Where there鈥檚 methane, there鈥檚 life, it seems. At least that鈥檚 how it looks from the first survey of marine life around huge plumes of methane that bubble upwards for 800 metres or more in the Barents Sea region of the Arctic, adjacent to Scandinavia.
The survey uncovered rich oases of life clustered around the methane vents, known as 鈥渃old seeps鈥� on the Vestnesa Ridge, some 1200 metres deep.
Weird sea creatures have been imaged before at seeps near New Zealand and elsewhere, but the latest survey is the first glimpse at Arctic seeps.
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鈥淎rctic seafloors are normally featureless, because it鈥檚 so cold, dark and deep,鈥� says of the Centre for Arctic Gas Hydrate, Environment and Climate at the University of Troms酶 in Norway.
鈥淏ut we鈥檝e identified many animals living around the seeps, including fish, sea spiders, clams, starfish, snails and skates,鈥� she told the European Geosciences Union meeting in Vienna this week. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 think these things have been seen before.鈥�
脜str枚m discovered the oases after analysing 1000 images taken from the Tow CAM, a camera dropped to a zone just above the seabed.
She found that the animals gather around large reef structures created from carbonates and mats of microbes more than a metre across, which supply food for aquatic animals. 鈥淭he organisms in the mats convert carbon in methane into sugars,鈥� she says.
脜str枚m also described seeing 鈥渕eadows鈥� of thousands of tiny tube worms, which owe their existence to methane-munching microbes that live within the worms, providing them with sugars.
Other planetary bodies harbour methane-rich oceans, so could we see similar scenes on Saturn鈥檚 moon Enceladus or Europa, one of Jupiter鈥檚 moons? 脜str枚m was cautious when asked whether such rich oases of life could be found elsewhere. 鈥淲e need to know what鈥檚 going on at these great depths before we explore outside planet Earth,鈥� she said.
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*The eelpout (a fish) is the small club-shaped object at the top of the main picture, two-fifths of the way along
Read more: Methane apocalypse? Defusing the Arctic鈥檚 time bomb
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