‘Didn’t think it would be there’: Scientists accidentally discover life under 3,000 feet of Antarctic

Scientists in the Antarctic accidentally discovered life 3,000 feet under the ice shelf, reports The Guardian. The marine organisms found by the researchers have challenged the long-held notion that life could not survive in such extreme conditions. A number of scientists had earlier said that the frigid temperatures in Antarctica and the lack of light and food would make it impossible for living creatures to survive.

The discovery was made when the scientists sunk a borehole through the Filchner-Ronne ice shelf and stumbled across a life-bearing rock. The initial experiment was aimed at getting a sediment core from the bed of the Weddell Sea. Researchers from the British had drilled through 2,860 feet of ice before they made the discovery.

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One of the scientists, who was involved in the research, described the discovery as slightly bonkers. “Never in a million years would we have thought about looking for this kind of life, because we didn’t think it would be there,” Dr Huw Griffiths told the Guardian.

“We didn’t think that these kinds of animals, like sponges, would be found there,” Griffith said in a Twitter video.

“Accidental discovery of extreme life! Far underneath the ice shelves of the Antarctic, there’s more life than expected,” The British Antarctic Survey said on its Twitter handle.

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Recently, scientists from the UK have also warned that the rate at which ice is disappearing across the world matches ‘worst-case climate warming scenarios’.

Using satellite data, the experts found the Earth lost 28 trillion tonnes of ice between 1994 and 2017.