{"id":26889,"date":"2026-02-09T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T20:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ecoticias.com\/en\/?p=26889"},"modified":"2026-02-12T11:31:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T16:31:11","slug":"science-has-just-discovered-oases-of-clams-and-tube-worms-at-a-depth-of-9533-meters-where-sunlight-does-not-exist-and-yet-life-thrives-in-abundance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ecoticias.com\/en\/science-has-just-discovered-oases-of-clams-and-tube-worms-at-a-depth-of-9533-meters-where-sunlight-does-not-exist-and-yet-life-thrives-in-abundance\/26889\/","title":{"rendered":"Science has just discovered \u201coases\u201d of clams and tube worms at a depth of 9,533 meters, where sunlight does not exist and yet life thrives in abundance"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A last-minute detour nearly six miles down has led scientists to what they call the deepest known ecosystem<\/a> on Earth, a long stretch of seafloor communities that don\u2019t depend on sunlight at all. Instead, clams and tube worms appear to survive on chemical energy from methane and other gases leaking out of cracks in the ocean floor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The discovery, described in a new Nature<\/em> study<\/a>, comes from dives in two remote trenches in the northwest Pacific, including areas between Russia and Alaska. It also adds a fresh twist to a big question in ocean science<\/a>: how far down can life really go, and what keeps it going when there\u2019s no light, little food, and crushing pressure?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Read More: Sticking aluminum foil to the wall may look absurd, but contractors use it to reveal whether hidden moisture is coming from your house or from the air<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

A \u201cone-more-look\u201d moment in the hadal zone<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The hadal zone<\/a> is the deepest part of the ocean, starting around 6,000 meters down and running to the bottom of the deepest trenches. Think of it as Earth\u2019s underwater canyons<\/a>, where pressure is so extreme that ordinary submarines cannot go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During a 2024 expedition that ran from July 8 to August 17, researchers used the deep-diving submersible Fendouzhe<\/a> to explore the Kuril-Kamchatka Trench and the western Aleutian Trench. Geochemist Mengran Du, working with Xiaotong Peng, reported seeing dense groups of animals at depths from about 5,800 to 9,533 meters, spanning roughly 2,500 kilometers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How methane replaces sunlight<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Most life on Earth ultimately runs on sunlight, because plants and algae use it to make food. In these trenches, there\u2019s no light at all, so the system runs on chemosynthesis, which is basically \u201cmaking food from chemicals\u201d instead of from sunlight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s the simple version. Cold seeps are cracks in the seafloor that leak chemicals like methane and hydrogen sulfide, and NOAA\u2019s cold<\/a> seep overview explains how bacteria can use those chemicals for energy. Some of these bacteria live inside animals like clams and tube worms, feeding their hosts in a kind of built-in food factory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Read More: Shanghai should have sunk years ago… but something invisible keeps it afloat: the secret lies 1,000 meters beneath your feet and has to do with oil wells and recycled water<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

A new clue about carbon cycling in the deepest ocean<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

What surprised the team wasn\u2019t just the animals, but the chemistry under them. The researchers reported unusually high methane in trench sediments, and they suggest microbes may be producing methane locally by processing buried organic material and recycling carbon on site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In practical terms, that means the trenches may act less like a dead-end storage pit and more like a \u201crecycling center\u201d for carbon in the deep ocean<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That matters because methane and carbon dioxide are powerful greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and understanding where carbon ends up, and how long it stays there, helps scientists build better climate and ocean models<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why this matters beyond the trenches<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Experts who were not part of the work say the size and depth of the communities stand out. Johanna Weston of Woods Hole <\/a>Oceanographic Institution has pointed out that deep trenches are remote, but they\u2019re still connected to the surface, including through food pulses and pollution <\/a>that sinks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That connection keeps showing up in other research. Weston\u2019s team recently described a deep-sea scavenger that feeds on sinking seaweed in the Atlantic in a Woods Hole <\/a>press release, and earlier work linked trench life to plastic pollution through an Eurythenes<\/a> plasticus report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, methane-based partnerships aren\u2019t limited to trenches, as shown by a methane-powered sea spiders study<\/a> that found deep-sea spiders hosting methane-eating microbes on their bodies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Read More: The United States Navy has revived the name USS Utah for a nuclear submarine, reopening a wound directly tied to Pearl Harbor<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

What comes next for exploring the deepest ocean<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The big takeaway is that these chemical-powered communities may be more widespread than scientists once thought. If similar cold seep conditions exist in other trenches, there may be more \u201cdark ecosystems\u201d waiting, and some species may be new to science.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s one reason international efforts are ramping up, including the Global Hadal Exploration Programme<\/a>, which aims to coordinate deep-ocean research across countries and disciplines. It fits a broader surge in species discovery, highlighted by the Ocean Census <\/a>announcement that reported hundreds of newly documented marine species.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The main study has been published in Nature<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A last-minute detour nearly six miles down has led scientists to what they call the deepest known ecosystem on Earth, … <\/p>\n

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