(March 10, 2016 at 9:24 pm)mh.brewer Wrote: Looks pretty damn desolate. Have they said how old they think that section of floor is?
I couldn't play the audio, was at work, so I didn't hear any of the commentary.
I'm not surprised it's desolate. The portion that I watched, I was actually surprised there was as much life as there was. Certainly not as much I've seen diving at <40m, but there's a lot of similarity in life forms. There was at one point something that closely resembled a brittle star, and I'd guess that they may be separately evolved from shallow water brittle stars.
I have to wonder where they get energy. Not from the sun, there weren't any thermal vents in the segment I watched, and for many species, food is what happens to sink from above or get filtered out of slowly moving water.
The water at that depth has to be frigid. It's a wonder how anything can survive in those conditions - though I freely admit that is probably a failure of my imagination.
Fascinating stuff.
