![]() ![]() With this trove of undiscovered life, the CCZ is a scientific gold mine-but the possibility of literal mineral extraction remains. ROV Isis, SMARTEX Project, Natural Environment Research Council, U.K., “This study really highlights how off the charts this section of our planet and this section of our ocean is in terms of how much new life there is down there,” Douglas McCauley, an ocean scientist at the University of California at Santa Barbara who was not involved in the study, tells the Washington Post’s Dino Grandoni.Ī sea cucumber known commonly as a "gummy squirrel," imaged in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone ![]() But even with the aid of these robots, studying the area’s vast seabed, located up to 18,000 feet below the surface, is a daunting task. To research the CCZ, scientists use remotely operated vehicles that survey the ocean floor in pursuit of unknown living organisms. SMARTEX Project, Natural Environment Research Council, U.K., Several mollusks identified in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone Yet somehow-you know, the cheesy Jurassic Park line-life finds a way to survive down there.” “Everything in the is extremely cold and obviously completely dark,” co-author Adrian Glover, a deep-sea researcher at the Natural History Museum, told National Geographic’s Kiley Price. Including species that have never been encountered, an estimated total of at least 6,000 to 8,000 species might eke out a living in the CCZ, per the paper. The team concluded that 5,578 species have been found in the zone over the past few decades-and 5,142 of them have not been named or categorized by scientists. In an attempt to document the zone’s biodiversity before any mining occurs, researchers led by the Natural History Museum in London pulled together more than 100,000 biological records to create the most comprehensive account of CCZ wildlife ever made. ![]() According to a study published in May in Current Biology, approximately 90 percent of the animals that live there have yet to be described by scientists. From slimy sea cucumbers to fan-like sea lilies, the mysterious creatures live in complete darkness.īut this region between Mexico and Hawaii might be licensed for mining before scientists understand all the life that exists there. Known as the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ), it stretches about as wide as the continental United States and hosts various important metals. Deep in the Pacific Ocean resides an under-studied community of diverse animals that survive in one of the most extreme environments on the planet. ![]()
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