Unexpected Life: Strange Creatures Accidentally Discovered Far Beneath Antarctica’s Ice Shelves

Far underneath the ice shelves of the Antarctic, there’s more life than expected, finds a recent study in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science. During an exploratory survey, researchers drilled through 900 meters of ice in the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf, situated on the south eastern Weddell Sea. At a distance of 260km away from the open ocean, under complete darkness and with temperatures of -2.2°C, very few animals have ever been observed in these conditions. But this study is the first to discover the existence of stationary animals — similar to sponges and potentially several previously unknown species — attached…