Scientists Discover New Microscopic Organisms in The Depths of The Atacama Trench [View all]

[Judi Lynn]

AFP 18 MARCH 2022

When Chilean scientist Osvaldo Ulloa led an expedition 8,000 meters under the sea to an area where no human had ever been, his team discovered microscopic organisms that generated more questions than answers.

The January submarine expedition dove into the Atacama Trench, created by the meeting of two tectonic plates in the eastern Pacific Ocean.

"We pulled off the feat of taking humans into the trench where no other human being had been before," Ulloa, the director of the Millennium Institute of Oceanography at the University of Concepcion, told AFP.

He was joined by American explorer Victor Vescovo and Millennium assistant director Ruben Escribano on the 12-week journey off Chile's northern coast in the 5,900-kilometer (3,650-mile) long trench that extends up to Ecuador.

By the time the expedition, named Atacama Hadal, reached a depth of 100 meters, it was already in pitch-black darkness, with the crew members' vision limited to what the submarine's powerful LED light could capture.

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