In the Southeast Pacific, off the coast of Chile, underwater mountains create a breathtaking deep-sea landscape where cold-water corals, intricate glass sponges, anemones, and a host of creatures that captivate the imagination are thriving. Nearly half of the animals living here exist nowhere else on Earth. Seamounts are oases for biodiversity; for the last month, an international team of scientists explored this understudied region in our global ocean. Data and imagery collected on the #SEPacificSeamounts expedition will help advance Chile’s effort to establish a high-seas marine protected area along the Nazca and Salas y Gómez Ridges.
FKt240108 - Seamounts of the Southeast Pacific expedition