Seals Display Scientists an Unidentified Antarctic Canyon

By Ethan Freedman

Human beings have sailed the oceans’ surfaces for millennia, but their depths keep on being proficiently uncharted. Only about a quarter of the seafloor has been mapped at large resolution. Maps of most regions exhibit only approximate depths and usually overlook overall underwater mountains or canyons.

So a group of researchers has recruited some deep-diving professionals: Elephant Seals and Weddell Seals. Scientists have been positioning trackers on these blubbery marine mammals around Antarctica for many years, accumulating knowledge on ocean temperature and salinity. For a new study, the researchers compared these dives’ locale and depth details with some of the a lot less comprehensive seafloor maps. They spotted areas where the seals dove deeper than really should have been doable according to the maps—meaning the existing depth estimates had been inaccurate.

In eastern Antarctica’s Vincennes Bay, the diving seals assisted the scientists discover a substantial, hidden underwater canyon plunging to depths of far more than a mile. An Australian investigate ship called the RSV Nuyina afterwards measured the canyon’s actual depth applying sonar, and the scientists have proposed naming their locate the Mirounga-Nuyina Canyon—honoring each the ship and the involved Elephant Seals, genus Mirounga.

“The seals found out the canyon, and the ship confirmed it,” suggests Clive McMahon, a researcher at the Integrated Maritime Observing Method in Australia and a co-writer of the new analyze, printed in Communications Earth & Natural environment.

But seals cannot map the entire ocean flooring. The trackers utilized in the research could pinpoint a seal’s geographical place only inside about 1.5 miles, which enables for handy but not just high-resolution facts. In addition, mainly because the seals really don’t usually dive to the bottom of the ocean, they can reveal only the place the base is deeper than in present maps—not shallower. McMahon notes that scientists could strengthen on these data by applying far more exact GPS trackers and examining the seals’ diving patterns to decide no matter whether they have reached the seafloor or just stopped descending.

The latest seal-dive info can even now be precious for an critical task, claims Anna Wåhlin, an oceanographer at the College of Gothenburg in Sweden, who was not concerned in the new investigate. The deep ocean all around Antarctica is hotter than the frigid waters at the surface area, and seafloor canyons can allow for that warmer water to flow to the ice along the continent’s coastline, Wåhlin clarifies. To predict how Antarctica’s ice will soften, researchers will have to have to know the place those people canyons are and how deep they go.