A Caribbean Nation Mapped Its Own Deep Sea First
Trinidad and Tobago's deep sea was almost a blank chart. The country's first homegrown deep-sea expedition surfaced at least 20 suspected new species.
The Discovery
Trinidad and Tobago is famous for its shoreline. Its deep sea was almost a blank chart — until a homegrown expedition went looking.
The first locally led deep-sea expedition in the country's history mapped more than 11,335 square kilometres of unexplored seafloor, according to the Schmidt Ocean Institute. Working from the research vessel Falkor (too) with the remotely operated submersible SuBastian, the team surfaced at least 20 suspected new species.
The backyard was an ocean. Nobody had counted what lived there.
What They Found
The researchers located 25 cold-seep fields, seafloor zones that leak methane and hydrocarbons and feed strange chemical-powered ecosystems. Among the possible new species is a cheerful purple octopus first glimpsed in 2014 and never confirmed.
- Corals, carnivorous sponges and squat lobsters are still being checked against known records.
- A Mobula ray carcass was found at 1,025 metres, a rarely seen 'ray fall' feeding worms and crustaceans.
- The team collected about 700 specimens and flash-preserved their tissues.
Those frozen tissues seed the Caribbean's first 'frozen zoo', banking material from more than 86 species of deep-water sponges, corals and sea cucumbers for future study.
Why It Matters
Chief scientist Diva Amon framed the point plainly: Caribbean scientists can explore their own deep sea rather than wait for outsiders. The specimens now live at the University of the West Indies in St. Augustine.
The suspected new species are not yet formally described, and confirmation may take months of laboratory work. What is already certain is that a nation just met the animals in its own waters for the first time.
The map used to stop at the coast. Now it runs two kilometres down.