Beyond Sunlight

Embargo:   For use after 12 noon EST, 5 pm GMT, Sunday Nov. 22, 2009

Contacts: Mr. Terry Collins, +1-416-878-8712; +1-416-538-8712; terrycollins [at] rogers [dot] com
Ms. Darlene Trew Crist, +1-401-295-1356; +1-401-952-7692; darlene [dot] crist [at] cox [dot] net
Mr. Gregg Schmidt, +1-202- 448-1231; gschmidt [at] oceanleadership [dot] org

 

Experts are available for advance interviews. Embargoed high-resolution still images (where available), a video news release and deep-sea creature video co-produced with National Geographic, and an animation depicting numbers of deep sea species at depth are available below.

 

The Deep Sea World Beyond Sunlight

From the Edge of Darkness
to the Black Abyss: Marine Scientists
Census 17,500+ Species and Counting

Explorers report deep sea teeming with species that have never known sunlight;
Describing all new species in a cup of deep seafloor mud “a daunting challenge;”
Discovered: jumbo “Dumbo” octopod and its new-to-science cousin;
Video captures “wildcat” tubeworm drilling for oil on ocean floor;
Vibrant coral gardens found amid Pacific “Graveyard” of seamounts;
En route to historic 1st global ocean Census: Oct. 2010

Census of Marine Life scientists have inventoried an astonishing abundance, diversity and distribution of deep sea species that have never known sunlight – creatures that somehow manage a living in a frigid black world down to 5,000 meters (~3 miles) below the ocean waves.

Revealed via deep-towed cameras, sonar and other vanguard technologies, animals known to thrive in an eternal watery darkness now number 17,650, a diverse collection of species ranging from crabs to shrimp to worms. Most have adapted to diets based on meager droppings from the sunlit layer above, others to diets of bacteria that break down oil, sulfur and methane, the sunken bones of dead whales and other implausible foods.

Five of the Census’ 14 field projects plumb the ocean beyond light, each dedicated to the study of life in progressively deeper realms – from the continental margins (COMARGE: Continental Margins Ecosystems) to the spine-like ridge running down the mid-Atlantic (MAR-ECO: Mid-Atlantic Ridge Ecosystem Project), the submerged mountains rising from the seafloor (CenSeam: Global Census of Marine Life on Seamounts), the muddy floor of ocean plains (CeDAMar: Census of Diversity of Abyssal Marine Life), and the vents, seeps, whale falls and chemically-driven ecosystems found on the margins of mid-ocean ridges and in the deepest ocean trenches (ChEss:Biogeography of Deep-Water Chemosynthetic Systems).

Full press release, high resolution images, and video files will be available for download the afternoon of Monday November 16, 2009 (EST).

Downloads:
Full press release (PDF)
Full press release (Word file)
High resolution images

 

Video News Release co-produced with National Geographic for download

Creature video co-produced with National Geographic for download

 
Video of OBIS marine life observations number by depth for download