Expedition account depicts weird and wonderful in our seas
first attempt to chart abundance of life in world’s oceans to release results next year
Published:
MUCH of the marine life featured in Professor Peter Boyle’s book, Life in the Mid Atlantic, looks like it belongs in outer space, not here on earth.
The extraordinary images, many taken by Blue Planet photographer David Shale, depict fearsome fanged fish with “glow-sticks” which they use as bait, jellyfish that resemble chandeliers and multi-legged, plumed creatures which are distant cousins of spiders and barnacles.
It’s little wonder the discoveries seem so other-worldly. More than 60% of the planet is covered by deep ocean, but less than 1% of the seas beneath half-a-mile in depth have been visited by man.
The 240-page hardback book is a detailed account of a research expedition involving 60 scientists from 30 countries who spent two months aboard the GO Sars research vessel studying life in the depths of the Mid Atlantic Ridge. They explored from surface to seabed two-and-a-half miles below and returned with more than 80,000 biological specimens – some previously undiscovered – and a vast database of recordings which will take years to analyse.
The results will be fed into the Census of Marine Life – the first attempt to chart the abundance of life in the world oceans. The findings of the 10-year project, involving researchers in more than 80 nations, are due to be unveiled next year.
In his preface Prof Boyle explains: “My aim in writing the book is to bring to the general reader something of the scale, complexity and excitement of a modern scientific endeavour to one of the most remote and inaccessible regions of the planet.”
Life in the Mid Atlantic is available from Amazon, priced £19.75.
