CRI听力:Ocean explorers claim discovery of 100 new species

The task of the Nekton expedition has been to investigate the health and resilience of the Northwest Atlantic.

The scientific team from the University of Oxford is the first to undertake major biological research of a undersea volcano.

The team says there are more than 100-thousand seamounts globally, but less than 50 have been biologically sampled in detail.

The University of Oxford's Alex Rogers is the expedition leader.

"The big problem we have with understanding the deep ocean is we simply don't understand the distribution of life within it. So the fastest way to change that situation is really to develop a single or a series of global ocean expeditions which enable us to undertake a synoptic sampling of the deep sea to understand those patterns of how life is distributed from 200 metres down to 2000 meters which we call the bathyal zone."

The team says the research is conducted in a way which will allow them to compare the wildlife and health of the water in this area with deep oceans in other parts of the globe.

Principal scientist Dr. Lucy Woodall.

"Right now every day we as humans are impacting those environments. So we need to look at the patterns that we're observing at the moment both the organisms themselves and those communities so that we can better understand how to manage them in the future."

The exploration around Bermuda is supported by various organizations and businesses.

Chris Flook from the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences suggests the data collected by the expedition will prompt further research.

"We've got this dataset that we have never been able to have. And with that it's basically jump started ability to get grants and funding to do further work because now we know it's the first step hey look we've figured out this. We know this from the mission."

Dr. Nick Higgs, deputy director of the Marine Institute at the University of Plymouth, is also part of the research.

He says he believes the discovery of new species in the deepest parts of the ocean will show that people still have a great deal to learn about what lies beneath the ocean's surfaces

Higgs also says that it's important to be proactive in discovering new species before irreparable damage is done by industrial exploitation of the deep ocean.

"Whether that be from fishing, or mineral, or oil extraction, our activities are going deeper into the oceans, so it's really important that we start to get a grip on what's living down there."

The Nekton team took samples from depths of up to 15-hundred meters.

40-thousand specimens have been analyzed since the expedition started in 2016.