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Watch a quake startle a swarm of deep sea creatures

An ocean temblor.
 By 
Mark Kaufman
 on 
Watch a quake startle a swarm of deep sea creatures
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The deep sea is intense.

Earlier in 2020, a robotic ocean explorer launched by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution captured a wild event along a mountainous ridge in the Caribbean Sea, called the Cayman Rise.

Scientists drove the hi-tech robot, Jason, to a hydrothermal vent pumping out hot, mineral-rich water. Swarms of deep sea shrimp crawled around the vent, as they devoured microbes living off the vent's nutrients.

As Jason filmed the deep ocean scene, a moderate 4.7 quake hit some 100 miles away. The shrimp promptly reacted to the shaking by swarming off the vent en mass. The quake hits at the 35-second mark in the video above.

The deep sea is still a largely unexplored realm, with untold secrets. We have better maps of the moon's surface than we do of the ocean floor.

Topics Animals

Mashable Image
Mark Kaufman
Science Editor

Mark was the science editor at Mashable. After working as a ranger with the National Park Service, he started a reporting career after seeing the extraordinary value in educating people about the happenings on Earth, and beyond.

He's descended 2,500 feet into the ocean depths in search of the sixgill shark, ventured into the halls of top R&D laboratories, and interviewed some of the most fascinating scientists in the world.


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