Những bí mật dưới lòng đại dương

Cuộc điều tra tên gọi “Census of Marine Life” (tạm dịch: Cuộc điều tra dân số về đời sống biển) là một trong những cuộc dự án hợp tác khoa học lớn nhất từng được thực hiện từ trước tới nay. Dự án kéo dài một thập niên, bắt đầu năm 2000 và kết thúc năm nay, với mục đích nghiên cứu và thống kê các sinh vật trong lòng đại dương.

Hơn 2.700 nhà khoa học đã tham gia dự án, với trên 9.000 ngày hoạt động dưới biển trong hơn 540 cuộc thám hiểm, đó là chưa kể nhiều ngày làm việc tại các phòng thí nghiệm và kho lưu trữ.

Hôm qua, cuộc điều tra đã chính thức cho ra mắt các bản đồ, 3 cuốn sách và một bản tóm tắt khái quát những phát hiện sau 1 thập niên nghiên cứu. Các nhà khoa học cũng tuyên bố đã thống kê được 201.206 loài sinh vật biển trong cuộc điều tra.

Dự án trị giá 650 triệu USD nhận hỗ trợ tài chính và sự trợ giúp từ hơn 600 tổ chức, trong đó có chính phủ các nước, các tổ chức tư nhân, các tập đoàn, các tổ chức phi lợi nhuận, các trường đại học và thậm chí là 5 trường trung học. Tổ chức phi lợi nhuận Sloan (Sloan foundation) có trụ sở tại New York, Mỹ đóng góp nhiều nhất với 75 triệu USD.

Những sinh vật biển hình thù lạ mắt được phát hiện trong cuộc điều tra:

Một loài cá miệng rộng thậm chí còn mọc răng ở lưỡi.

Một loài sinh vật kỳ lạ sống ở độ sâu 300-1.500m.

Một loài sinh vật biển lông rậm rạp.

Một loài sên biển.

Một con sên biển màu vàng rực rỡ.

Một loài giun được tìm thấy ở độ sâu 925m tại vịnh Sagami, Nhật Bản.

Một loài tảo vi sinh xuất hiện dưới vùng biển ở Sydney, Australia.

Một loài giun hình thù kỳ lạ.

Một loài sâu hình cây thông Giáng sinh.

Một loài sứa.


Một loài tám chân có gai.

Một loài hải sâm.

Mội loài cỏ ký sinh hình ống.

Một loài giáp xác.

Một loài bạch tuộc.

"Mực ma cà rồng" được phát hiện tại vịnh Monterey, California.

10. Deep-ocean octopuses have Antarctic origins

Many deep ocean octopuses trace their origins back to relatives that swam in the waters around Antarctica. The migration began about 30 million years ago when the continent cooled and large ice sheets grew, forcing octopuses there into ever deeper waters. The climate shift also created a northbound flow of deep, cold water that carried the cephalopods to new habitats. As they adapted to new niches, new species evolved. Many lost their defensive ink sacs because the pitch-black ocean depths required no camouflage screen. The species known as Megaleledon setebos, shown here, is the closest living relative of the deep-sea octopuses' common ancestor.

9. 'Brittlestar City' discovered atop underwater mountain

The orange and red starfish relatives called brittlestars have managed to defy the odds and colonize the flanks of a giant, underwater peak on the Macquarie Ridge, an 870-mile-long underwater mountain range that stretches south from New Zealand to just short of the Antarctic Circle. The peak, known as a seamount, juts up into a swirling circumpolar current that flows by at 2.5 miles per hour, delivering ample food for the brittlestars to grab while sweeping away fish and other would-be predators. Another brittlestar species has settled on the seamount's flat summit, a habitat normally settled by corals and sponges.

8. Deep Antarctic waters, cradle of marine life

This pale crustacean from the genus Cylindrarcturus is one of more than 700 species new to science found scurrying, scampering and swimming in the frigid waters between 2,000 and 21,000 feet below the surface of the Weddell Sea off Antarctica. The discoveries were part of a research project to determine how species at different depths are related to each other there, and to other creatures around the world. "The Antarctic deep sea is potentially the cradle of life of the global marine species," team leader Angelika Brandt, an expert from the Zoological Institute and Zoological Museum at the University of Hamburg, said in a statement announcing the discoveries.

