EAST VS. WEST ANTARCTIC SEAFLOOR
IIII HAVE SEEEEAFLOOOOR VIDEOOOO FOR YOUUUUUU!!!! The first half of this video was taken a week ago on our expedition, near the Shackleton Ice Shelf. The seafloor is a tan, sandy mud with lots of pebbly, gravel-sized rocks. The two red dots are so we can tell how big things are- they’re 10 cm apart. The flashing light is another camera taking a picture every few seconds. The second half of this video is from a 2020 expedition to the West Antarctic Peninsula (the other side from where we are). It’s got a soft, muddy seafloor.
Both these sites are around 1,300 ft deep. Remember that we’ll be able to post higher-quality video later, but for now we only have enough internet to share low-res imagery. But I’m tired of waiting to show you!
Watch with the sound up and you’ll hear clicks and squeaks in the first half. The clicking is our sonar and the squeaks are our multibeam- another instrument we use to map the bottom. The second video is rumbly, I assume from the exact camera setup they sent down but I’m not really sure.
Here’s what you’ll see:
- 0:00 A sea cucumber in the upper center
- 0:11 A white, tentacle-ish anemone comes in from the left
- 0:17 2 yellow things with “bunny ears” come into view- they’re comb jellies (a little like palm-sized, non-stingy jellyfish) attached to the bottom on long squishy stalks
- 0:21 Tan balls in the bottom center- sponges!
- 0:29 The lasers are on a friend! Do you recognize that animal?? (How long did it take you? Even for the experts on board this ship, it’s hard to identify all the stuff they see- getting just one camera angle in low light with the color skewed makes it so difficult.)
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- 0:33 So many brittle stars! They’re the very skinny sea stars you see all over the bottom, and the little white pieces laying all over the bottom are arms of brittle stars that are mostly buried.
- 0:35 An ice fish! The bluish gray thing propped on the bottom facing to the left side of the screen.
- 0:36 A line of yellow ropes and fluffy-looking balls beneath the fish- these are sponges and tunicates. Tunicates are squishy tube animals like someone rolled up a jellyfish without the tentacles.
- 0:39 Look on the left for a white, swirly-armed brittle star perched on a bryozoan, which is like a crusty, lacy moss. That type of brittle star is huge and uncurls its arms to snag stuff to eat out of the water- easier up high with more current.
- 0:42 The yellow thing in the lower left that looks like it has a hole in the middle is a vase sponge. It’s shaped like a vase (surprise!), and the camera happens to be staring straight down into it so we see the dark spot in the bottom of the vase, where the animal attaches to the seafloor.
Watch again and this time, notice how different the 2 sites are!
Credit for this footage goes to grant recipients Andy Mahon and Ken Halanych, and these videos were provided by Candace Grimes. Technical wizardry comes from the Electronic and Marine Tech teams, especially Alex Brett and Barry Bjork.
Virginia