EL PAÍS offers the América Futura section openly for its daily and global information contribution on sustainable development.
If you want to support our journalism, subscribe
here
.
“I have always been interested in the depth of the sea,” says Uruguayan Javier Sellanes, a doctor in Oceanography, before embarking on a scientific expedition that left at the end of February and that will explore, until April 3, what the chain of Salas y Gómez seamounts, on the Chilean coast.
It won't be the first time he's done it.
In recent days, between January 8 and February 11, 2024, he was also sailing above the Nazca and Juan Fernández ridges, two other groups of sequences of these mountains under the ocean.
On that occasion, together with a crew of more than 40 people, they collected thousands of samples that they believe could contain up to 100 marine species new to science.
A biological treasure submerged between Chile and Rapa Nui (better known as Easter Island), which includes deep-sea corals, glass sponges, sea urchins, small crustaceans, lobsters and other species whose shapes and forms seem to defy genetics. .
Seamount chains are perhaps one of the least explored ecosystems in the world.
These are volcanoes that, through millions of years of geological history and thanks to the collision of tectonic plates, have been rising from the 4,500 meters depth that the region's ocean generally has, giving rise to there is more diversity of species and, as Sellanes suggests, becoming a “small oasis of biodiversity.”
If you look at them from Google Earth, the seamounts are those that appear right where it seems that the sea has wrinkled.
But because of how remote they are in the Pacific and how difficult it is to dive under the sea, these underwater mountain chains have been little explored.
A lobster photographed on a coral 669 meters deep, on the JF2.ROV SuBastian seamount (Schmidt Ocean Institute)
A specimen of squid 'Mastigopsis hjorti' after releasing its ink, in the Nazca ridges. ROV SuBastian (Schmidt Ocean Institute)
The SuBastian remote operation vehicle is put into operation from the Falkor Too.Alex Ingle (Schmidt Ocean Institute)
Javier Sellanes reviews underwater maps before launching SuBastian.Alex Ingle (Schmidt Ocean Institute)
SuBastian is lifted from the sea and placed aboard the Falkor Too.Alex Ingle (Schmidt Ocean Institute)
“When the Soviet Union existed, they had a global plan to study the fishing resources of the seamounts and, here, in Chile, they were there in the 70s and 80s,” says Sellanes, also a professor at the Catholic University. of the North and expert in mollusks.
Since then, and until these two expeditions give their final results, that was the basis of what was known about them.
What's coming, however, could be amazing.
Sellanes, who led the first expedition, believes that what they managed to collect exceeded expectations.
In the biological collections room at the University they have four wooden boxes with samples that contain up to 500 or 600 jars full of specimens.
“We are talking about potentially, just with the first expedition, there are 100 new species.
But it is an estimate, there could be many more.”
Collecting them was a titanic task.
Thanks to the fact that they won a call from the Schimdt Ocean Institute, a philanthropic organization founded by Eric Schimdt, former CEO of Google, the team from the Universidad Católica del Norte, together with the universities of Texas Rio Grande (United States), Valparaíso (Chile ), Western Australia (Australia) and Porto (Portugal), were able to embark aboard the Falkor Too, a 110-meter-long scientific cruise ship that looks like something out of a science fiction movie.
Map of the Schmidt Ocean Institute 'Seamounts' expedition.Schmidt Ocean Institut (Schmidt Ocean Institut)
Using sound waves and just sailing over the seamounts, the Falkor Too was able to map the shape of each of the mountains the team wanted to investigate.
Then she reconstructed them into a small size with a 3D printer.
Thus, with this guide that scientists could literally have in their hands, they submerged an underwater robot with the ability to descend to depths of up to 4,500 meters, so that it would not only take videos of the incredible specimens that live under these waters, but, through two types of arms, I could take samples.
These are the specimens that, precisely, today house the biological collections room of the University.
The crew that carried the Falkor Too also sounds otherworldly.
It was made up of almost 40 people, including 21 scientists from different universities, the navigators, the robot pilots, three inhabitants of Robinson Crusoe Island - which is part of the Juan Fernández archipelago - and an artist.
“We do these projects also with the idea of empowering local communities, because, although they are the first to know the wonders they have there, it is not always easy for them to visualize it,” he comments on the first.
Regarding why he brought an artist, he says that the idea was also to have an artistic narration of the expedition.
Scientists from the research team aboard the ship Falkor Too.
Javier Sellanes (Schmiidt Ocean Institute)
Decades of work for science
Only with what was obtained in this first expedition, Sellanes accepts that the work to come will be immeasurable.
Now teams from both the universities involved in the expedition and other interested parties will have to study each of the samples and see what it is about.
For example, to see if there are indeed new species, they will have to describe them in a scientific article and have it reviewed and approved by peers so that it becomes official.
“It may even take decades for some of these species to be described, because many times you need more than one specimen to do so, so, perhaps, in the future it will be necessary to collect other specimens,” he comments.
And returning to the depths of the seamounts, as we have already seen, involves investment, a giant cruise ship and a diverse crew.
But regardless of whether it is new or not for science, the expedition that ended and the one that is currently underway have made something clear: the Chilean seamounts hide a unique treasure of biodiversity.
“Each species seen or collected contributes to our argument that these are areas that must be managed, that must be conserved,” recalls the oceanographer.
What he has seen these days is a magical world, of captivating colors, of abstract figures that are difficult to access under the sea.
A world that is so stimulating and strange, that even the Schimdt Ocean Institute is broadcasting live the underwater dives that the second expedition is doing on its YouTube channel in areas that are below 600 meters deep.
Oblong urchins Dermechinus documented at 516 meters deep.Javier Sellanes (Schmiidt Ocean Institute)