Breaking All the Rules: The First Recorded Hard Substrate Sessile Benthic Community Far Beneath an Antarctic Ice Shelf

• Published in: Frontiers in Marine Science
• Main Authors: Huw J. Griffiths, Paul Anker, Katrin Linse, Jamie Maxwell, Alexandra L. Post, Craig Stevens, Slawek Tulaczyk, James A. Smith
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
• Subjects: dropstone; oligotrophic; borehole; sponge (Porifera); Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf; Weddell Sea; Science; Q; General. Including nature conservation; geographical distribution; QH1-199.5; Antarctic; Ronne Ice Shelf; Weddell; Antarc*; Filchner Ronne Ice Shelf; Ice Shelf; Ice Shelves
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2021.642040; https://doaj.org/article/01833d2088a64328b8c3fb4d58a301f1

The seafloor beneath floating ice shelves accounts roughly a third of the Antarctic’s 5 million km2 of continental shelf. Prior to this study, our knowledge of these habitats and the life they support was restricted to what has been observed from eight boreholes drilled for geological and glaciologi...