Oceans Reveal Strange and Wonderful New Worlds

Science news readers may have caught a story from a couple weeks ago discussing the possibility that Earth's water came from elsewhere. Many still adhere to the notion that the life-sustaining wet stuff we're blessed with might have come from volcanic activity. Recent news, however, shed light on a theory that links water's appearance in abundance to ice-covered comets that arrived in large numbers a mere 100 million years after the formation of the solar system.

The possibly extraterrestrial origin of water sure seems to resonate nicely with the decidedly otherworldly findings recently announced by the Census of Marine Life (COML). Marine scientists at COML announce an update in their efforts to catalog life in the world's oceans, arguably the planet's largest remaining set of mysteries. A November 22 press release describes Beyond Sunlight 2009, the recently completed project work and documentation as having "inventoried an astonishing abundance, diversity and distribution of deep sea species that have never known sunlight."

Images of some highly unusual and previously unknown life forms have made their way from depths that reach three miles beneath the surface.

The census nears the end of its 10-year mission. The result of cooperation among scientists from 80 countries, COML will publish the first comprehensive Census of Marine Life volume in 2010. This week's announcement is of some surprisingly high numbers of species added to our knowledge of a largely unknown environment. Prior to getting underway in 2000, it was estimated that about 230,000 species of marine animal had been identified. The concentrated collaborative efforts of COML scientists have added more than 5,000 species to the body of marine life knowledge.

This week's findings attach a surprisingly large number of some 17,650 species that live in deep waters of at least 200 meters below surface. More than 5,700 of these live at or below 1,000 meters. At great depths, pressures are enormous, sunlight is nonexistent and somehow, life abounds in considerable number and astonishing variety.

Read more about the census and their projects on their Web site, where you can read in greater detail their findings from deep waters and take in the unbelievable images that have come about through their efforts.

Photo courtesy of NOAA, via Wikimedia Commons