7. Northernmost black smokers discovered

Scientists working deep inside the Arctic Circle have discovered a cluster of five hydrothermal vents, also known as black smokers, which spew out liquid as hot as 570 degrees Fahrenheit. The vents are 120 miles further north than the closest known vents, which tend to occur where the seafloor spreads apart at a quicker pace. This image shows the arm of a remotely operated vehicle reaching out to sample fluids billowing from the top three feet of the tallest vent, which reaches four stories off the seafloor. The chimney is covered with white bacteria that feast on the freshly delivered minerals.

6. Black-smoker fossils hint at life's beginnings

The discovery of primitive bacteria on 1.43 billion-year-old black-smoker fossils – a crosscut is shown here – unearthed from a Chinese mine adds weight to the idea that life may have originated in deep-sea hydrothermal vents, according to geologist Timothy Kusky at Saint Louis University. The ancient microbe dined on metal sulfide that lined the fringes of the chimneys. The oldest-known life forms on Earth are 3.5 billion-year-old clumps of bacteria found in Western Australia. That find suggested that shallow seas, not the deep oceans, were the birthplace of life. Neither discovery, however, serves as the definitive answer about life's origins.
5. Abundant, diverse microbes feast on ocean-bottom crust

Once thought barren and sparsely populated, the deep-ocean floor is home to rich and diverse communities of bacteria. In fact, scientists have found that the seafloor contains three to four times more bacteria than the waters above, raising the question of how the organisms survive. Lab analyses suggest that chemical reactions with the rocks themselves provide the fuel for life. The discovery is another tantalizing hint that life could have originated in the ocean depths. In a statement about the find, the University of Southern California's Katrina Edwards said: "I hope that people turn their heads and notice: There's life down there."

4. Deep-sea fish may gather around mountains to spawn

Life in the dark, cold and vast depths of the sea was long thought to be lonely for the few fish that dared eke out an existence there, mostly from organic detritus that sinks from shallower waters. That picture began to change in 2006, when researchers probing the Mid-Atlantic Ridge discovered that fishes may occasionally gather at features such as seamounts to spawn. The evidence for these gatherings comes from the sheer volume of fish collected at seamounts – much higher than would have been expected if the fish were purely nomadic wanderers. What's more, images made from acoustical "scatterings" are suggestive of a massive fish aggregation. The 35-pound anglerfish shown here is one of the rare species hauled up from the deep during the project.
3. Colossal squid has, well, colossal eyes

What did you expect? Would a colossal squid have anything but eyes big enough to generate a few over-the-top superlatives? Probably not - but still, when researchers thawed out this squid in New Zealand, the wow factor was undeniable. The creature's eye measured about 11 inches across; its lens was the size of an orange. Scientists suspect the big eye allows the huge squid to capture a lot of light in the dark depths in which it hunts. The squid weighed about 1,000 pounds when caught in the Antarctic's Ross Sea and measured 26 feet long. Scientists believe the species, which can descend to 6,500 feet, may grow as long as 46 feet.

2. Deep-sea corals record history

Some coral reefs are found thousands of feet below the ocean surface, where they have grown amid frigid waters for millennia. Like tree rings, they serve as a faithful archive of global environmental change, according to Robert Dunbar, a professor of geological and environmental sciences at Stanford University. His team travels the world to collect samples of these corals, such as this one from a colony near Easter Island. In 2007, the team published a 300-year archive of soil erosion in Kenya, as recorded by coral samples collected from the bottom of the Indian Ocean. They are now analyzing 4,000-year-old corals discovered off Hawaii to create an archive of climate change.

1. Trawling destruction visible from space

Some scientists are working urgently to expose more secrets of the deep ocean before unexplored treasures are plundered. Their biggest concern is the fishing practice known as bottom trawling. This image shows the billowing plumes of sediment left in the wake of trawlers dragging giant nets across the ocean floor in the Gulf of Mexico. The practice has been shown to strip coral reefs bare and ravage underwater ecosystems such as seamounts, where thousands of species are known to gather. Though the practice is increasingly restricted, tens of thousands of trawlers continue to ply the deep oceans.
Sau thời gian hợp tác kéo dài 10 năm liền, các chuyên gia từ hơn 80 nước trên khắp thế giới hôm qua đã hoàn thành cuộc điều tra mang tính lịch sử về các “cư dân” của đại dương.

Coral reefs in the Red Sea, Indian Ocean