Scientists have discovered an enormous brine pool at the bottom of the Red Sea - and it kills anything that swims into it.
Professor Sam Purkis, who was part of the University of Miami team that made the discovery, explained that the brine is devoid of oxygen which means ‘any animal that strays into the brine is immediately stunned or killed’.
But while terrifying brine pools at the bottom of the sea are bad news for unsuspecting fish, they’re good news for predators, who Purkis said ‘feed on the unlucky’. Proper circle of life s**t, that.
Speaking about the University of Miami’s finding to Live Science, Purkis also said that the discovery could help scientists work out how oceans on our planet formed millions of years ago.
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Purkis explained: “Our discovery of a rich community of microbes that survive in extreme environments can help trace the limits of life on Earth and can be applied to the search for life elsewhere in our solar system and beyond.”
He added: “Until we understand the limits of life on Earth, it will be difficult to determine if alien planets can host any living beings.”
Despite their ungodly appearance and ability to murder anything that gets close, brine pools are actually rich in biodiversity.
“At this great depth, there is ordinarily not much life on the seabed. However, the brine pools are a rich oasis of life. Thick carpets of microbes support a diverse suite of animals," Purkis shared.
Purkis and his team made their discovery at a depth of 1,770m using a remotely operated underwater vehicle (ROV), with Purkis revealing that they came across the brine pool during the last five minutes of a ten-hour dive.
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Not only are brine pools void of oxygen and full of lethal saline levels (hence animals dying when they come into contact with the pools), they can also contain toxic chemicals like hydrogen sulphide.
These brine solutions quite literally pickle animals alive, and researchers once found a crab inside a brine pool that - despite likely having been dead for eight years - still had its soft tissue intact.
However, the edges of brine pools are often lined with mussels, because the molluscs contain symbiotic chemosynthetic bacteria that utilises the high quantities of methane found in brine pools and turns it into carbon sugar.
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Topics: Science