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Antarctic Ecosystem Discovered during Amy Leventer's Spring 2005 Research Cruise
From February 11th - March 11th 2005, Amy Leventer along with an international team of scientists and
students (including Aron Buffen CU '05), traveled to the Antarctic Peninsula to further their
understanding of the causes and consequences of global warming. The cruise focused on the area
where the Larsen B ice shelf suddenly collapsed in 2002. By gaining knowledge of the effects of
the collapse on marine systems and sediments, they hope to use this information to determine if
similar collapses have occurred in the past or whether the current global warming trends are unprecedented.
While on the cruise, they discovered something completely unexpected on the sea bottom below the area once occupied by the
ice shelf - an expansive
ecosystem of bacterial mats and mollusks, thriving in near-freezing temperatures in a region that had long
been cut off from sunlight. Without photosynthesis, the organisms are thought to be a 'cold-seep'
community that has been deriving energy from chemicals emanating from cold, underwater vents.
Click here
to read more about it.
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