Discovery of 'hidden world' under Antarctic ice has scientists 'jumping for joy'
By Harry Baker published 3 days ago
The secret ecosystem was found more than 1,600 feet below the surface.
Researchers discovered swarms of shrimplike amphipods while they were exploring an underground Antarctic river. (Image credit: NIWA/Craig Stevens)
A never-before-seen ecosystem lurks in an underground river deep below the icy surface in Antarctica. Researchers recently brought this "hidden world" into the light, revealing a dark and jagged cavern filled with swarms of tiny, shrimplike creatures.
The scientists found the secret subterranean habitat tucked away beneath the Larsen Ice Shelf — a massive, floating sheet of ice attached to the eastern coast of the Antarctic peninsula that famously birthed the world's largest iceberg in 2021. Satellite photos showed an unusual groove in the ice shelf close to where it met with the land, and researchers identified the peculiar feature as a subsurface river, which they described in a statement(opens in new tab). The team drilled down around 1,640 feet (500 meters) below the ice's surface using a powerful hot-water hose to reach the underground chamber.
When the researchers sent a camera down through the icy tunnel and into the cavern, hundreds of tiny, blurry flecks in the water obscured the video feed. Initially, the team thought their equipment was faulty. But after refocusing the camera, they realized that the lens was being swarmed by tiny crustaceans known as amphipods. This caught the team off guard, as they had not expected to find any type of life this far below the icy surface.
"Having all those animals swimming around our camera means there’s clearly an important ecosystem process happening there," Craig Stevens, a physical oceanographer at the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) in Auckland, New Zealand, said in the statement. The discovery of the secret shrimp-infested structure had the team "jumping up and down for joy," Stevens added.
More:
https://www.livescience.com/hidden-ecosystem-under-antarctic-ice
= new reply since forum marked as read
"C'mon down to Europa Bob's for all you can eat amphipod night!"
Tastes like chicken.
Sorry, couldn't resist. 
… as deep as Moria, where scientists asked if they could please get rock samples from newly opened seams, before anyone so much as breathed on them? When they got them back to the labs and went to slicing them up, they found a type of amoeba, very much a living creature…
And of course the little critters colonizing boiling hot sulfuric vents about as far below the sea as can be gotten.
I am in awe.
Somewhere in the planet’s core I expect we shall someday find salamanders, creatures of fire.
