Deep beneath the waves, far down on the ocean floor, are scenes often associated with the stuff of nightmares: translucent fish with wide black eyes capable of seeing in the dark, shell fish with bioluminescent skeletons, and colossal squid so huge that no one has yet to picture them. All these creatures, though bizarre, are somehow quite expected, but it’s doubtful whether many people would imagine a lake lying down there, too.
As unlikely as it sounds, there are a handful of underwater lakes and rivers boasting their own mini ecosystems.
How do underwater lakes form?
Underwater lakes are brine pools. And believe it or not, even though people often refer to the ocean as the briny blue, while it's constituted of salt water it is not brine... Brine refers to water with an extremely high concentration of salt, higher than that of normal sea water. It is produced through salt tectonics, or the movement of large salt deposits.
The lake featured was discovered in the Mexican Gulf. During the Jurassic period the waters here were shallow and became cut off from the ocean. The area soon dried out, leaving a thick layer of salt and other minerals up to 8km thick. When ocean water returned after the region rifted apart, the super-saline layer at the bottom of the Gulf became an underwater lake. Now brine, which is continually released from a rift in the ocean floor, feeds the lake.
During an expedition in the Gulf of Mexico in 2007, Natural Marine Sanctuaries captured these images of a 10-inch-deep brine channel at the base of East Flower Garden Bank.
Only bacteria can survive in these hypersaline lakes, but mussels, anenomes and shrimp seem to thrive around them.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), a federal agency that focuses on the condition of the oceans and the atmosphere has captured some wonderful images of life around the edge of a brine lake.
"Deep-sea mussels living on the “shore” of the Brine Pool. These mussels use methane as their primary source of food, but also filter small particles from the water. The red worms in the bottom left corner are a newly described species of polychaete. The large fish in the middle of the picture is a deep-sea eel. Such fishes commonly visit the Brine Pool, where there is more abundant food than elsewhere on the deep-sea floor." NOAA
Here's hoping underwater explorers and marine biologists find more of these underwater brine lakes; we need more cool pics!
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13 comments
Justin Beaner (not verified) says:
Sep 25th, 2008 at 10pm
Wow those images are absolutely stunning.
Jiff
www.privacy.es.tc
Toby Barnett (not verified) says:
Sep 25th, 2008 at 10pm
Seen this on the discovery channel years ago and totally forgot about till seeing your post on Digg. It's amazing that the brine pools (this knowledge will baffle my friends) look exactly like a lake...pretty cool :)
Jingle (not verified) says:
Sep 25th, 2008 at 10pm
Dude, Linda, you have to work on your writing skills. Interesting article, but almost incomprehensible. This is like worst than high school level.
Mike (not verified) says:
Sep 25th, 2008 at 11pm
"think layer of salt up to 8km thick."
"think" looks like you intended "thin". Is "8km" correct? Or should it actually be "8m"?
"10 niches deep" - I do same thing all of time.
Thanks for the interesting article on this topic. I was instantly fascinated by these formations when I first saw one on a Discovery Channel program.
Chris (not verified) says:
Sep 25th, 2008 at 11pm
It is beautiful, I hope they are not affected by the global warming trends.
nzp (not verified) says:
Sep 26th, 2008 at 1am
He is the one who has set free the two kinds of water, one sweet and palatable, and the other salty and bitter. And He has made between them a barrier and a forbidding partition. (Quran, 25:53)
Panjandrum (not verified) says:
Sep 26th, 2008 at 1am
The next paradigm humanity has to get over is the idea that we are EARTHLINGS. Not just Americans, Russians, Mexicans, what have you. This is our only home, and it is both beautiful, mysterious, and the ONLY PLACE WE CAN LIVE. If we ever travel through the stars we cannot travel representing a planet that is at war with itself. We are EARTHLINGS. Let us celebrate that we are all here together.
And 1 vote from me that our Earth ships be painted blue and green.
Linda says:
Sep 26th, 2008 at 1pm
OMG Mike and Jingle, you are so right!
That was bloody awful. Honestly, my writing usually isn’t that bad. It was a bit of a hectic day yesterday and the post was published before it had been edited!
Quick fix now done.
Hope it doesn’t put you off reading the rest of the site.
Christopher P. (not verified) says:
Sep 26th, 2008 at 5pm
Spongebob* My apologies for my horrendous spelling.
Matt (not verified) says:
Sep 26th, 2008 at 8pm
They showed lakes like this on the series Blue Planet (I think it was called), where two fellows went to the bottom in a submersible. They actually tried to enter the brine, but the sub bounced off due to the extreme density of the salt solution. It's probably on youtube, a great series, recommended for anyone into the merky deep.
bob (not verified) says:
Sep 27th, 2008 at 7am
How long before we screw this up with some poly-glot chemical waste dump?
ed (not verified) says:
Sep 28th, 2008 at 4pm
To Jingle, if you are going to pull someone up about their use of written language, how about you learn how to use it yourself first... Its not "worst than high scool level..." it's WORSE than high school level. Muppet.
Robyn McIntyre (not verified) says:
This was totally cool! I had no idea there were brine pools in the ocean. The pictures are excellent.