00:00The Arctic deep ocean, vital to understanding the impact of climate change, the region is
00:08now also threatened by deep sea mining.
00:11Global Arctic warming is happening up to four times faster than the global average.
00:16This means the ecosystems are changing really fast.
00:19So mapping and getting more knowledge about those ecosystems, about the species there
00:24now before it's too late is very important.
00:27Oceans covered in hairy bacteria, stalked jellyfish that look like flowers, crustaceans
00:33and fish with antifreeze proteins.
00:35The discoveries were made at depths ranging from 2,000 to 3,700 metres across some of
00:42the Arctic's most extreme habitats.
00:44When you see something that's never been seen before, it's very exciting.
00:48With Norway becoming the first country to approve commercial deep sea mining within
00:52their territorial waters back in January 2024, it is vital to study and understand
01:00these ecosystems now.
01:02We urgently need to build up a baseline that will give us the possibility to understand
01:07what will be the changes in the future.
01:10Further imaging, sequencing and taxonomy will be completed in October at the Ocean Census
01:16Species Discovery.
01:18For EarthX, I'm Sarah Williamson.
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