Scientists are to head out on Friday to explore an undiscovered seafloor in Antarctica. The seafloor had previously been covered by iceberg A-68 for at least 120,000 years. The 5,800 sq km iceberg broke off the Larsen C ice shelf in 2017. After the iceberg broke off, scientists went out to explore the newly exposed ocean floor. The mission failed due to sea ice. On February 9, a German-led group of scientists is heading out to discover the creatures that could’ve been hidden under ice for all those years.
“We’ve been studying Antarctica for a long time now,” Dr. Huw Griffiths from the British Antarctic Surveys (BAS) reported to BBC News. “But even in areas we think we know pretty well – about 10% of what we find at the bottom of the sea is new to science. So, I’m expecting that in an area that no one’s ever been before – for that number to be much higher, and for there to be a wider variety of new species.”
The break away of A-68 caused the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) to create an international conservation agreement. The new area is strictly for scientific purposes only, and commercial fishing vessels are banned for the next ten years.