An international team of scientists has discovered a new ecosystem in the Pacific Ocean

In the central Pacific Ocean, a team of Austrian, Dutch and American researchers has discovered a new ecosystem beneath the oceanic crust. Unprecedented underwater exploration in an environment once thought to be hostile to life.

40-centimetre-long marine worms, snails, molluscs, bacteria and larvae, in a nonetheless inhospitable environment…the discovery, Announced Tuesday, October 15 in the magazine nature (The article is in English)This new ecosystem, off the coast of Central America, at the level of the eastern Pacific ridge beneath the oceanic crust, proves to us once again that life can exist in incredible places.

In fact, any human exploration was impossible in this place located on the border between two Earth plates, a veritable lunar landscape of underwater mountains, immersed in complete darkness, without oxygen, with pressure 250 times greater than on the surface. For this exploration, this international team required the use of a remote-controlled submarine, equipped with cameras and articulated arms, capable of drilling into the nearby oceanic crust. Hot springs.

Other scientists before them have been able to identify pockets of life near these hydrothermal sources, where bacteria, in particular, benefit from water heated to 25 degrees by magma in the hills. Until now, no one had thought to scratch a few centimeters beneath the oceanic crust to discover this new ecosystem.

This discovery once again alerts us to… The need to protect our seabed. A hostile environment, which nonetheless arouses desire. Cobalt, nickel or even manganese, these highly desirable metals are essential for building electric batteries. They are found specifically in these marine depths, in the form of small pebbles and mineral nodules that took hundreds of thousands of years to form.

This team of scientists is not the only one to warn of the dangers of mining without an adequate environmental framework. There are likely between 1 million and 10 million underwater species that have yet to be discovered, according to the French Research Institute for the Exploitation of the Seas, which not only can teach us more about the regulation of submarine balance, but also, because they have adapted to harsh living conditions. , darkness, pressure, and lack of oxygen, advance medical research.