million car , which represents every elevator car in America , or a tail of the world ’s vehicle fleet . ”
Deep - ocean mining target to harvest these nodule by trump them up off the seabed and transporting them to the airfoil . The motivation to search for these resources on the seabed is that it represent a purer informant that would produce less run - off liken to terrestrial minelaying . It in all probability also has less biomass per square meter compare to the forests of Indonesia , which is a lead web site for mining .
“ The dispersion of these animals seemed to be quite patchy - the dominant sea Cucumis sativus on one ROV dive might be completely absent at another location , with a dissimilar one more common , ” go along Drennan . “ But in damage of density that we are used to , for example on Din Land or shallower marine arrangement , the deep sea in oecumenical ( and this orbit of the CCZ ) is characterised by very down in the mouth universe compactness , for the most part because intellectual nourishment is so limited at these depths . ”
“ Therefore , even when we hash out a ‘ dominant ’ species , this is still at relatively low number . What will be important to understand is the presence of specie over large spacial exfoliation , and connectivity between populations across these bombastic scales . ”
Before we can begin scooping up these treasured potato , much enquiry needs to be done to set up if disturbing the seabed and creating sediment plume in this otherwise pristine environment could have a negative influence on the survival of wildlife and ecosystems . That ’s one of the things SMARTEX – aka , Seabed Mining and Resilience to Experimental Impact – hopes to ascertain .
This article was amended to let in that the military expedition was fund by NERC , and was a joint undertaking with the National Oceanography Centre .
