{"id":632481,"date":"2026-10-16T14:14:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-16T14:14:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/632481\/"},"modified":"2026-10-16T14:14:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-16T14:14:12","slug":"its-the-size-of-key-west-in-florida-300-years-old-buried-1000km-beneath-arctic-ice-and-is-home-to-thousands-of-giant-animals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/632481\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s the size of Key West in Florida, 300 years old, buried 1,000km beneath Arctic ice \u2013\u00a0and is home to thousands of giant animals"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s an enormous, 15 square kilometre, 300-year-old sponge garden hidden in the depths of the Central Arctic Ocean <\/a>\u2013 and scientists had never seen it until 2022. <\/p>\n

Some of the sponges found on\u00a0Langseth Ridge<\/a>\u00a0are smaller than a penny, at just 1cm in diameter, while others can grow to around half a metre \u2013 roughly the size of a small exercise ball.<\/p>\n

Throughout the year, the North Pole<\/a> is almost always\u00a0covered<\/a>\u00a0with around two or three metres of sea ice. This thick layer can block the sunlight to deeper waters, which prevents algae from photosynthesising and makes it more difficult for life to prevail.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So, in 2022, scientists were amazed to find a nearby garden of deep-sea sponges thriving on the peaks of extinct underwater volcanoes, which are known as\u00a0seamounts<\/a>. The finding was published in a 2022\u00a0Nature Communications<\/a> paper.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a unique ecosystem,\u201d said\u00a0Antje Boetius<\/a>, chief scientist of the expedition, head of the Re\u00adsearch Group for Deep Sea Eco\u00adlogy and Tech\u00adno\u00adlogy at the Max Planck In\u00adsti\u00adtute for Mar\u00adine Mi\u00adcro\u00adbi\u00ado\u00adlogy in a\u00a0statement<\/a>\u00a0about the discovery. \u201cWe have never seen anything like it before in the high Central Arctic.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The sponge garden was full of life, which was puzzling in waters that should have so few nutrients.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the study area, primary productivity in the overlying water provides less than one percent of the sponges\u2019 carbon demand,\u201d adds Boetius. \u201cThis sponge garden may be a transient ecosystem, but it is rich in species, including soft corals.\u201d<\/p>\n

The sponges must have a source of food for the garden to grow to such an epic size but the scientists didn\u2019t know what they were eating.<\/p>\n

\"\"The dense sponge grounds discovered on the northerly Langseth Ridge seamount structure represent an astonishingly rich ecosystem.Credit: Alfred-Wegener-Institut \/ PS101 AWI OFOS system<\/p>\n

To find out, they took samples of the organisms within this ancient ecosystem.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This revealed that the sponges \u2013 which were around 300 years old on average \u2013 were feeding on old organic matter from an extinct deep-sea community living on the seamounts. These animals, which lived two or three thousand years before the sponges, survived on nutrients that were seeping out of the seafloor as a result of volcanic activity.<\/p>\n

They have special microorganisms in their bodies that help them break down this matter and turn it into energy. \u201cThis allows them to feed on the remnants of former, now extinct inhabitants of the seamounts, such as the tubes of worms composed of protein and chitin and other trapped detritus,\u201d says\u00a0Teresa Morganti<\/a>, a sponge expert who was at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology at the time of the discovery.<\/p>\n

With Arctic sea ice melting, the scientists stress how important it is to learn about unique ecosystems like the Langseth Ridge sponge garden before it\u2019s too late.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWith sea-ice cover rapidly declining and the ocean environment changing, a better knowledge of hotspot ecosystems is essential for protecting and managing the unique diversity of these Arctic<\/a> seas under pressure\u201d, says Boetius.<\/p>\n

More stories from around the world:<\/p>\n

Top image: NOAA<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s an enormous, 15 square kilometre, 300-year-old sponge garden hidden in the depths of the Central Arctic Ocean…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":632482,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[111,139,69,147,406],"class_list":["post-632481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=632481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632481\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/632482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=632481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=632481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=632481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}