Ambitious scientists reach one of the deep seas’ most inaccessible places

What’s more inaccessible than the deep sea? A deep sea blanketed in a thick shell of ice.

Yet during a daunting October 2021 mission called the HACON project, a group of over two dozen scientists and engineers used an underwater robot to successfully explore a cryptic ocean world some 13,000 feet beneath the surface of the ice-covered Arctic Ocean. It was the first time researchers surveyed rare volcanic vents — and the life there — in the remote Arctic.

“It opens a new frontier of exploration in the Arctic,” Eva Ramirez-Llodra, a deep sea ecologist for the Norwegian government who co-led the mission, told Mashable. “It’s a challenge, but it can be done.”

“It’s a challenge, but it can be done.”

It’s a challenge because scientists can’t simply journey to the Arctic and drop a sturdy exploration robot into the water. They use a thick-hulled ship called an icebreaker to plow through packs of floating ice, called ice floes. And once at their remote destination, scientists must contend with the drifting ice: The ship (containing the exploration robot) is lodged in the ice, but the ice is incessantly moving. This means the windows for deep sea exploration are constantly evolving.

“You may have 25 minutes, or you may have two hours,” explained Ramirez-Llodra. “You’re drifting with the ice.”

But the exploration team found windows to lower their new exploration robot “Aurora” down into the depths on a tether. Their target was the “Aurora vent field,” a deep sea region teeming with geyser-like vents called “black smokers” that blow hot, dark, volcanic liquid into the water. Unique life, like snails, worms, and crustaceans thrive on the volcanic chemicals. In a lightless world without energy from the sun, the creatures have no other choice.

A “black smoker” hydrothermal vent documented by the HACON mission.
Credit: REV OCEAN

On Earth, these active vent fields are profoundly rare realms. All the known active vent areas would fit into just 19 square miles (50 square kilometers), explained Ramirez-Llodra. That’s less than half the size of San Francisco. “They’re a tiny existence around the world,” she said. “They’re very unique so we need to protect them.”

Protecting them doesn’t just mean exploring and mapping the uncharted vent field at some 13,000 feet down. It also requires finding and sampling what lives there, so scientists can make a case for their protection. This work is increasingly salient, if not urgent. Nations are preparing to mine the deep sea — with giant tank-like vehicles — for precious metals, which will inevitably destroy life on the seafloor.

Down in the ocean, the HACON mission found snails and crustaceans living around the vents, and other critters like shrimp in the greater vent field. The team also took comprehensive samples of life that make up the base of the food web, like tiny worms and microbes. Crucially, some of these deep sea creatures may produce chemicals that could be a source for future medicines. Already, scientists are testing marine chemicals for uses in the treatment of breast cancer, ovarian cancer, leukemia, and melanoma.

“Systematic searches for new drugs have shown that marine invertebrates produce more antibiotic, anti-cancer, and anti-inflammatory substances than any group of terrestrial organisms,” says the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The robotic explorer “Aurora” on the vessel (background).
Credit: REV OCEAN

Researchers standing on an Arctic ice floe during the HACON mission.
Credit: REV OCEAN

With the unprecedented samples collected, the mission’s scientists will now scrutinize the life from this remote deep sea area. Importantly, they want to know if much of the life around these Arctic black smokers is truly isolated and unique, or if it shares genes (and is “connected”) to deep sea life in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. It’s an unanswered question. But the researchers “expressed high confidence of new discoveries,” which will be announced in the coming few years, and beyond.

The first scientific results of this unprecedented deep sea mission, however, may come within six months, said Ramirez-Llodra. Stay tuned.